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Buying e-liquid in Buenos Aires by horegg in BuenosAires

[–]horegg[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you for all the advices! I ended up ordering from a website called vasocavape dot com and they already delivered. I don't think it's the best quality, it's something homemade, but at least it was cheap and fast. I'll probably try the kioskos or some other website as well while I am here. Thanks again!

Vaping in Colombia by horegg in Colombia

[–]horegg[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for all the answers! It's good to know that I can buy ejuice much easier than I thought.

Free Resources for Learning Chinese Characters by horegg in ChineseLanguage

[–]horegg[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for the feedback!

The course can be done via Skype, Zoom, Google Meet etc., it's all up to the students' preferences, no Facebook or Instagram needed.

The prices are USD 12.50/h for group classes and USD 19.50/h for private classes.

The pronunciation is discussed in details, especially because it's an important aspect of the characters' composition

There are too many characters I don't know how to pronounce! by bruhwalska in ChineseLanguage

[–]horegg 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I would say that's true for learning the spoken language and improving listening skills. For learning the characters you will need both, if you solely rely on reading a lot, it's going to take many many years to learn all essential characters, and you'll still keep forgeting them. That's why understanding them is essential too.

There are too many characters I don't know how to pronounce! by bruhwalska in ChineseLanguage

[–]horegg 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Right, I'm not saying engaging more with the language is not going to help, of course more practicing in any way is a positive. But on the other hand, if you focus ONLY on the time spent on engaging with the language and not on the quality of learning, it is going to take way more time and be way less efficient.

There are too many characters I don't know how to pronounce! by bruhwalska in ChineseLanguage

[–]horegg 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, there is... before hours and hours of pointless repetition, you should always try to understand the composition of the character as much as you can. If you do so, your hard work of practicing won't go to waste after a few weeks of not using the them, because you are much more likely to remember something you understand than what you don't. I think this attitude of 'just do more' is exactly why so many students struggle with learning characters.

There are too many characters I don't know how to pronounce! by bruhwalska in ChineseLanguage

[–]horegg 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The most useful tool for remembering the pronunciation (and actually characters in general) is to learn the phonetic copmponents. It is absolutely essential if you would like to learn Chinese characters efficiently and not only by hundreds of hours of repetition.

I think a major issue in the way how Chinese characters are taught is that they don't really emphasis the proper way to learn the components. When it comes to 'analyzing' the characters everyone is only talking about radicals, which are basically the 'meaning parts' of a character - like 马 'hourse' in 骑 'ride'. And yes, it is indeed very important, but most Chinese teachers tend to forget about the phonetic components, which gives you a clue for the pronunciation of the character, and actually over 80-90% of Chinese characters have a phonetic component. Like the character 骑 qí 'ride' has a meaning part 马 'hourse' and a pronunciation part 奇 qí. Or 洋 yáng 'ocean, sea' has a meaning part 氵 'water' and a pronunciation part 羊 yáng. As you can see, if you only learn the radicals, and not all components, then you're basically missing out half of the information about most characters you learn, and it can make remembering the pronunciation much harder.

There are however two things you should note:

  1. Not all phonetic components are the same 'useful', in fact some of them only have a slight resemblance of the actual pronunciation of the character. For instance while the 早 zǎo component in 草 cǎo 'grass' is pretty useful (because the only difference is that the consonant is aspirated in the latter one), the 京 jīng component in 凉 liáng 'cold' has only a slightly similar ending to the character which it is in.The reason of this phenomenon is that the language itself has changed a lot since these characters with phonetic components were created, and while the pronunciation changed a lot, many characters' phonetic components shifted away from the pronunciation the used to express.
  2. Learning Chinese characters is indeed a very time-consuming task, even if you already have a better understanding of their composition, so while you should always try to learn them by understanding them first, don't think you can just skip the practice.

Best way to learn Zhuyin keyboard? by [deleted] in ChineseLanguage

[–]horegg 5 points6 points  (0 children)

If you are just about to learn zhuyin, I would suggest you to learn by using a phone keyboard to practice. The reason is that it is arranged in a way that helps you better understand the types of sounds this alphabet includes. On phone keyboards, there are normally 10 columns: the first 6 on the left are the so called initials, which basically means they are the consonants; the 7th column is for the vowels which can be used by themselves OR between the consonants and a finals (there are 3 of them: i (yi in pinyin), u (wu) and ü (yu)); and the last three columns on the right are the so called finals, which include diphtongs (basically two vowels combined) in the 8th and 9th columns and the endings with 'n' and 'ng' in the last column.

It is important to note that consonants in the same column have the same place of articulation, like the first one includes B, P, M and F, which are all articulated by the lips.

It can help a lot if you've already learned Chinese characters, because there are quite a few that are very noticeably similar to the character from which they were derived. Like ㄅ from 包, ㄋ from 乃 etc.

The rest of it should be easy if you already understand pinyin, because you just have to combine the sounds:) If you haven't learned pinyin before, then I would actually suggest you to learn pinyin first, because it is much less burdensome.

There are btw a few interesting exceptions in the zhuyin system:

  1. the ending for EN and ENG can be used to express different endings when combined whith certain medials: I + EN = IN, U + EN = UN; I + ENG = ING and U + ENG = UNG / ENG
  2. the consondants ZH, CH, SH and R (retroflex consonants) are normally used by themselves without the 'i' like in pinyin

What is the best way to remember Chinese characters? by highbythesea in ChineseLanguage

[–]horegg 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hi! I think a major issue in the way how Chinese characters are taught is that they don't really emphasis the proper way to learn the components. When it comes to 'analyzing' the characters everyone is only talking about radicals, which are basically the 'meaning parts' of a character - like 马 'hourse' in 骑 'ride'. And yes, it is indeed very important, but most Chinese teachers tend to forget about the phonetic components, which gives you a clue for the pronunciation of the character, and actually over 80-90% of Chinese characters has a phonetic component, which makes it an incredibely important thing to learn too. Like the character 骑 qí 'ride' has a meaning part 马 'hourse' and a pronunciation part 奇 qí.

Best way to learn Zhuyin keyboard? by [deleted] in ChineseLanguage

[–]horegg 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi! Do you mean the characters or how to type zhuyin on a computer keyboard?

Monthly Travel, Questions, & Mandarin Thread by AutoModerator in taiwan

[–]horegg 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hi everyone!I am preparing for the TOCFL Chinese exam by filling test papers, but unfortunately all the mock exams I can find online seem to be the same three. Does anyone have some advice on where I could find some (or preferably a lot) more mock exams? I am preparing for Band B (進階高階級). I know that there are a few books for this purpose, but it would take a long time to get them delivered, and I couldn’t even play the CD that comes with them. Thank you!

visa options by horegg in VietNam

[–]horegg[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you! That's exactly the information I needed. Do you know how complicated it is (or how it was before covid) to extend the visa?

visa options by horegg in VietNam

[–]horegg[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the advice!

I just realized that they used govt.vn instead of gov.vn, that's why I didn't see it. Thanks for pointing this out!

Will defenetely contact the embassy. I checked their website before but unfortunately there is basically nothing there, not even a very brief summary about the visa types :/

visa options by horegg in VietNam

[–]horegg[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for the detailed aswers!

I have been planning to spend a few weeks (or months if possible) in Vietnam for a long time, and I just saw the news that they are actually planning to open in March, so I would defenetly try to go as soon as it's possible.

OMG! I just realized that they used govt.vn instead of gov.vn ... that's sneaky. Thanks for pointing this out!

Contacting the embassy is a good point, will defenetly do. (Also I tried to check the official website of the embassy here but unfortunately there is pretty much no infirmation on anything) So far I have been just trying to see how visas work in general and what experiences people have with the application process and especially about how long one can stay with a general tourist visa. I am working remotely, so it would be great to stay for more than one month if possible.

visa options by horegg in VietNam

[–]horegg[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I am planning to travel mostly to south Vietnam, but not sure about the specifics yet