Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with mandarin

Automate the dub

saysthis — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 08:51:54 -0800

China is on a major push to dub TV series into English, and I'm primarily a subtitle translator who's been dropped into the middle of this exploding industry. While I've found industry standards fairly easy to research, what I've found less than easy to locate are recommendations for specialized software used in the translation process. What I'd like to know, if anyone here can recommend anything, what are the software packages you use that help to automate or smooth the process, specifically tracking whether timing and lip sync are right, specifically free software, as it's going to be hell to convince my bosses to buy something they can't sample, and I've been assigned a squadron of three untrained non-native translators to do most of the heavy lifting for me.

Where can I find Potter fanfiction in Mandarin?

Anonymous — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 21:17:27 -0800

I'm looking for (well written, preferably) heterosexual (ie non-slash) HP fanfiction written in Mandarin/simplified Chinese, involving either any of the male Malfoy family members, Severus Snape, Hermione Granger, Deatheaters, etc. Can anyone point me to where I may find them online, ie. Chinese counterpart sites to sycophanthex.com, grangerenchanted.com, the petulantpoetess.com and fanfiction.net for example?

Googling has so far directed me to http://dramione.livejournal.com/2771628.html which only lists 2 fics.

Would appreciate some help!

Thank you

Help me get my priorities straight re: learning Chinese

glache — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 11:32:54 -0800

Which do I learn first--spoken Mandarin, spoken Cantonese, or written, or even all together? I'm in an odd situation where I know very basic Cantonese (more like phrases, can't even string a sentence together) from listening to my parents over the last few years. I know Mandarin's more useful, and I'm taking a nighttime class, but it's really--I dunno, I think I need something more rigorous to motivate me (I studied it for a term at school and therefore know my tones while everyone else is still struggling, being completely brand new). Now I'm wondering about my plan for studying. Pretty much my goals are:

- Fluent in spoken Mandarin and Cantonese
- Fluent in written (or at least reading, it's embarassing not being able to read menus)

Now the thing is, I'm tossing up the following:

- Should I do spoken then written, or learn both together?
- If I do spoken then written, should I master Mandarin first (more practical sense), or Cantonese (just because I know a lot more already, even though I can't really string a sentence together or hold a conversation), OR should I even do both together?

Dor che! Xue xue hao

Can a 65-year-old guy with a tin ear learn Mandarin?

mudge1705 — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 09:24:50 -0800

Still working for a living, and enjoying it, but beginning to think about doing some extended traveling, perhaps in China. But to travel lengthily and effectively, it behooves me to learn the language, a task that, whatever the language, has challenged me all of my life. Do I have a shot at all of success, at my advanced age, and, if so, what does the community recommend for method, school, etc.?

How can I read subtitles on my smart phone while in a Chinese movie theater in China?

crawltopslow — Sun, 11 Nov 2012 01:25:00 -0800

How can I read subtitles on my smart phone while in a Chinese movie theater in China? i'm going to see the film "cold war" here in China tonight.

It's in Chinese, and I'd like to bring subtitles in English on my smart phone, so i can scroll through and see what they are saying.. Is there any convenient way to do this? I'd also like to do it with other movies in the future. (the theater is almost empty and i'm sitting in the back row)

is there an aliexpress for online lessons?

compound eye — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 00:10:40 -0800

What do you know about learning Mandarin via Skype? I'm looking for recommendations for learning conversational Mandarin with a 1-on-1 instructor via Skype or simmilar.

A previous question received a couple of responses, including a recommendation of italki.com. It looks good, but there's not a huge number of instructors there, and no-one from Taiwan at all.

The previous post was over a year ago, maybe you know about somewhere new?

Have you tried it? Was the Skype sound quality good enough?

What did you think?

I think I'm learning Cantonese, I really think so.

mdonley — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 13:25:39 -0800

I'm moving to Hong Kong for at least two years, starting at the end of August. Help me pick a feasible strategy for learning some Cantonese. I won't get that much exposure at work - I'll be teaching English all day, in an entirely English-speaking office. Presumably most of my students, especially my youngest ones, will speak Cantonese as a native language.

My goal isn't that ambitious, I think: I'd like to know how to converse, at least a bit, about some or all of these things after the first several months:
- exchanging greetings and pleasantries and being polite and respectful
- being able to talk about myself and ask about others a bit (how we're feeling, where we're from, what we do, what we're interested in)
- a bit about the past or future - what my plans are for the weekend, what I did last weekend, etc.
- practical things, like the weather, numbers/time/money, and some shopping/bargaining language

Writing isn't that important. I don't think I'll have time to take a class, unfortunately, but I could spend at least 2-3 hours a week working on things on my own or with a language tutor.

The success I've had with learning alphabetic languages like Polish and French have involved me 1) reading everything I can get my hands on to find patterns and learn from context, and 2) staged-repetition flash card programs like SuperMemo or Anki.

Neither of these things seem like they'd work for Cantonese, especially because I don't know how I'd create my own sets given my inability to read, type or write the characters correctly. (Is there an easy way to do this? I have found some flash card sets to download but that's less effective than making your own.)

Tones are also freaking me out completely - is this just something you develop an ear for when you arrive, or is it possible to hit the ground running a bit? Where can I find good audio samples to mimic?

So then: What's worked for you? How did you pick up Cantonese? (Or should I study Mandarin instead?) What resources have your found online/offline to help? I've got the Lonely Planet Cantonese phrasebook and it's a bit intimidating - anything else as simple/handy out there?

Finally, I understand that most/all people I deal with may speak at least some English. But I'd love to understand as much as I can while I'm there as a personal goal.

Thanks.

"Footnote dots?" "Points of distraction?" "Embedded text?"

saysthis — Sat, 30 Jun 2012 09:32:52 -0800

Let's say you're on Youtube, and you're watching a video, and on the progress bar there are little dots where, if you click on them, you get extra text or links or pictures pertinent to the video, ads, etc. What are those things called? This is a translation question about an article describing the same feature on a Chinese video website. The term in Chinese is "视频节点技术", which directly translates to "video node technology". I'm also sure I'm not mistaking this for anything else, because I'm looking at pictures of it.

Anybody know this one? I've been trying every search string I can think of, and it's getting me nowhere!

Can you translate this Chinese character?

AONeal79 — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 19:53:25 -0800

Can someone please translate this character (or characters?) for me? It was written by a Chinese man; unfortunately that is all I know. Thank you!

Best Mandarin in SF?

alaijmw — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 16:07:58 -0800

Good evening Chinese classes in San Francisco? Anyone have recommendations for Mandarin classes in San Francisco? Yelp hasn't been super helpful and I'm finding it hard to determine which classes would be better. I'm currently looking at the Confucius Institute @ SFSU... but the class is only $140, which seems quite cheap. If it is good AND cheap, that'd be sweet, but if it is crappy and cheap, I'm willing to pay more :)

Thanks!

Asian clothing in Seattle

Blazecock Pileon — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 21:46:20 -0800

Where are good places to go in Seattle for mandarin suits? I can always use Google, so if you have experience with a specific merchant in Seattle, I would prefer those kinds of answers. Thanks!

Chinese in primary school

coriolisdave — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 20:45:03 -0800

How important/useful are formal language lessons in the primary school years? At the beginning of next year, my family (wife + 2 y.o.) and I will be returning to our home town (Brisbane). In anticipation of this, we're looking at where we want to live and what schooling options are available. Obviously we want to choose a good school for our child. As well, we'd also love to have our cheeky monkey gain some grounding in Mandarin Chinese language and culture (the culture of her mother).

Although I am hopeful that she will pick up a smattering of conversational Chinese from her grandparents (with whom she'll be spending plenty of time), I expect that anything further will need specific education. Primary schools in Queensland are required to teach a LOTE for the final three years (grades 5, 6, & 7) for a couple of hours each week. However, the list of schools which teach Chinese is slim; there are mostly average schools on that list, as well as some good and only one great school. Unfortunately, most of these schools are in areas where we would rather not live, due to distance from work/CBD/etc.

Of course, there are other (better) schools, in better or more-preferable areas, which teach anything from German, Italian or French to Japanese or (in one case), AUSLAN. Ideally, she'll be attending a high school which teaches Chinese¹.

Which leads me to my questions: How much benefit is she likely to gain from learning Chinese at primary school over, say, Japanese²? Would she really pick up that much Chinese? What else am I not considering?

Other factors:
* She will not pick up much, if any, language from my wife. She will likely spend one day/week with her grandparents, who have been requested to spam her with mandarin.
* I have considered extra-curricular language lessons, and haven't ruled them out. However, extra-curricular music lessons/ensembles will³ be happening, and I'd rather not be a super-scheduling parent stealing all of her spare time.
* House prices in Brisbane are sliding. Most of the biggest slides are in the nicer (but non-Chinese teaching) parts of town. It would be terribly pleasant to take advantage of the economic climate if I possibly could.

^1: Chinese almost-immersion, in fact.
^2: Other than being a totally different and incompatible language, of course
^3: Assuming she's at all interested, which she's showing every sign of being.

Resources for studying Chinese characters

vogon_poet — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 11:07:47 -0800

I'm looking for resources (preferably online and free) that will allow me to practice reading and writing Chinese characters at the level of a beginner. I have been studying Mandarin for two semesters. My speaking and listening skills are fairly good, but I find characters difficult. I have been reviewing the characters I learned this year using flashcards, but it's getting boring. I would appreciate any other methods or resources that could help me practice.

While browsing the AskMe archives, I read about a concept called "extensive reading", where you practice and learn by reading texts at or below your level. This seems interesting, although I'm not even sure if there is a text basic enough for me at this point. Any suggestions?

Can a gringo or a laowai make it as a translator?

skewed — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 16:41:57 -0800

I'm sorta multilingual, in Spanish and Mandarin. I don't have many other skills. How good would I need to get before I can make a living from this ability? What jobs could I get if I were to improve in one or both languages? I'm looking for a career, and having recently given up on law school for now, I'm considering my options. Right now I teach LSAT prep classes and make a decent living but there's not much of a future in it.

I have a BA in Philosophy and Spanish, several years of teaching experience in high schools in China where I picked up conversational level Mandarin. My Spanish is better that my Mandarin, but I'm not fluent in either, and I'm basically illiterate in Mandarin.

It seems to me that there are so many native speakers of both Spanish and Mandarin that it'd be tough to make a living doing any kind of translating or interpreting. I've heard of non-native court interpreters, medical translators, etc, but don't know how realistic that is; would I have to have near native speaker fluency to do this?

I think if I took a couple months to practice, I could make a big jump in my Spanish ability, my accent is pretty rough but my comprehension is pretty good when listening to TV, reading newspaper articles. Mandarin improvement would take a huge investment in time; I'd estimate my speaking ability to be a 2+ or 3 on the 5 point scale used by the State Department. I'm thinking of maybe doing the summer program at Middlebury next year if I think the investment would be worthwhile. I could also afford to go to a Spanish school in Central or South America for a couple months to focus on Spanish.

I was thinking of maybe trying to become a high school Spanish or ESL teacher, but I hear that there's a glut of teachers these days.

Any suggestions for jobs I might not have considered? Any success stories that didn't involve in moving overseas for several years or marrying a native speaker in the target language? Any guidance or suggestions would be very helpful.

Xiān Gennaro

evidenceofabsence — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 22:01:22 -0800

How would you write either "Little Italy" (as in the NYC neighborhood) or "Welcome to Little Italy," or "I ♥ Little Italy" with Chinese characters? No, I'm not going to get a tattoo. I am thinking of making myself a t-shirt, which I will probably never actually get around to.

Background: New York's Little Italy is really part of Chinatown, save for a two-block, Disney-like stretch of Mulberry Street, and something called "Nolita" (pfui). The intent of the shirt is to be kind of silly and cute. (That said, if you think it would actually be offensive or off-putting in any way, please let me know.)

What are some good chinese movies to watch to help me learn Mandarin?

joshwa — Wed, 18 May 2011 22:55:48 -0800

Conventional wisdom says that watching a lot of TV/Movies in another language helps with comprehension. What are some good movies/shows to help me with Mandarin? My current level is quite basic (2 semesters of college classes).

mandarin-english dictionary with unicode

lahersedor — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 23:17:59 -0800

Looking for chinese english dictionary with unicode code points I want to be able to type in an english word and the chinese unicode codepoint is returned along with its pinyin character.

Pokemon or Yu-gi-Oh

freddymetz — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 06:47:44 -0800

Should i learn Mandarin or Japanese? Important factors are:
how useful is the language in the workplace (or potential usefulness in 10-20 years time)

The sound of the language? Which one "sounds nicer"

How difficult is each one to learn?

Feel free to mention other factors i havent mentioned so far :)

Ive seen the other thread, but Id like some more (..up to date) opinions too!

How many Chinese characters are shared between Mandarin and Japanese?

Senza Volto — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 07:23:02 -0800

How many Chinese characters are shared 1:1 between Mandarin and Japanese? I've been studying the kanji for quite a few months now, and having a great time of it. But what I noticed was that many of the Kanji were retained as they were in Chinese, while some were simplified (were any invented in Japan?), and this got me thinking: just how many kanji are present that exist 1:1 in Mandarin and Japanese?

For eg.
转 - present in Chinese, not in Japanese
车/車 - simplified in Chinese, not in Japanese
冰/氷 - simplified in Japanese, not in Chinese
团/団 - simplified differently in either language

BUT:

木 - present exactly the same in both Chinese and Japanese

Has anyone composed a study of exactly how many characters are shared like in the final example?

Learn Mandarin, Cantonese and Chinese characters via online chat?

ayc200 — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 19:01:28 -0800

Can anyone recommend a tried and true site offering live chat lessons teaching Mandarin or Cantonese and Chinese writing? There are many sites offering to teach Chinese via Skype. I cannot find any personal reviews. The tutor should be able to teach in English as well, of course.

How do I get a letter from a cardiologist translated into Mandarin?

SouthCNorthNY — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 08:46:19 -0800

How do I get a letter from a cardiologist translated into Mandarin? I have a two-page letter from a cardiologist describing my heart condition that I would like translated before I head to China. It uses many medical terms (pedal edema, dental prophylaxis, ect.) and I would feel better if the translation service specialized in medical language.

I've found a few people that do medical translation online, but I wondered if anyone here has had experience with translation services.

Mandarin Chinese class in New York City?

mark7570 — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 17:45:34 -0800

Suggestions for learning Mandarin Chinese in New York City? I'm past school age so looking for any adult-enrollment class that can teach the language. I know the China Institute offers classes, as well as somewhere within Columbia University extension, but I'm wondering if anyone has a suggestion for (or experience with) a specific class that's worth the investment.

P.S. I've read Mandarin learning tips from 2004, which has some helpful pointers.

help me not sound completely stupid.

joyceanmachine — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 14:57:22 -0800

Rosetta-style programs for brushing-up on Mandarin? Chinese-American who speaks reasonable Cantonese, and I took a lot of Mandarin in college. It's been more than a couple years, though. Work is paying for me to brush up and do it quickly, in advance of a business meeting next week.

Amazon seems to indicate that my two options are Rosetta Stone and Fluenz.

I'm worried that they'll be a little basic, but what do I know? I haven't been doing anything with Chinese for the past half-decade except telling my mother that I can't come home this weekend. In another dialect.

How do you say "culture shock" in Chinese (Mandarin)?

hnk — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 20:11:42 -0800

How do you say/express the idea of "culture shock" in Chinese (Mandarin)? I do speak Chinese, so if you type in pinyin that will be fine. Thanks!

Write a history thesis or learn Chinese?

flawsekno — Wed, 05 May 2010 00:31:33 -0800

Should I major in history or learn Chinese? I'm a first-year undergraduate in a college with an absolutely top-notch history department--which is fantastic, since history is one of my great intellectual passions. I'm also an American-born Chinese who can barely speak Mandarin and thus can neither communicate with many of my relatives nor truly understand the culture my family has been rooted in for generations. Since I'm already majoring in biology, I don't have time to major in history and take Chinese. Hence the binary.

I want to major in history (as opposed to just taking lots of history classes while also taking Chinese) mostly because writing a history thesis really appeals to me: instead of doing fragmentary work in disparate courses, I could immerse myself in one topic, draw out and analyze a historical narrative, write something substantial that I know I'd never do on my own. I've read (and sort of written) academic history papers before, so I'm pretty sure I know what I'm getting into. The history department here doesn't offer minors and is inflexible about special arrangements, so a major would be my only chance to do this; I've looked into other minors that involve writing a thesis, but they're in other subject areas that just don't interest me as much. Since I'm planning on being a biology professor, a history major would be completely useless. This is actually part of the appeal. College is a time--maybe the only time--when I can actually indulge my useless passion for Soviet Russian archives, so why not indulge?

On the other hand, not knowing Chinese has been a source of personal guilt, shame, and anguish for years and years. I feel disconnected from my heritage. Moreover, Chinese is fascinating language (so much meaning compressed in such short phrases!), and I'd like to escape from my monolingual prison. I have more opportunity than most to learn Chinese outside the classroom, but because it's so easy to speak in English or just remain silent, I think I'd have to knuckle down in the classroom to really learn the language.

My general feeling is that majoring in history would be a lot more fun than learning Chinese, but would have an immensely smaller payoff. I also feel that I'll have more of a chance to learn Chinese than to write history papers in later life, but then again, there will always be excuses to put off learning the language. My friends think that I should major in history; my family thinks that's ridiculous and I should learn Chinese.

Lastly, not majoring in biology is not an option because molecular biology is the love of my life.

tl;dr. I know you're all strangers on the internet, but I'd really like advice on what/how to choose here. Personal anecdotes about what a history major really entails, benefits of majoring in an intellectual passion and/or learning a language, etc. would also be great. Thank you!