My Top 5 Tips – Learning a New Language Independently

As an individual with an ardent desire to learn new languages, I am constantly on the lookout for tips and tricks to facilitate my language learning. Most languages I wish to study are romance languages; Italian (haven’t yet gotten started on this one), Spanish (I like to believe I have a somewhat intermediate level of understanding) and Portuguese (a possibility, only). Having a background in French helps greatly as many of the words have similar roots, suffixes and prefixes.

Let’s compare these four romance languages. Below is a comparative table of the words indicating numbers from zero to ten:

Moral of the story? In my opinion, by starting your language learning with a romance language (assuming you speak English and/or French, if you are from Quebec), you will acquire learning tools that will help you process and analyze words and sentences, which will then help you build connections between what you know and what you are trying to understand. For example, let’s take the English paragraph: “My mother is forty-two years old. Her name is Mary. Her favorite color is green. She is a doctor.”
The french translation would be “Ma mère a quarante-deux ans. Son nom est Mary (or, Elle s’appelle Mary). Sa couleur préférée est le vert. Elle est un médecin.”
The spanish translation would be: “Mi madre tiene quarenta y dos años. Su nombre es Mary (or, Elle se llama Mary). Su color preferido es verde. Ella es médica.”

Note the similarities:
Forty-two: quarante-deux, quarenta y dos
Name: nom, nombre
Color: couleur, color
Favorite: préférée (alternate translation: favorite), preferido
Green: vert, verde
Doctor: médecin, médica

If you speak French, you may have been able to identify certain patterns in the Spanish sentences which relate to French vocabulary. This is why I suggest first learning a romance language, and this will allow you to expand on other romance languages. Soon you will speak three, four, five, six languages! This doesn’t however, mean you will easily learn any other language in the world (honestly, speaking French or Italian probably will not be very helpful if you are learning Russian, Mandarin, Greek or Swahili). It also doesn’t mean learning romance languages will come effortlessly. Learning any language requires lots of time, effort and motivation.

So here we go, my top five tips on learning a language on your own:

我愛你就像老鼠愛大米 – I Love You Like a Mouse Loves Rice

It seems lately that I have a penchant for posting about holidays – two such articles in the space of a two week period. As you may have guessed from my title, today’s daily dose of Chinese culture is centered on Valentine’s Day in China (note: I Love You Like a Mouse Loves Rice was a popular love song from when I lived in Beijing). While the non-conventional Valentine’s Day (02/14) most similar to our own version is generally only celebrated in the biggest cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hong Kong, China as a whole has its own celebration of the day of love on July 7th, Double Seven Day. I’ll be exploring the celebration of both these holidays and the customs and traditions that ensue. And to finish – a mini lesson on love themed vocabulary: perhaps that could double as the second Chinese course I keep promising…

Chinese New Year: Lanterns, dumplings and fireworks, Oh my!

As promised in my previous, I have finally gotten around to writing a long overdue post on Chinese New Year. Despite my heavily occupied schedule, I have managed to put aside a couple minutes to post about the upcoming holiday. On today’s menu: some of the main facts of CNY, activities, food and to finish, a short discussion on dumplings…

Let’s start with the basics.
Chinese New Year: what’s being celebrated? What do people do to prepare? What do people do to celebrate? What do people eat?

Update + Upcoming posts!

Nearly three weeks of inactivity – now there’s a record. I can’t say I’ve had no time to write, firstly because nobody is too busy for three weeks straight to be able to sit down and jot down a few ideas – and secondly, because I have been on Christmas vacation and everyone knows that teenagers spent their break time watching television and binging on junk food. So no, my lack of posting is not due to my having no time to write.

I’ll be frank. In reality I’ve been a bit lazy and have constantly been telling myself “Tomorrow I’ll write” but I was never motivated enough to get up and do it. But finally I have convinced myself that the post-Christmas/pre-New Year’s week long period is a good time to get crackin’.

This post is not an actual ‘post’, merely an introduction to some upcoming themes I’ll be exploring and such in the near future. Let’s get started:

• Chinese New Year (春节). The holiday in 2015 is on February 19th and I hope to celebrate by doing a short post on it’s history and perhaps a recipe post for dumplings. This would be sometime in late January or mid February.

• Beijing virtual tour. I lived there for three years and recently returned back in November, so I hope to introduce not only the main tourist attractions but a behind-the-scenes view of the city through my own pictures from 2004-2007 and personal anecdotes.

• Chinese history. As a young history enthusiast I enjoy doing research if the subject interests me. I’ll be scouring my father’s bookshelf for a book I can use for information and present as a source.
• Ramen Wars. Yes, it sounds childish. But it’s something I’ve been thinking of doing lately. Basically I would compare two brands of Chinese instant noodles and grade each on flavor, easiness of preparation, price, packaging and other criteria.
• Chinatown. Since I posted about Chinatown I’ve have a HUGE project in mind – I’ve been elaborating a research project on the history of Montreal’s Chinatown. My hope is to explore the origins of East Asian immigration in that specific area of the city and the city in general, as well as discovering the background/roots of some restaurants and boutiques located in the Chinatown area. This will involve interviews, library research, some traveling I suppose, and more fun activities! I’ll be posting constant updates and what not regarding my progress. I’m super excited to share this with you, o faithful readers! 🙂

I’ll add to this list as I think of more elements I’d like to include in my future posts. Until next time, farewell!

 ~RJ

Taste Test Tuesday – Top 8 East Asian Snacks

Hello to all faithful readers and guests here on The China Chronicles!

I’ve planned quite an entertaining post for you all – I have put together a compilation of the eight best (in my opinion) East Asian snacks. I’ve decided to shift my focus temporarily away from China and rather concentrated on a more general category – East Asia. This will only be applied to today’s post.

Now I have some sorrowful news to share… My grandfather unfortunately passed away this Saturday November 29th around noon. Since the summer he had been in and out of the hospital and rehab due to a stroke. As his time approached my family decided it was best to devote some time to spending his last days in his company. I am writing from the US as of now, and will return promptly to Montreal in a week’s time. Perhaps this is a good opportunity to write about Chinese funeral customs and death rituals. Keep your eyes peeled for a post on that coming up soon!

On to a more cheerful subject…

East Asian countries are recognized for their scrumptious and varied snacks. Many well-known snack companies such as Ezaki Glico and Meiji are based in Japan, South Korea and China. Most of these companies offer American and/or European snacks adapted to the East Asian palate, but some create incredibly innovative products that attract worldwide attention. Some snacks are also sold by street vendors (these are my favorite!)

Let the countdown begin!

8. Chinese Chips (Lays 乐事, 子 第, etc.)

Although Lays is an American snack brand currently owned by PepsiCo Inc., a huge variety of flavors can be bought exclusively in China, such as Cheese Lobster, Hot & Sour Fish Soup, Blueberry and Italian Red Meat (click here for an interesting article on Lays in China!). Lays (乐事 in Mandarin, which literally means “happy things”) even has a Chinese website: click here! 子 第 is another chip brand I found in a convience shop in Kun Ming – I am assuming it can be found at most Chinese grocery stores.