Characters / New Cell Phone
I just got a new cell phone. It is a Motorola e680i. I started learning characters and wanted to send/receive messages on my cell phone with a mix of the characters I know and English when i don’t know a character. My old phone, however, required me to switch the whole phone to Chinese every time I wanted to type a little Chinese, , then switch the whole phone back to English for the few words I didn’t know, then put the whole phone back in Chinese, etc. having to reload all my settings each time. This was not working, and led me not write in Chinese. Anyway, I wanted to get a new phone and a few of my friends had this one. I played with it and it did everything I wanted in terms of easy Chinese typing via both pinyin and handwriting character recognition, easy typing English the same ways with a dictionary, playing mp3s, having blue tooth for a headset, having a Chinese-English dictionary, etc. I bought the phone for 2400 Yuan ($300 US) which is normal for China. Many things are cheaper here than in the states, but phones and electronics are about the same price. I have started writing a lot in Chinese, and will hopefully start posting a few characters to my blog.
我很喜欢写汉语. 你们喜欢吗? 你们懂我吗?
Some of you may be wondering why I am learning characters when I was so adamant about just wanting to speak Chinese. Well, I have found that not being able to read a language really limits your ability to passively learn and solidify things. When I read messages, newspapers, subtitles, signs, etc. filled with the words, concepts, and grammar I am working on, it solidifies what I am actively trying to learn in class, without me having to set out to study it. This passive bombardment is so helpful, but is something you don’t get if you just know pinyin and don’t know any characters. Relearning everything I have learned so far as characters has led to me making little progress in learning to speak the language (with respect to new words, grammar, and concepts), but big progress in getting a better understanding of what I have already learned and laying a solid base of useful characters. I think that this makes the most sense in the long run, even though right now it will make things more difficult.
February 10th, 2006 at 5:16 am
Love the stories, I am sure we would all LOVE to experience the fireworks over Chinese New Year’s. My Dad would have gone crazy! He would have loved it. So glad you are doing well and learning all of the language. It is snowing like CRAZY here in Linz, Austria. Almost a week straight! But getting used to the weather and German. Keep working hard at Chinese you are doing great! And really enjoy the stories as well as the Japan info, makes me want to visit. Lots of love and aloha!
February 10th, 2006 at 6:27 am
Summer…..thanks for the message. Glad you are having fun in Austria…..lots of love to you too. 晚安
February 10th, 2006 at 7:02 am
I agree with your conclusioin. Worth the extra tgime commitment. Enable you to retain your knowledge longer. Wonderful feeling of accomplishment to look at a newspaper and be able to recognize a number of charactrers. Do you see individual characters? Are you seeing word pictures? Continue to soak up all you can. Amazing how quickly the time flies by. I played ping pong yesterday and was able to return a very hard shot that jumped off the very edge of the table. Very exciting. Have a great day.
February 10th, 2006 at 3:59 pm
Jerome………I can see a few but am still learning the basics. Time is FLYING past
February 12th, 2006 at 6:00 pm
Hey Andrew. I am excited to hear you are writing and reading Chinese. I have been quietly cheering on your language study since if you end up all super awesome at Chinese, I am totally following in your footsteps. I found messaging via cell phone was one of the major things that helped me jump to a higher level in Japanese when I first started doing it, so I hope it’s useful for you too!
/goes back into stealth lurk mode
February 12th, 2006 at 10:18 pm
Alanna….thanks……I never would have thought it would help as much as it did!
February 20th, 2006 at 5:56 pm
AJ- thanks for the note explaining your language learning decision. It seems to make a lot of sense. I’ll bet in the long run it will actually speed your learning. In any case, it will help keep the material with you long after you return to the States. Way to go. Kudos. Or, as your bro Mikey would say blahblahblabhablhabhl “he now knows how to say Bob Loblaw”.
February 21st, 2006 at 2:22 am
Dad and Krista……thanks for the support. Say hello to Mikey for me