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Archive for October, 2007

NBC Nightly News report on the Chinese language; Chinese Pod is featured!

孙智谦 on 30 Oct 2007

It’s apparently the “in thing” in America to learn Chinese. It must be if big news networks are running stories about it during their prime time slots. The NBC Nightly News article is actually pretty good. It starts off mentioning how how much times have changed, how schools have gone from offering French and Spanish classes to offering Mandarin classes as well. I wish I had that option when I was in high school; I can’t guarantee I would’ve taken Chinese, but it would’ve been pretty nice to have the option, at least. Maybe I wouldn’t have wasted so many years of my time studying French, a language I have absolutely no use for in my adult life. And maybe when I started learning Chinese over four years ago, more of the tools that exist today would’ve been ready for me back then. Meh, I’m whining. Moving on…The report goes on to say that Mandarin is becoming the “must-know language of the future” and that it’s even being taught in elementary schools. It also says that China has begun setting up Mandarin-learning institutes in over 30 countries with the goal of tripling the number of Mandarin students to 100 million within three years. That’s a pretty ambitious goal; but China’s a huge country with its fingers in everything in the world, so it may not be unattainable, especially when you take into account Chinese Pod’s download statistics: they quit counting the number of downloads when they hit 20 million. And while Chinese Pod caters to adults, there are certainly lots of other Chinese instruction products that cater to kids: software, games, television shows, you name it. Nickelodeon even has a show called Ni Hao, Kai-Lan that introduces toddlers to the language. So even in places where no formal classes are offered, everybody from your young nephew to your old uncle has access to some form of instruction in Chinese directed at their age group.

The question of whether Chinese will replace English as the international language is brought up in the report as well. As is typical of big network news shows, they don’t show his full comment in its original context, so we don’t know what he was really talking about, but it does seem like Chinese Pod’s co-founder Ken Carroll is referring to this question when he comments on Chinese’s lack of an alphabet being an issue. Sure, there are romanization systems out there to help people with learning to pronounce Chinese, and it’s definitely possible to write entire sentences in Pinyin or other romanization systems, but the ridiculous number of homonyms in the language makes it rather confusing at times. Still, China’s a huge player on the world scene, and more and more people and organizations are becoming more and more involved with the big red giant, so who knows what people may come up with to make it more foreigner-friendly. I wonder how much longer it’ll be before companies start replacing Spanish with Chinese in the “qualified applicants must be able to speak…” areas of their job postings. I’d better get back to studying now.

I tried to embed the video of the report here, but the code for embedding it won’t work with my blog. No matter. You can just click the link below to go to the Praxis Languages page and watch it. Congrats on the mention (and free publicity), Chinese Pod!

Click here to jump to the video of the report.

ChinesePera-kun: the most helpful Firefox extension there is for students of Chinese

孙智谦 on 26 Oct 2007

Chinesepera-kun in action

I’m really excited about this Firefox extension! Up until this afternoon, if I ran across a Chinese character that I didn’t know, I would have to copy it and paste it into Adsotrans.com or Babelfish to see what it meant. It can be really cumbersome, having so many different browser windows or tabs open just to get the meaning of a specific character. But then Ole over on the forums at Mango Languages suggested this excellent Firefox plugin called Chinesepera-kun, and now gone are the days of bogging my system down with 5 different Firefox tabs being open at once just so I can learn a new character.

Here’s how it works: Once you’ve installed the plugin, you right-click anywhere in the Firefox window and choose Toggle ChinesePera-kun to activate it. Then, when you see a Chinese character that you don’t recognize on a website, you just hover your cursor over it and watch the definition pop up on the screen, along with the Pinyin pronunciation. For an larger image of it in action, click here. Totally awesome!

You can learn more about the plugin and download it here.

Roman alphabet to internet: “Et tu, Brute?”

孙智谦 on 15 Oct 2007

This’ll be interesting…

The Internet (or, internets if you’re some people - it’s a series of tubes) is great because no matter what language you speak or where you live, as long as you have a connection to it, you can benefit from the collective knowledge of the world’s Internet-using population. That’s really incredible when you think about it, being able to call upon the collective knowledge of the whole world to find out pretty much whatever you want to know. But in spite of the fact that people from all over the world who speak different languages can contribute to the Internet in any language they wish, it has always been kind of unfair in a way. Up to this point, if you wanted to have a web site, your domain name had to be in English. That’s great for native speakers of English, but not-so-good for people who don’t speak English. So a supposedly universal tool has always catered to a certain group. Lame!

But it looks like English is finally about to lose its stranglehold on domain names. ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers - the guys who run the Internet’s names and addresses) announced last Thursday that they will be registering (on a test basis) domain names in Arabic, Persian, Russian, Hindi, Greek, Korean, Hebrew, Japanese, Tamil, and both styles of written Chinese (simplified and traditional). This is huge, probably the biggest change to the internet since Al Gore “created” it. It’s just a test for now, though, so if you register a domain name in a language other than English, it will have to have a .test suffix added to it (instead of .com, .org, .net, etc.), and you’ll be directed to a wiki page instead of being able to make your own website.

The Yahoo! article I pulled this information from doesn’t say specifically what the testing criteria is (and I’m too lazy to find out), but it says, “The results of the test will determine whether ICANN sanctions using languages written in alphabets other than English for complete domain names.” So if it goes well, the internet may get a whole lot bigger. The Internet World Statistics website says that about 37 percent of the world’s Internet users live in Asia and another couple percent are in the Middle East (North American users make up about 19 percent of the Internet’s users, and Europeans make up about 27 percent). Those numbers mean that if things aren’t done correctly, the internet could conceivably see some performance issues from the new traffic created by new websites popping up in all these different languages. That fear is apparently the reason this wasn’t done a long time ago, according to ICCAN’s first chief executive, Mike Roberts. He said, “The engineers thought that trying to do the non-Roman alphabet thing with all this growth would destabilize the Internet and cause crashes.” I’m assuming they have things worked out now so that won’t happen, but we’ll see.

Link to article.

Coolest. Concept. Cars. Ever.

孙智谦 on 11 Oct 2007

It looks like Nissan is going to totally beast the 2007 Tokyo Motor Show with their three new concept cars, the ROUND BOX, the NV200, and the INTIMA.

First up is the ROUND BOX, which looks on the outside like a tough, futuristic cross between a Chrysler PT Cruiser and a Honda Element. The cockpit, though, is completely Star Trek or Minority Report. It’s one of the most incredible-looking things I’ve ever seen that isn’t completely science fiction (although how much of it is actually functional isn’t clear). If I were to drive one, I’d probably be so busy staring at all the cool things on the dashboard that I’d probably end up in a serious accident, but it’d almost be worth it just to have something this cool.

The NV200 makes vans look awesome! It’s like a cargo van that transforms into a bus/office. When its back side isn’t fully extended, it seems like it’d only be a two-seater because I don’t see how you could possibly have room for more than 2 people with all that stuff shoved in the back (computer, storage bins, a place to hang clothes). But when it is fully extended, it looks like something you’d see on Star Trek. Very impressive! I want one of these in a big way.

Ok, so what about sedans? The Nissan INTIMA (is that like the opposite of an Altima, like an innie bellybutton versus an outie?) seems pretty cool, too. It’s got a computer with some cool-looking features (address book, points of interest, phone book, themes for something or other) built right into the dash, and a nice looking radio console. I’d have to say that it’s not as cool or futuristic looking as the other two concept cars, but it’s still pretty nice.

Nice, eh? Too bad these are just concept cars and not available to the public yet. Who knows when they will be, either? Until then, I’ll just dream…

The One Semester of Spanish Spanish Love Song

孙智谦 on 10 Oct 2007

This doesn’t have anything at all to do with Asia, but it’s totally hilarious, so I thought I’d post it. It’s called The One Semester of Spanish Spanish Love Song. I won’t say any more…just check it out and laugh.

Mike, you’re my hero.

First impressions of Jay Chou’s new song 牛仔很忙

孙智谦 on 10 Oct 2007

Sometimes it stinks being in America. Radio stations here aren’t exactly lining up to play the newest Jay Chou songs (or anything else coming out of Asia). But thanks to the Internet, I’ve managed to find a place online to listen to Jay’s newest song 牛仔很忙 (Cowboy On the Run). My first thought was, “Huh???”

I expected something different, but not that different. It’s definitely NOT typical Jay. It’s a complete departure from anything else he’s done to this point. It sounds like something a silly cowboy might sing, and the lyrics are comical rather than touching on on love, loss, and deep personal issues like most of his other songs do.

As for my opinion, I suppose I like it in spite of the fiddle solo and steel guitar, but I don’t know if I could take a whole album of nothing but this kind of song. I kind of wonder if it isn’t totally different from the rest of the album and if he didn’t release this song first just to play with people and get discussion going so that the anticipation of the album’s release would be greater. I also wonder if the promotional posters aren’t just jokes, as well. If so, somebody in marketing deserves a raise because my interest is peaked. If not, I have to give him credit for trying something totally new… I’ll definitely be buying the album regardless.

You can download the song here (right-click, save target as…), or just stream it through your internet connection and read the Chinese lyrics here.

Trying to guess the sound of Jay Chou’s new album

孙智谦 on 09 Oct 2007

Jay Chou's On The Run promotional poster

Please tell me this album won’t stink as bad as this promotional poster does.

Jay Chou is an entertainment juggernaut in Asia. He composes music, produces, acts, writes, directs…you name it, he probably does it. And up to this point, he’s for the most part delivered high-quality stuff. But I’m a little worried about his newest album, On The Run, which is scheduled to be released on November 2nd. Why am I worried? Just look at the promotional poster above…it’s got a cowboy theme. Please, for the love of all that is good, somebody tell me this is not going to be a country album.

I know, I know…don’t judge a CD by it’s promo poster, you say. I’m not. Check out this quote from his music company’s website (translated by stitchphil at jay-chou.net):

首波強打「牛仔很忙」，由熱血作詞者黃俊郎與周杰倫共同催生一個新角色：牛仔！這個牛仔很忙，很有正義感，屬於60年代美國初創時期的古董帥哥，快跟著牛仔的馬後面跑，感受杰倫式的美國鄉村民謠帶來的暢快淋漓！
The first single ‘Cowboy on the Run’, combines the talent of Jay and a long time partner, Huang Chun Lang to present a new role for Jay: A Cowboy! This busy cowboy is one full of justice, coming from the sixties in America. Just like riding on the back of the horse, the new single promises to take Jay’s take on the American Country ballad to the world.

Cheesy promotional wording aside, country music as a genre brings about as much joy to my ears as someone thumping them for two hours straight, so the phrase “Jay’s take on the American Country ballad” makes me cringe. At the same time, though, it’s Jay, so I have hope that the album won’t totally stink. He’s always done a solid job of mixing influences from different cultures to make his own unique sound, and if anybody can take a genre as obnoxious as country and make it sound pleasing to my ears, it’s definitely Jay.

Based on his previous work, I’m thinking the album will be more varied than just his take on country music, anyway. Notice that the quote above also said something about the kind of cowboy Jay is “coming from the sixties in America.” Could this album be a melding of country and sixties-era rock? Time will tell…I’m definitely hoping to hear some piano-driven rock. In his commentary on of a promotional version of his most recent single, 不能说的秘密 (Secret), he says that he was going for a British rock sound with the song and that he hopes to show his fans “a new Jay” with the single. It’s a great song, so if there’s a lot of the same “new Jay” on the new album, I think I’ll be really happy with it.

There you have it. My guess as to what the new album will sound like. Despite the references to country music and cowboys, I’m hoping there will be enough variety and classic Jay Chou creativity and talent to make the album repeat-listen-worthy. I’ll definitely be reserving my copy over at YesAsia.com when pre-orders start on October 12th. Just please, Jay, no steel guitar, please, please, please.

Mango Languages, like Pimsleur but better

孙智谦 on 01 Oct 2007

It’s Monday morning, and I have a cold, so this post is gonna stink. But it’s ok because I’m just introducing a website, anyway…here goes.

A little while ago, a friend forwarded me an e-mail with the subject FW: You may find this very helpful for some who are trying to learn Chinese language…especially because it is free. Free is good. I like free. So I opened the e-mail and saw that the URL was TryMango.com. I thought maybe someone had sent the wrong link for a minute because it sounded by the name like it was yet another Mangosteen or Tahitian Noni Juice type of thing that so many people seem to be into. Those are fine and dandy, but not for learning languages. So I hit the link and went to the main page…

…and breathed a sigh of relief. It was indeed a language learning website. And the graphics looked to be pretty polished, which shows that somebody put some actual thought into in that area at least. But pretty graphics are one thing, and the ability to teach is another thing entirely. It purportedly had 11 different language courses on the site. A lot of “language learning web sites” are actually just hastily-designed blogs with poorly-thought-out lessons on some foreign language and nothing whatsoever to help visual learners. So I clicked the Try It! button to see if this site was any different.

Ah, you have to register to use it! But what will they do with your information once they have it? I’m very wary of giving my e-mail information to any site these days because you never know where it’s going to end up. Their privacy policy is right on the page in plain site, though, assuring potential users, “We will NOT sell or provide your email address to any third party. We will only use this email address to authenticate your access to the Mango Language application and provide you with update information. You may unsubscribe at any time.” Yeah, I realize that they may be total liars and that they may very well sell my information to a third party, but I tend to want to believe what people say (yeah, I’m probably a sucker), so I registered and logged in.

Once I was in, I got a look at the basic interface. It’s powered by Flash Player 9 and looks just as good as the main page, so I was starting to think that it may actually be a good little tool…but again, it’s just pretty pictures. I clicked the drop-down arrow under “Course Selection” and looked a little more closely at the languages. They have courses in the following languages:

Brazilian Portuguese for English Speakers
English for Polish Speakers
English for Spanish Speakers
French for English Speakers
German for English Speakers
Greek for English Speakers
Italian for English Speakers
Japanese for English Speakers
Mandarin Chinese for English Speakers
Pig Latin for English Speakers (WTH?!)
Russian for English Speakers
Spanish for English Speakers

The Pig Latin course threw me off…ok, was this whole site some kind of joke? So I clicked on it to see what it was about. The first lesson came with the text:

So, instead of fixing up the bugs that you have been reporting in the other languages, we decided to create a Pig Latin course.
Just kidding, well, actually, we did create a Pig Latin course, but that is just because it is 12:29 AM and our small but very dedicated team is still at the office working on a lot of really cool things for you; and yes that includes bug fixes, more languages, and implementing all of the great suggestions that you have sent us. We are also working on some ecretsay rojectspay that will knock your socks off. Enjoy!

Ah, someone has a sense of humor! Nice!

Moving along, I decided to try a real language course. And since the current focus of my “language geekism” is Chinese, I went with the “Mandarin Chinese for English Speakers” course…and I was impressed by how much material they have on the language. As of this post, they have 100 lessons for the Mandarin course. That’s nice! But how are the lessons designed?

As the title of this post gave away, it’s not too awfully unlike Pimsleur. It actually may be better than Pimsleur in some ways. PImsleur is audio-only, so if you’re a visual learner, you’ll be left up to finding your own supplementary material to help you along with pronunciation using Pinyin. And since Pimsleur is an audio-only program, it’s a little harder to go back to just the right spot if you miss one minor detail. The advantage of Mango is that each lesson is presented in slides (like a Power Point presentation), and users can easily move back and forth between different slides at any time without having to worry about finding the exact spot on the CD (or if they’re still living in the 1980s, cassette tape) where they want to be.

For the sake of checking things out, I began with Lesson 1. It starts with a conversation between two native speakers and also displays the Chinese characters that correspond to what the speakers are saying. A speaker icon beside each line of conversation allows users to replay any particular sentence of the dialogue if they miss it somehow the first time. The speakers go along at a decent pace, neither too fast nor terribly slowly. The rest of the slides in the lesson break the sentences down into their smaller parts to help users get the meaning of each individual word in the sentence. Hovering the mouse pointer over the Chinese characters on each slide gives a pop-up balloon with the characters’ pinyin pronunciation in it, and some slides actually feature color-coding to show which Chinese word directly corresponds to each English word. These two cool features are illustrated in the picture below:

Much like Pimsleur’s lessons, the lesson also does a great job of balancing dialogue with explanations of certain technical and cultural aspects of Chinese, the kind of information which is vital to learning any foreign language. And also like Pimsleur’s lessons, users are periodically quizzed to see if they can remember what was taught earlier in the lesson.

So all-in-all, as long as every other language lesson is like lesson 1 of the Mandarin Chinese course I checked out, this site seems to be a really solid tool for learning a foreign language. I may even go so far as to say that it’s actually better than Pimsleur in overall content. True, with this program you can’t just pop a CD into your car’s stereo on your way to work and learn Chinese, but if you’re a visual learner or learn better by having both audio and visual aids, this should be a pretty great tool for you!

My only complaint is a minor one for the system overall but kind of major for Chinese. The lesson that I checked out didn’t stress how important tones are to correct pronunciation in Chinese. Without the correct tones, a person might as well be babbling because the tones are that important to being understood. I’d like to see that added to the lesson. But since the other languages on the site aren’t tonal, it shouldn’t have any effect on how well they are taught.

The site is in BETA, so of course there will be glitches and things to deal with; that’s expected. But it’s free (at least for now) versus the $130+ you’ll pay for a single level of Pimsleur at heavily-discounted prices, so I think the glitches are a minor inconvenience compared to the money you save. Anyway, check the site out for yourself. I think you’ll like it.

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