xiangqiankua

[xiangqiankua]

So I was watching a show and the phrase 有話快説，有屁快放 turned up, which was both new and also amusing to me so I googled 有屁快放 to see if it's actually in common usage or not...

Oh yes. Prime pun material for fearmongering health article headline writers. 別憋著！真的要放！I shall add it to my repertoire.

#從嘴巴排出來，真的假的 #if this is really common and i just missed it well better late than never! #mandarin #chinese #traditional characters

[xiangqiankua]

為了您的安全，請勿踩踏馬桶

#怎麼感覺其實是為了馬桶的安全 #bathroom signage #mandarin #chinese #traditional characters

[xiangqiankua]

Just came across the character 虱, at first I was like good lord what happened to that 風, it's lost its 丿, the 虫 is naked and exposed!

虱子 shīzi / louse (or lice), Pleco lists 蝨子 as a variation

#mandarin #chinese #traditional characters

[xiangqiankua]

holy shit guys, I surpassed my wildest dreams and passed TOCFL 5 (C1) 🎉🎉 I was not expecting it, I almost cried. Shortly beforehand I had run into my Japanese acquaintance who'd taken the morning session of the exam- she told me it was super hard and she ran out of time at the end, so I went into it feeling resigned to my fate and wondering if I'd even manage to score a 3. She was not wrong, there were some insanely difficult passages (the pros and cons of transistors vs vacuum tube technology? wtf?) and I also ran out of time and clicked a bunch of random answers for the last 4 reading passage questions (which I tried to speed read, but it was about how methods of protein absorption in the human body affect the effectiveness of certain beauty products (or at least that's what I gathered) so it didn't help much). However, apparently my listening score made up for it.

I took two CAT practice tests in the two days before and scored lower on the listening both times (and only got a 4/B2 overall), so I was fairly surprised that it was the opposite on the actual test (although I had managed to finish both the practice CATs with time to spare, so maybe that last reading passage really did me in, idk). I guess I shouldn't have been too surprised though, because I tended to score higher in listening on the old Band B tests too- I think seeing the timer count down on the reading part made me extra nervous, but with the listening one can only go as fast as the questions are read, so I didn't feel the same sense of pressure.

This was my first time ever taking a Chinese proficiency test- I took it mainly so I can apply for university programs taught in Mandarin, but it also feels really good to have some kind of solid evidence of the fruit of years of struggle. Not that I think it should be a requirement for anyone's self confidence, and to be sure it's also a test of how well someone can take tests (which was something I specifically practiced for a month in advance), but I had written repeatedly on student visa applications that my end goal of intensive classes was to pass Band C (or at least I thought that sounded convincing to immigration), so I feel extremely gratified that it's finally happened. (Also I really thought I was not going to pass it, and would have to torment myself with god knows how much more studying and exam-taking!)

#i'm also particularly happy because i didn't get into the lone english taught program i applied for last minute in january #so i have to start over but i should have more options now #tocfl #the saga is over? i don't know if there's much point to try to pass level 6 unless i want to do a PhD here #but never say never #if i've made it this far maybe i could do it if i tried?

[xiangqiankua]

I'd been stressing myself out doing old practice tests that have 50 questions with a 60 minute time limit, when I stopped to consider that I'm taking the TOCFL CAT. Says the official website:

"The TOCFL Computerized Adaptive Test (Listening and Reading) employs Rasch model of item response theory. The test taker does not need to choose the test level or band when registering for the test. The computer selects the test items based on the test taker’s response to the previous items. Compared with other test formats, CAT takes less test items to precisely evaluate the test takers’ competence, as the item selection is adapted by the test takers’ responses." There are actually only about 35 questions per section. Excellent, I thought to myself. I decided to try the CAT practice test (there's no pausing, so if you want to try make sure you have a couple hours free, it gives you a score immediately at the end. There are traditional and simplified versions!)

It was very difficult. I got a lot of questions that were definitely from Band C, which I did not enjoy! Please leave me in my comfort zone in peace! (If there were actually 50 questions I would have given up and started clicking random answers.) I did get Level 4 (B2) at the end, which was my goal, so I can only hope the practice test is more or less on par with the real one.

However, the real gratifying thing was that looking up the bathroom wall graffiti the other day really paid off because there was a whole listening passage on ketamine.

#it was about using it to treat depression not recreationally #but still #i'm realising i have no idea how to study for Band C cause while i read and listen to material for native speakers it is Not Like That #also whoever makes these tests is obsessed with black holes #i've also come to the conclusion that i need to study a list of Top 500 成語 if it exists which i'm sure it must #tocfl #apparently HSK used to have a traditional character version but they got rid of it boooo

[xiangqiankua]

Bathroom wall graffiti

拉屎好爽，拉K...... (拉K = do ketamine)

#I'm still trying to figure out why the verb here is 拉 although in searching 吸K also turns up #personally never done it so maybe it's obvious to the partaker?? #mandarin #chinese #tw drugs #some interesting headlines out there like 拉K一時，尿布一世！

[xiangqiankua]

i wish you the best of luck on your exam ! ^_^

thank you :))) 我會繼續努力 💪

#kind-hearted anon #ask #answer

[xiangqiankua]

My thoughts after doing a few TOCFL practice tests:

- I really really need to practice reading for the gist and not getting hung up on unknown words. I'm sure the whole point of throwing in phrases and characters that weren't on the word list is to weed out test takers who can't manage to pick up on overall context. Unfortunately I am used to looking up every damn thing when reading for leisure. So I've selected a library book of a suitable level to force myself to read without pausing- the first attempt went alright except when I cracked and had to look up 櫺 líng because it was such a good shape, it means latticework on a window. - Unsurprisingly, I'm not that great at questions on unfamiliar topics for which I don't know the vocab (because they're of no interest to me and I never bothered to learn it). I understand the logic of testing people who might be getting this certificate for work on topics that might happen on the job. But why can't we slide in some of my special interests I've listened to hours of podcast on, huh? (I decided to find a tv series to watch in order to diversify.) - The most troublesome part of "Mandarin proficiency test" is not so much my Mandarin proficiency as the "test" part. In the listening section I often understand perfectly what 小美's mother asked her to do to prepare for the guests in the afternoon, or the long list of critical steps in booking a ticket for XYZ. Hell if I remember the details by the time the multiple choice question rolls around. I need to practice taking notes, and also remembering to actually look at the choices on the answer sheet beforehand. - Sometimes I am thinking of the correct answer, and somehow write down a totally different one?? - I start out with some confidence and energy and then deflate (or panic) somewhere around question 30. I've timed myself on the reading and done the listening without any pause or repeat to try and simulate authentic levels of anxiety (success, unfortunately), and when I do them both together it's exhausting. I don't know if it's late in the game to try and build stamina, but I might as well try. - Sometimes I get things wrong not because I misunderstood the material but because I had my own interpretation of what exactly the question was asking, which I don't think I can do much about. - When I second guess myself and write down a row of potential answers, the first one is almost always correct. - My language school teachers definitely lifted some of their final exam questions directly from these.

I asked a Japanese acquaintance today how the test was when she'd taken it and she said she passed B2 (TOCFL 4) a year ago, so I ought to be fine because her level is currently slightly below mine, but Japanese native speakers have a significant edge on the reading so this isn't entirely reassuring.On the bright side, nothing too serious is riding on this at the moment, at worst I disappoint myself terribly and just take it again later. But success would be nice! I really hope the practice tests are of similar or higher difficulty to the actual exam, not significantly easier.

#it's still ten days away #i don't think there's THAT much improvement to be made in ten days tbh #my main priority is practicing staying calm #放鬆放鬆啊啊啊啊

[xiangqiankua]

Fascinated by this very creative made-from-tape font, which also leaves some room for interpretation as to in what order the author intended it to be read 🤔

#if this were on FB someone would def comment 國語老師在哭 #mandarin #chinese #traditional characters #fonts #it's probably supposed to be 出口通道請保持暢通 #however i immediately read it in order of size

[xiangqiankua]

這...這樣啊

#at least the 老闆 didn't draw a little blushing face on it or something #mandarin #chinese #traditional characters #seen in a 餐廳 #「請插我。。。但別太久!」

[xiangqiankua]

Hello, sorry to bother you. But I wanted to ask. I'm having problems with a friend of mine. I wanted to ask, could Daiji be a Chinese name? I have been arguing with my friend because I understand that Daiji is a Japanese name. And the meaning of this in Chinese would be "to wait for an opportunity to seize a chance pragmatic." I've tried to find reasons to tell him that Daiji is more of a Japanese name. But I'm also afraid of being wrong, could Daiji be a Chinese name or not? I'm from Korea, so I'm not that familiar with Chinese names.

Hello! I will give the disclaimer that I am also not an expert on Chinese names, however I can almost guarantee that 待機 dàijī is not a proper one, because while it does mean "await an opportunity", when searching online the more common usage is "sleep mode", for electronic devices. For example: 在iPhone 充電期間，使用「待機模式」來在一段距離之外查看資訊. But sleep mode aside, from what I've observed Chinese names are generally not taken directly from those sort of verbs. Chinese naming convention is really not my speciality but @linghxr has a lot of posts on the topic for the curious~

#ask #anon #mandarin #chinese #i also took the liberty of throwing some common surnames in front of 待機 to see if anything came up in google and there were no matches #there might be a chance that there are some other characters with dai and ji pinyin that constitute a name #but not 待機

[xiangqiankua]

推拉

#i thought these were cute! #mandarin #chinese #yeah i guess there's some Japanese in there too

[xiangqiankua]

I've posted about learning the word 屁眼 before (what is it looking at!), now get ready for...馬眼. Formally known as 雄性尿道口 (male urethral opening), one must wonder why the heck it's called that. The internet has two main answers: one from someone claiming some association with 泌尿科 mìniàokē (urology dept), which is that it simply looks like a horse eye. Zhihu is a bit more creative, claiming that one naturally pees from the 馬眼 into the 馬桶, or perhaps that the 馬 connection derives from 遺精 yíjīng (nocturnal emission) being colloquially known as 跑馬. Whichever you choose to believe is up to you. (Incidentally when looking up 馬眼 there are a lot of inquiries as to whether 馬眼棒 is safe to use 🤔)

#writing this to kill time as my flight is delayed #i heard this in a podcast so at first i thought he was saying 螞眼 😅 #bad mental image that #mandarin #chinese #traditional characters #i never really thought about the fact that 馬桶 is literally horse bucket

[xiangqiankua]

I'll be the first to proclaim my love of traditional characters, but sometimes, just sometimes...

#i suppose a native speaker would be able to figure this out with minimal fuss #i gave up trying to write it into pleco and just looked up ‘chisel’ instead since it was obvious from the illustration #traditional characters #mandarin #chinese #漫畫 #adventures in miniscule font reading #i kept thinking the top left had 缶 in there not 臼!

[xiangqiankua]

It is rice planting time in north Taiwan, and I realised I was at a loss for rice cultivation terminology, but never fear, there is no shortage of information for the curious. Some select vocab from the article (which is largely informative photos): 秧苗 yāngmiáo / seedling 稻作 dào zuò / rice cultivation 綠油油 lǜyóuyóu / lush green 茁壯 zhuózhuàng / healthy and strong 縱谷 zòng gǔ / longitudinal valley (an elongated valley found between two almost-parallel mountain chains) 插秧 chāyāng / to transplant rice seedlings 稻穗 dào suì / rice ear 稻米 dàomǐ / rice crop 綠肥 lǜféi / green manure (a crop specifically cultivated to be incorporated into the soil while still green) 插秧機 chāyāng jī / rice transplanter 拔除 báchú / root up, pull out (of weeds) 纍纍 léiléi, pr. lěilěi in Tw / heaps of [fruit]- in this article they write 結實纍纍 but the more common phrase seems to be 果實纍纍 (or 累累), fruit hanging heavy on the trees 稻穀 dàogǔ / unhusked rice 發芽 fāyá / to germinate, sprout 功虧一簣 gōngkuīyīkuì / an entire enterprise ruined over one small thing 收割 shōugē / to harvest, reap 休耕 xiūgēng / leave farmland to lie fallow 催芽 cuīyá / to promote germination 秧盤 yāng pán / seedling tray 耕耘 gēngyún / to plow and weed 覓食 mì shí / to forage for food (of animals) 耕作 gēngzuò / farming, cultivation

#working in the rice fields looks very romantic as one passes by but i'm sure being there all day is less fun #mandarin #chinese #traditional characters #rice #at first i thought about doing an article per day but unless they're really short idk if that's realistic #then again a little bit every day is usually better than a lot at large intervals!

[xiangqiankua]

Word of the day:

開心果 / pistachio nut

Why is it called that? Wikipedia says:

開心果（學名：Pistacia vera，英語：pistachio）是一種常見乾果，正式名稱為阿月渾子，是漆樹科黃連木屬的植物。開心果營養豐富，味道可口，是很受歡迎的零食。最早的漢語商品名是開口笑，形容其硬殼裂開如笑容之狀，但迅速被更口語化的開心果取代。富含維生素A、維生素E。

#tl;dr cause the shells look like they're smiling #太可愛了 #i was in a gelato shop today and realised they were both out of pistachio and i also didn't know how to say it #i got 黑巧克力 and 烤杏仁 instead #mandarin #chinese #traditional characters

[xiangqiankua]

I finally really truly registered to take the TOCFL (I had signed up for a free pilot test last year but when I went to make the deposit to confirm my slot, everything for Band B & C were already full, alas). I stopped taking formal classes a year ago, also stopped private tutoring, and had been lazily coasting along reading manga, scrolling Taiwanese social media, and occasionally listening to a podcast. Then I decided to apply for grad school.

Scared that having to read anything scholarly and of length in Chinese on a regular basis would make my brain combust, I applied to a program that apparently has enough English classes to graduate. Upon further investigation, many of the interesting ones are in Chinese. Strangely, to take classes in Chinese the department only requires a proficiency certificate equivalent to A2 level. I attached a transcript from my last language center class (around C1), but if I get accepted I figure I ought to have a TOCFL certificate, and if I don't, I'll definitely need one to apply for programs taught entirely in Chinese later.

I registered for Band B because I think I still read too slowly for Band C, plus they only play the listening passages once and I find listening to text being read in a newscaster style (vs conversational tone) extremely challenging. (I asked a teacher once what to do about this and she said listen to more Chinese news, because even the Taiwanese news tends to have a more informal tone.) The exam is in about a month, so I need a plan of action. I had already started reviewing the word list for TOCFL 4, which is 5000 words but sometimes just the same character 4 times in a row, each with a different part of speech:

It's been kind of torturous because it's in alphabetical order, on the other hand it's good because it gives me pause as to whether I would really be able to make the correct choice between 規定、規矩、規律 and 規則 on a fill-in-the-blank question. So far all the words are familiar except some unexpected ones on feudalism and sending telegrams, but familiar and intimate are two different things so if I don't know the precise definition immediately I've been looking it up, along with examples sentences. My current goal is to finish going through the word list, try all the previous exams available on the TOCFL site to practice timing myself, and also find some more ideal listening content (for now I could go back to the audio files for 當代中文5 that I never got through properly). I also want to look up the most commonly used 成語 because they aren't included on the word list but surely they'll appear on the exam. Ideally I should also try to do more relevant reading (news articles, perhaps), but we'll see how far I actually get with that. I think I also need to do this studying at the beginning of the day, being a great procrastinator.

My dream scenario is that Band B turns out to be a breeze and makes me confident enough to take Band C! (Edit- I know the reading/listening test is electronic and apparently adjusts itself to your level. Maybe whatever level one selects at registration is simply the one it starts with?) Realistically though, I read one anecdote online from a guy complaining that he passed HSK 6 and then only squeaked in at TOCFL 3. Hence my apprehension and need for a study plan for test taking. Anyone else taken TOCFL lately?

#tocfl #chinese #mandarin