My friend John Biesnecker has been working hard on a new site called WooChinese. He’s been covering a lot of topics related to learning Chinese, and has been specifically addressing some of the big questions that absolute beginners to the language typically have. Here are some samples from the “Questions Newbies Ask” series:
Hank recently turned me onto Kirsten Winkler’s blog, which is full of thought-provoking material for modern educators. One article I especially enjoyed recently was Leaving the Stage: Teaching and Learning in the Digital Age. It totally resonated with both my experience at ChinesePod as well as what I’m doing now at AllSet Learning.
Some choice quotes:
The impact of digital learners on twenty-first century learning environments—including the traditional classroom—highlights the changing role of teachers who, in teaching
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I recently came across Carl Gene’s blog, which he describes as “My Journey from Translation Student to Working Professional.” This is a great example of learning by teaching and sharing. Not only is this a great resource for students of Chinese, but I’m sure Carl is benefiting tremendously from the work he’s doing to research and organize this information.
Here are some of the examples of the entries Carl has been writing:
I’ve been very busy this past week with AllSet Learning. The growth of the business has necessitated a new full(er)-time assistant whom I’ve been busy training, and at the same time, our host office, Xindanwei, has just moved. That means the AllSet Learning office is now located in Shanghai’s trendy French concession area. If you’ve been delaying your visit because our previous location was not cool enough for you, your wait is over. The new address is:
No.
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The Sinosplice Tooltips WordPress Plugin is now downloadable from the public WordPress Plugin Directory. I’m not sure why it doesn’t yet show up in searches (either on through WordPress site, or through the WP admin plugin section), but you can still download and install it. I’d like to thank Andy Warmack, the developer, for his time and dedication to making this plugin happen and helping me to provide it for free.
And now a little bit of clarification on …
Take a look at this Shanghai subway advertisement for plane tickets on Taobao. Pay attention to the main Chinese words in the ad.
If you’re anything like me (and a few of the Chinese people I asked), you tried to read the Chinese before paying attention the English “taxi,” but started feeling something was strange around the “飞的” part. What’s going on here?
Well, in Mandarin Chinese, the character 的 is most commonly used as a structural particle, connecting different …
John has lived in China for
12.8
years. He is a linguist focused on SLA and tech.
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