We are looking at sentences from 龍騎士：飛龍聖戰(Eragon). Today we will look at the fourth and final sentence of this paragraph. 艾瑞岡跪在被踐踏過的蘆葦草上，用他那熟練的眼神掃視著。足印告訴他那群鹿半個小時前才在這草地上，牠們很快就會停下來休息。他的目標——一隻跛了左前腳的小母鹿，仍跟在鹿群中。他很驚訝她竟然走了那麼久都沒有被一隻狼或熊抓到。 第四句 他: He 很: very 驚訝: surprised, astonished 她: she 竟然: unexpectedly, to one’s surprise, actually 走: to walk 了: aspect particle showing completion 那麼久: that long (THAT long) 都: all, everyone, everything.1 沒有: have not, quite literally. 被一隻狼或熊抓到: been snatched by a wolf or bear.

This is a continuation of my last two posts. We are looking at sentences from 龍騎士：飛龍聖戰(Eragon). Today we will look at the third sentence of this paragraph. 艾瑞岡跪在被踐踏過的蘆葦草上，用他那熟練的眼神掃視著。足印告訴他那群鹿半個小時前才在這草地上，牠們很快就會停下來休息。他的目標——一隻跛了左前腳的小母鹿，仍跟在鹿群中。他很驚訝她竟然走了那麼久都沒有被一隻狼或熊抓到。 第三句 他的目標: His target 一隻小母鹿: a small doe.1 跛了左前腳的: whose front right foot is crippled.2 仍: still, the same use as in English. 跟: to follow 在…中: inside (of) 鹿群: deer herd So putting it all together, our literal translation would be, “His target——one crippled front-right footed little doe, still follow inside deer herd.

This is a continuation of my last post. We are looking at sentences from 龍騎士：飛龍聖戰(Eragon). Today we will look at the second sentence of this paragraph. 艾瑞岡跪在被踐踏過的蘆葦草上，用他那熟練的眼神掃視著。足印告訴他那群鹿半個小時前才在這草地上，牠們很快就會停下來休息。他的目標——一隻跛了左前腳的小母鹿，仍跟在鹿群中。他很驚訝她竟然走了那麼久都沒有被一隻狼或熊抓到。 第二句 足印: footprint 告訴他: tell him 那群鹿: that group of deer, 群 is the classifier for groups of animals. 鹿 means deer. 半個小時前: a half an hour ago, 半個… means half of (whatever noun you’re using). 小時 means hour. 前 comes after the time you want to use when saying “… ago”.

Here is 龍騎士：飛龍聖戰, otherwise known as “Eragon” in English. A friend brought this book back from Taiwan for me, I think it is about time I started reading it. I am going to use sentences from the book that I found easy to read and understand to teach a little bit of Mandarin. I will also be posting sentences that I find particularly interesting or difficult even (who knows!)

For those who don’t already know the 連…都/也 structure, it means “even”. E.g., 「連蘋果都很好吃」= “Even apples are delicious”. Today I learned something new; it can be used without a verb. Here is the context I saw it in. 吉坦 「啊！連嘉妮特也！」 Translation: Zidane (The speaker) “Ah! Even Garnet!” Basically everyone fainted/fell into a deep sleep, and he was surprised that Garnet did as well. I did not know that you could use this structure without the verb, however, since it is implied/understood, it is not necessary.

I have to say, I freaking love this website. The association is called OCAC(Overseas Compatriot Affairs Commission) and it targeted at overseas Taiwanese/Chinese people wishing to improve their Mandarin. Check out this link here, OCAC Digital Publishing System. It is EXCELLENT. It has soooo many resources for learning Mandarin, and they are all EXTREMELY good. The main website is http://edu.ocac.gov.tw/home_en.htm.

Unfortunately, my headset broke recently so I cannot chat on Skype with native speakers at the moment. Therefore, I am watching Taiwanese variety shows. You can find a TON at Sugoideas. They are all posted on Youtube, and you can either watch them online or download them using a website like KeepVid. 康熙來了 is a good one for listening. They do interviews of famous people in Asia. 天才衝衝衝 is very funny, but there is less conversation.

So I’ve been using Ubuntu in Mandarin for quite a long time now, and one thing I have yet to master is OpenOffice. My OpenOffice Word is in Chinese but I don’t understand a lot of the vocabulary just because I haven’t taken the time to look them up. Therefore, I am going to learn all of it in one fell swoop. I have taken pictures of all of the words in the menus for both the English and Mandarin version.

Seeing as I do not make posts often enough, I have decided to make blog posts about my progress in learning Mandarin. I got the idea from the language blog of a friend, here. So I suppose I will show some of the methods that I use to learn Mandarin and maybe post some sentences from video games that I play or books that I read that I find interesting. Let me know what you think and what you would like to see more of on my blog.

(Note: This post is about people who only use pinyin only INSTEAD of writing in Chinese characters. This has nothing to do with people who use pinyin IMEs to type in Chinese or who use pinyin to show the pronunciation of words) Ok, so I met another pinyin-only learner today and I’ve finally had it. I’m making a post about it! I’m not going to go over all of the reasons why learning Mandarin with pinyin only is a bad idea, but I’m going to look at one reason in particular today: Pinyin ambiguity.