Final Comments

• Alycia
• Josh
• Evan

Update 6: The End

My genius project is pretty much at an end...I won't consider it "over" until everyone has presented, but I've already given my TEDtalk.

I was super nervous going into it, and I'm not really sure why. Well I know why. I'm a nervous wreck - I get nervous about everything. But I knew I was prepared and I really liked my script going into it, but I think that might have made it worse. I set high expectations for myself and then scared myself into thinking I wouldn't be able to meet them.

I'm not entirely pleased with how it went. I messed up a few times, but for the most part, I felt like I was on autopilot. I was about two thirds of the way done my script, and it felt like I had only been talking for ten seconds. The feedback from my friends was nice, but I've felt confident about other projects before...and the grades have fallen flat.

Anyway, I'm really stressed out right now because of other schoolwork, and I think I'm just making it worse by dwelling on this. I am pleased with how my project turned out, and it's been good motivation for me to continue learning Chinese. After my grandparents return to China, I hope to keep up communication with them in a language they actually understand. I've also really enjoyed watching other people progress through the weeks. Some people have made extraordinary progress, and I'm so so so proud of them :)

If you've kept up with my monstrosity of a blog, thank you so much. Good luck to anyone who's presenting in the next few days, and congrats to those who've finished!

- Jess

Update 5: The End is Nigh

THIS IS GOING TO BE A SUPER FAST POST LIKE SPEED OF LIGHT BECAUSE I HAVE A LOT OF HOMEWORK BUT I STILL WANTED TO WRITE THIS BUT I MIGHT PASS OUT BECAUSE OF ALL I HAVE TO DO THANKS

This weekend has been fairly busy - I was away for most of it kicking butt at Deutschfest (wir gewannen!). But I am back and better before because this is the final update before my TEDtalk ~reflection.

So this week, I decided to forgo writing sentences because I was working on my final product: a thank you card for my grandparents. Here is the card and envelope. It's a bit small, but the envelope says 爷爷奶奶 (yéyé nǎinai) - (paternal) grandfather and (paternal) grandmother. I mentioned in my first post, but the Chinese words for family members are very specific, so the words differentiate between paternal and maternal sides.

Anyway, here's the translation:

Thank you both. I really like everything you do, like cooking and cleaning. When you leave, my father and I will miss you. I will call and write emails. I love you.

So, after writing that translation, I realized how short that sounds. But while writing this, I was super stressed that I was going to mess up. I'm really happy with the final product - I think this is the neatest I've written any Chinese ever. Like ever. Some of it sounds really awkward because I'm not quite sure how to say exactly what I want...but I think I conveyed the right message. I'm nervous to show my grandparents, but I think they'll appreciate it :)

I said for my last post, I would tell you about the different dialects of Chinese, so here's the super quick condensed version:

• There are many, many dialects of Chinese
• "Dialects" isn't really an accurate term - many are not mutually intelligible and are more like independent languages by themselves
• Most dialects are classified into seven groups
• Within these groups, there are most likely smaller, regional dialects
• For example, my family speaks "Shanghainese", which isn't considered a major dialect, but it's very common in Shanghai
• If you're wondering, I can understand Shanghainese, but I can't really speak it
• Mandarin
• Spoken by ~71.5% of the pop
• Spoken in the north and southwest regions of China
• Wu
• Spoken by ~8.5% of the pop
• Spoken in the coastal area around Shanghai and Zhejiang
• Gan
• Spoken by ~2.4% of the pop
• Spoken around the Jiangxi province
• Xiang
• Spoken by ~4.8% of the pop
• Spoken around Hunan
• Hakka
• Spoken by ~3.7% of the pop
• Spoken in scattered areas from Sichuan to Taiwan
• Yue
• Spoken by ~5.0% of the pop
• Spoken around Guangdong and Guangxi, as well as Hong Kong & Taiwan
• Also known as Cantonese
• Min
• Spoken by ~4.1% of the pop
• Spoken in Fujian and coastal regions in the south
• Source

 If you'd like a more detailed explanation and comparisons, feel free to watch this video
Now I'm off to practice my TEDtalk and drown in my other homework.

- Jess

Update 4: Crawling...

There's a Light at the End of the Tunnel...Right?
As I struggle to balance all my homework, this project is the thing that gets neglected. You know how you write a To-Do List, but then you usually leave one or two things unfinished? Yeah...this project is usually that last thing. I'm glad I made my calendar at the beginning of the project because, without it, I'd just be floating in space with no sense of responsibility for a due date. That being said, I may get a few extra days for this project because our snow days pushed things back a bit.

Spread the Love

2.5 inches of flashcards!

As usual, I've been continuing with the practice sheets and flashcards. Here's an updated picture of all my flashcards. I don't know how well you can see in the picture, but my stack totals 2.5 inches now! I've mentioned that I've written the German translations on my flashcards, and I realized that I could have a use for these outside my project. I'm going on my school's German exchange this summer, and my partner lived for a while in Hong Kong, so she learned Chinese as well! She mentioned that she's interested in relearning some of the language, so I could bring the flashcards to study with her :)

Below is my practice paragraph this week. I tried something new; I highlighted the new vocabulary I used in blue. I liked doing this to see how I was integrating previous knowledge with my new words.

Translation:

Today, I am excited. Today is Thursday. My friends are good people. There are people that dance. There are people that can sing songs. They are fifteen and sixteen years old. Such good students! Right now I know two hundred and fifty Chinese words.

As you might be able to tell, I chose to do a "journal" type entry for my paragraph this week. I talked about how I felt, as well as my friends. I wanted to talk about all of my friends' projects, but I don't know the vocabulary for that yet. I also mentioned my friends singing; that was in relation to the musical. (Kudos to all who participated - you were awesome!!) Again, the translation sounds awkward (as does the original) because I'm still limited in vocabulary.

Another practice sheets

I was also considering my overall progress in the project today. As some of you may know, Liliana (who's making balloon animals) basically sat in class and made balloon animals for everyone, and it was obvious how far she's come since the start. I think of other people's projects, such as Allison, whose paintings are gorgeous, and Hanna, who clearly displays so much passion for her project. I got a bit skeptical of myself because I felt my progress was much slower and less visible. I've reassured myself multiple times that Chinese is a complex, lifelong language, and there's only so much I can hope to learn in six weeks. Nevertheless, I can't help but feel a little left behind, as I'm crawling and other people are making bounds and leaps. In the end, I'm really excited to share the culmination (both my thank you card and my TEDtalk), so I try not to get too bogged down.

Why Would Chinese Ever be Easy?
I've mentioned a couple times before on this blog that Chinese would never be easy. Why would the language system be simple when it could be complicated? With things like stroke order and tones, it's easy to get confused. Well, just this one time (and one time only), Chinese is simple. Obviously, Chinese is written in characters. These characters can range from just one stroke, all the way to fourteen. But believe it or not, the writing system I'm learning is actually the simplified version of Chinese. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, the Chinese government decided to simplify the writing system, in an effort to increase literacy. The simplified version is called..."simplified" (amazing) and the older version is called "traditional". Below is a comparison between a few simplified or traditional characters.

Traditional vs. Simplified characters

There are two changes between the traditional and simplified systems: some characters simply use less strokes (as seen above), and some characters have been combined to be written with just one. Although simplified Chinese has some obvious benefits, some people still prefer the traditional system. Traditional Chinese provides more distinction between different Chinese characters, and knowing the traditional system will allow you to read older writings. Different Chinese-speaking countries may use one system over the other, as you can see in the chart below (it also includes dialects, which will be coming up in next week's post)

My parents are from Shanghai, which is located on mainland China. For this reason, I'm most familiar with Mandarin (also Shanghainese) and the simplified system. Obviously, some characters would be easier to learn than others, but both systems still have their advantages. For foreign language learners, I would recommend learning whichever system applies to their region of interest. For example, if you're a student planning on doing an exchange trip in Hong Kong, it might be better to learn traditional. If you're like me, and your family lives in mainland China and you want to better prepare for a vacation there, you should probably learn simplified Chinese.

The End Is Nigh
With this blog post finished, there are only two more posts I need to do: a final update which will include info on dialects and a reflection after my TEDtalk. I'm excited to share my TEDtalk with the class because I feel very passionate about my topic. I'm so thankful that people have taken the time to read my posts and comment, and I'm looking forward to seeing everyone else's projects as well!

Shout-out to Liliana, for blessing me with Grumpy. We're a happy family.

I'd like to present to you this week: big fluff and little fluff


- Jess

Resources

• iwtservices

4: Weekly Comments

• Ellie
• Sarah K
• Jason (from the afternoon block)
• Alycia
• Liliana

Video Blog: A Test of Endurance

Now comes the time for my video blog entry...

I was very worried going into this because of several reasons: a) I have next to no video recording equipment, b) I have only basic editing software, and c) I hate being in front of a camera. I solved problems a) and b) by lowering my standards and just using a webcam and Windows Movie Maker. It worked out better than I thought it would, so I'm satisfied.

Now, I've endured graphing sine waves in pre-calc, poring over the Thirty Years' War in AP Euro, and listening to Mr. McDaniels in history...turns out watching myself over and over again as I edit is way more painful than all of those things combined. I became hyper-aware of all my weird tics and facial expressions - also does my voice really sound like that?? I got so stressed out during editing that afterwards I felt like I had run two whole feet...which is like really far for me.

Vimeo tells me that my frame rate is a bit low...but it doesn't look exceptionally bad, so let me know if there are unexpected issues.

Password: queenjess


Genius Project vlog from Jess on Vimeo. P.S. Happy International Women's Day!

Update 3: Outside It's Cold (But Not as Cold as My Heart)

...Snow Day!

I feel you, bud

I'm currently ensconced in about forty feet of snow, and I'll have two tests tomorrow. So I'm writing this blog post. I'm also feeling very anxious because I'm expecting at least one package in the mail today, and it's probably sitting right in my mailbox...but I can't get to it.

Behind the Scenes
As you may know, the culmination of this project will be a live TEDtalk in front of our gifted classmates. I'm happy to report that I'm on schedule, and I've finished with my script and prezi. Now I'm just off to practice, practice, practice....and practice some more. I've also confused myself a little bit because it seems I planned out about six or seven weeks' worth of learning and blog posts, even though we have a little less than that. Because I'm stubborn as always and determined to get stuff done, I'll probably just do some extra blog posts to make up for it.

Additionally, I said at the beginning of my project that my end goal would be to write a recipe for scallion pancakes in Chinese. I know many of you were looking forward to that (mainly because there was a possibility of scallion pancakes...), but I think I might have to change that :( I really apologize for that, and as you may be able to tell, I like to stick with the goals I set for myself. However, after considering my motivations for this project, I decided it would be best to change my goal. My grandparents are currently staying with me and my father, but they'll be leaving around spring break. They've done a lot for me and my dad while they've been here by cooking and cleaning around the house. I mentioned that I wanted to learn Chinese in order to connect with my family members, so I thought it would be appropriate to write a thank you card for them in Chinese.

My flashcards so far

Auf Deutsch, Bitte!
Business as usual on the Chinese-learning front - still going through tons of practice sheets and flashcards. I've used up literally all the 3x5 flashcards I have, but luckily, my dad bought me three hundred 5x8 flashcards last year, so I'll use my paper cutter on those.

This past weekend, my family went to Chinatown. I was half-asleep, but then I remembered I could actually read more than three characters in Chinese. I took a look at the signs around the restaurants and shops and...nope. I could recognize a few new characters, but most of them were just unintelligible to me. I said at the beginning of my project that, even by the end, 300 characters would be too little to be "literate" in Chinese. Nevertheless, I'm not discouraged. Below is a shot of one of my practice sheets from this week.

Practice sheet - I'm up to 22 now!

My practice paragraph

For my practice sentences this week, I decided to change it up. In previous weeks, I've written separate, unrelated sentences. Because my end goal is to actually write something cohesive in Chinese, I thought I would try to write a short paragraph this week. It was definitely out of my comfort zone; it took me a lot longer to write these than in previous weeks. I also mentioned last week that I had trouble with the proportions of my characters. I tried graph paper, but concluded the grid was too small. I decided to create my own lines this week, and I'm happier with the results. The translation is as follows:

I speak English. I want to learn Chinese. I use a pen to write words. My Chinese is okay. My friends and my dad all speak Chinese. I love learning. I don't recognize many words.

As you can tell, the sentences are a bit awkward and choppy (and that's not just because of the translation). This is partly because I'm limited in vocabulary, but also because I haven't learned some of the conjunctions that would link sentences together. Next week, I'm going to try the same kind of exercise, but I'm going to push myself to try different sentence structures. If you didn't notice, all my sentences were subject-verb-whatever comes after that. As I was writing these, my brain started getting mixed up and I started saying the sentences in German! (It is much easier for me to use German than it is to use Chinese at this point.)

You Call My Mother Cow??
This week's info on Chinese is gonna be a doozy. I have three things planned, which means I'll probably end up talking about fifteen. You've seen on my blog that I write the phonetic versions of all my Chinese characters. This is called pinyin in Chinese. Pinyin can be useful because it's a bit easier for people to understand, if they don't see Chinese characters often (like me). However, Chinese speakers would almost never use pinyin to write. With smartphones, people often type the pinyin they want to use, but then select the character. That being said, Chinese people will still recognize pinyin. Like any other languages, there are rules for how to pronounce each vowel, consonant, and different combinations. Because it's fairly complex, I won't explain how everything about pinyin. You can check out this site, if you want to learn more.

Also on this site, you'll find different tones. Chinese is a tonal language; English is not. In tonal languages, the pitch of a speaker's voice can change what word they're saying. (The word for mother (mā) is pretty similar to the word for horse (mǎ). So it's possible a learner would mix up the two!) Consider the following sentence:

I never said she stole my money.

If you put the emphasis on a different word each time you say the sentence, you change the meaning of the sentence. Emphasis and tonality are not the same thing, but I think it's an easy way to understand how changing the sound of your voice could change the meaning of something. 

There are five tones in Chinese; one of these is "neutral". The image below does a good job of demonstrating how tones work: you change both the pitch of your voice, but (this is subtler) you also alter the amount of time you pronounce the word.

• Tone 1
• High pitch
• Level
• Nearly monotone
• Tone 2
• Slight rise in pitch at the end
• Similar to the pitch an English speaker would use to ask a question
• Tone 3
• Pitch falls, then rises again
• The falling-rising sound should be distinctive
• Tone 4
• Pitch starts high, then drops
• Similar to a command in English
• Tone 5/Neutral tone
• Pronounced quickly
• Little regard for pitch

Visit this website to listen to some examples of the tones.

Tones can be written with the marks (shown in the image) above vowels. Sometimes, they're also written with a number after the pinyin. For example, mā can be ma1. There are also three tone rules that can change the tone of a character. These rules may not always be reflected in writing, but you will hear them in speaking. The website above also has audio examples of these.

• 3-3 to 2-3
• If there are two third-tone words in a row, the first word becomes a second-tone word
• 不
• 不 (bù) is a negation word
• Fun fact: Chinese has no direct translation for the word "no" - there are just various words we use to negate certain ideas (kind of like the way English speakers may use "not")
• As you can see above, 不 is typically a fourth-tone word
• If  不 precedes a fourth tone word, it changes to second tone
• 一
• 一 (yī) means "one"
• Typically a first-tone word
• Becomes second-tone when followed by fourth-tone
• Becomes fourth-tone when followed by any other tone

Lastly, I wanted to talk about measure words. In English, when we talk about number quantities, we use number + word. For example, three books. This direct translation does not work in Chinese. Measure words are kind of like "units" that are used in between the number and the word. There are different kinds of measure words for different kinds of nouns. For example, three books in Chinese is 三本书 (sān běn shū); běn is the measure word. However, three horses is 三匹马 (sān pǐ mǎ); pǐ is the measure word. I tried to find an image with all the measure words, but I couldn't find one. This website has a list of all the measure words. Like last week's radicals, they can be overwhelming. Unfortunately, for foreign language learners, this would probably be something necessary to memorize. Obviously, you wouldn't memorize all of these, but it would be necessary to know the most common words. The word 个 (ge) is kind of a general classifier word. If you're really stuck, you can just use 个 (like I do), and Chinese speakers would understand you.

Thanks for reading through this monstrosity. I have two presents for you this week: firstly, check out the YouTube series Adult Wednesday Addams. Every Wednesday, Melissa Hunter uploads a short vignette about Wednesday Addams in typical, adult life. 

#me

And the one you've been waiting for (get on this level, Josh):

- Jess

Resources

• Centre for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language
• chinesepod

2: Weekly Comments

• Alycia
• Nicole
• Catelyn

3: Weekly Comments

• Allison
• Liliana
• Matt A.

I keep seeing everyone add nice little notes or puns to their comment posts, and mine feel so....blank and heartless....perfect.

Meanderings: A Quick Note to My Teachers

**If you're not a teacher, you can ignore this.**

Because I like to make things easy for people, I decided to start numbering my updates from 0. That means that "update 1" is really my second update, "update 2" is my third, etc. I just wanted to make sure there wasn't any confusion.

(And no, I'm not just going to change the numberings. Why would I ever do that?)