maxiewawa

Reading aloud is the weakest part of my Chinese language skills. It has been quite a while since I made a Chinese video so I made this one.

You can read the full story here or my translation below.

Yesterday morning another Qantas flight from Melbourne to Canberra had mechanical problems.

Qantas says that at Melbourne airport a passenger plane had problems with its air conditioning system. At 11:30 in the morning, when a Qantas flight entered the runway, and prepared to take off for Canberra, flight crew noticed the problem, resulting in the flight being cancelled.

Smith, a passenger said that after the flight crew heard the mechanical noise, the flight returned to the hangar. they mentioned that it might have been a problem with the air conditioning. Engineers inspected the air conditioning system, but decided not to take a risk, and that they needed to begin a more thorough inspection. This is the reason that the plane was returned to the hangar, and why all passengers were asked to disembark.

The last time I watched the Olympics (before the Beijing games) I had just arrived in China. All the coverage was in a strange foreign language, and just turning on the TV was intimidating. The language hasn’t changed, but this time I understand most of what’s happening. I’ve got a volleyball game playing on the TV in the background as I type, the USA vs Cuba. It’s pretty close.

Being an Australian, I was naturally concerned about the coverage of Australian events. But since the first day of competition on the weekend I can say that I’ve been happily surprised. CCTV (China’s government run TV network) has 3 channels dedicated to the Olympics, and although they concentrate on Chinese events (well duh, I am of course in China!) they have been showing a wide range of events. It’s rare that Chinese athletes are in three different events at the same time, so at least one of the channels is free for major events. This is something that we haven’t learnt yet in Australia, so often the final of the hockey (or something) is interrupted to see some Australian shooter win bronze in the trap event.

So I’ve been able to see whats-her-name break a world record in the swimming, and whats-his-face win gold in the pool this morning too. I watched Australia play soccer last night, and get beaten. Soccer always leaves me with a sour taste in my mouth, it always seem that South Americans and Europeans are so quick to fall over and grab their legs, and referees are so quick to award free kicks. It’s a shame, because I enjoyed soccer so much in high school.

Or it might just be that my country is so rubbish at it!

You can see the latest KoreanClass101.com homework project here. I made a few mistakes so I did my part again here. I have it on good authority that there will be another homework project soon, so stay tuned to KoreanClass101.com for the next one!

Shanghai residents got one of these in the mail today. Huh? Looks like a thermometer at first, but when you open it, you find out that it’s crappy little plastic spoon.

It occurs to me that not everyone can read what’s written on the packaging, and so not everyone realises what the spoon is for.

You can’t eat with it. You can’t scoop up anything with it. It’s hard to see what practical use it has. So why the crap did someone package thousands of these up, and put them in mailboxes around Shanghai???

I’ll give you a moment to guess. Or for all you who are literate in Chinese to read the packaging.

Finished? Or do you need a bit longer to mull it over?

Ok, here’s the translation.

On the front packet it says (on the left, in blue):

• Healthy World Expo, Healthy Shanghai. (Shanghai is hosting the 2010 World Expo.)

On the top right side (in multicolour) it says:

• A Healthy Life, Starts With Salt.

The smaller writing says:

• The World Health Organisation’s recommended standard: Every person, every day has 6 grams of salt. Consuming too much salt can lead to high blood pressure.

By now you must have guessed that this little spoon is meant for measuring salt. A full spoon is two grams of salt.

On the reverse side is a little blurb about the consequences of having too much salt. Apparently the average Shanghainese citizen has 9.9 grams, a little too much. Some kind soul (more likely a kind organisation!) has packaged these up and handed them around, so that residents can measure precisely the amount of salt in their cooking.

So it’s a public health thing. But I just can’t help laughing when I imagine an illiterate person opening his mailbox, finding a nicely packaged tiny white spoon and thinking “what the hell???!!!”

If you have been paying attention, you’ll known that I’ve started contributing to Talk With The World. This video was made with another writer at TWTW, Cody씨.

I changed the dialogue of this Koreanclass101.com lesson by changing the punchline. I realise that not everyone reading will understand Korean, so here’s the English. If you don’t understand English, sorry!

A: Brother, what’s this?
B: This? A monkey.
A: Brother, what’s this?
B: This? A pig.
A: Brother, what’s this?
B: This? A puppy. Stop asking questions.
A: Alright.
A & B: Bon appetit!

“Bon appetit” is a French expression that we use before we eat (it’s originally French but we use it so often in English that most English speakers will understand). And “brother” is a translation of 형 which literally means “older brother” (of a younger brother) but doesn’t just apply to biological brothers.

I’m not sure that it’s clear from the English translation that A and B intend to eat all the animals that they are seeing (or even if it’s clear from our original Korean script) but I hope at least someone gets it.

Thanks to Cody for lending his dulcet tones to the part of the younger brother.

If you can’t see the video, click here.

I was enjoying some traditional southern American food today (KFC) when I noticed that the pair of girls sitting next to me looking at some kind of pamphlet together. I was sitting directly next to them, close enough to see what they were reading. KFC is very crowded during lunchtimes, particularly during summer. Probably the free air-con. This meant that diners like me don’t have any choice but to sit next to strangers.

Anyway, I had a peek at what they were looking at. It was a tourist brochure about Japan. They were flicking through it, talking about what was written there (it was all in Japanese). They weren’t studying it but one obviously had some passing knowledge of Japanese, and the other, who knew it well, was helping her out.

Getting bored of eavesdropping on their conversation I had a look around. A young guy across the aisle from us had two textbooks and an empty Pepsi cup on his table. He had volume two of “Wilkommen auf Deustchland/欢迎学德国语” open, and he was leant over it, taking notes. His empty Pepsi cup was sitting on book eins.

Next to him was another young guy. He had a textbook called “3DS Logic” or something. It looked like something to do with computers. And it looked complicated.

And next to him was a young girl sitting opposite her mother. Mum had her head resting on the table, and a teatowel was on her head, blocking out the light. She was snoring. The young girl was diligently reading a textbook. But she was too far away for me to see the title.

Whenever people ask me what young people do in China for fun, I have to shrug. They study I guess.

I’m trying to teach English online. For a little more about why, click here.

=====

Q1: What are you doing?

A1: I’m _____ing ____.

Q2: Do you _____ often?

A2: No I don’t. (Yes, I do.)

Q3: How often do you ____?

A3: I _____ all the time.

I _____ (number) times a week.

I _____ (number) times a day.

=====

In every answer (except A1), you should add a verb in the dictionary form. For A1 you should use a verb with ~ing on the end.

For A3 I have included three possible answers.

If you’re an English learner, click ‘reply’ and try to answer these questions. You can see my answers at the bottom of this post. Try to write longer answers if you’re a high level learner.

If you’re not an English learner, click ‘reply’, answer the questions and thanks for your help! The more material learners can get exposed to the better. And try to make answers truthful; really, what are you doing now?

Click “reply” to see my answer, and/or to write your own answer.

My girlfriend is thinking of leaving me.

Don’t worry! Aika isn’t thinking of “leaving me” figuratively (”to leave someone” is an English metaphor that we use when people break up”) but literally leaving me, for a few hours a week, to learn English in a language school.

Although this isn’t much a blow to my masculinity as figuratively “leaving me” would be, it’s still weird for me, since I’ve been an English teacher for four years!

But there are quite compelling reasons for the girlfriend of a language nut like me to go to a language school. For one thing, at a language school, one meets other learners of similar levels. This is important for Aika since all the other English speakers that she knows either speak English much more badly than she does or much much better. Her English is better than our Chinese friends, since she speaks to me so often, but, as one might expect, is much worse than our foreign friends, since most come from English speaking countries. So she either picks up bad habits from bad English speakers or can’t follow what is being spoken. At a language school she’d probably be somewhere where she would understand most of what is being said.

Also, in a language school, curriculum is the same for a group of people so they help and encourage each other. Language is after all a way to reach out to people, and the more people the more sense of community.

But there are also downsides to going to a language school. Firstly, they cost money. And although things in China are cheaper than many places in the world, a course at a language school still isn’t free. Secondly is the convenience factor. Enrolling in a language school involves actually getting to the school, signing up, then attending lessons.

I’d been weighing the pluses and minuses of attending a language school, when I decided that it was too much bother. Although the sense of community in language schools is great, it’s not worth paying money for. Particularly since online communities are so numerous. All one would need to do to teach English to someone would be

I’ve been teaching using Side By Side’s textbook number three for a few months now, and I’ve found them really good. I’m going to be taking Aika through this textbook. But I’ll be needing your help.

Each “lesson” will just be a post, written by me. It will be a few instructions or questions, and contributors will be asked to write something as a reply to each post. I’ll write the first lesson after this introduction!

If you’re a native English speaker, or speak English well enough to qualify (and let’s just say that if you’ve followed everything that I’ve written so far that you do qualify!) and you’re willing to help, I (and all of the students following) would appreciate it if you just clicked “reply” and wrote something.

If you’re learning English, feel free to contribute as much as you want. We will correct you when you’re wrong!

Ok? Understand? No matter, I’m sure everything will be clear after the first lesson. Here we go!!!

I’m in a book!

We were walking on the Bund last night. Across the road, I saw a little girl, pushing her way past people walking in the opposite direction.

She caught my eye because of the pained expression on her face. She wore a deep frown as she negotiated her way past people walking in the opposite direction. She looked like she had a somewhere to go, was late, and was weighed down by some serious philosophical matter at the same time.

The other thing that caught my eye was the bright red flashing devil horns on her head. These are sold by poor people on the Bund. They are battery powered, and if you flick a switch, a little light turns on in each plastic horn.

She kept looking down, with the expression of being troubled deeply by something, her plastic horns bowed. But she eventually scuttled across the road towards Aika and I. What did she want?

As she got closer, she looked up at me. “Money… give me money…” holding out her hands.

I burst out laughing. She had seen a foreigner across the road, and decided to hit him up for a few coins. She had made her way in our direction, trying to look poor and pathetic. She was concentrating so hard on her act, but had forgotten about the two oversized flashing red horns that were sticking out of the top of her head.

I realise that it’s not cool to make fun of poor people, but this little girl wasn’t dressed shabbily, and obviously had enough money to get oversized novelty devil horns, so I don’t think she was honestly poor.

Now that I think of it, I think we were on the exact spot where WoAiZhongGuo took this photo. Or maybe where that guy in the blue shirt with his back to the camera is.