muyongshi Posted October 28, 2007 at 11:30 AM Report Posted October 28, 2007 at 11:30 AM Right now I am putting together a small phrase guide for travelers that come here to my city. My friends and I frequently have groups of friends coming from the states to see us and travel in our area. And of course they like to be able to be independent since we have our own lives and they come all at different times. We have a nice two sided sheet of paper for a quick menu (specifically for the area w/local specialties and what not) and now would like to do a *small phrase sheet. I am thinking about 3"x5" size double-sided and I was just curious what everyone would think would be some basic phrases that are needed for 2 weeks in a city. I am including things like the names of the universities and parks on the one side and on the other side just want some basic phrases/words...I have some ideas but would like to see what other ideas are out there. Thanks a lot for the help! Quote
muyongshi Posted October 28, 2007 at 01:21 PM Author Report Posted October 28, 2007 at 01:21 PM This is a VERY ruff draft but maybe it will help people get a visual for what I'm going for. Right now it is in size 10 font and this is the amount of space I want to use total so any feedback would be great.... Do me a favor and just look at the Chinese as I haven't done the English and Pinyin yet.... Want to decide on what all I want to do first. Thanks for the input! Quote
Lu Posted October 28, 2007 at 01:41 PM Report Posted October 28, 2007 at 01:41 PM On that first page, characters are handy as you can show them to taxi drivers and people you ask the way. But for the second page, I'd leave out the characters and just write pinyin, or even better, Chinese in phonetic English. If you want characters, maybe you can put in some frequently-used, so that they can recognize them here and there. My parents loved that when they came to see me. 'Hey, that's a 中! and a 人!' Quote
yonglin Posted October 28, 2007 at 03:19 PM Report Posted October 28, 2007 at 03:19 PM Yes, don't expect English-speakers who have had no exposure to Chinese to be able to read pinyin. It seems so easy for those of us who are studying Chinese, since we probably learnt it in a couple of hours. However, for those who have had no exposure to pinyin, the system is extremely confusing, especially x, q, etc. For instance, when a tutor was taking the register in one of my classes, he pronounced the name Qian Jingjing as Kee-awn Yingying. Although there were only about 15 people in the class, the poor girl failed to realise that he was trying to say her name. When he asked if anyone was not on the register, she rose her hand, said her name. He was like "Oh, but that's what I said!". So not only can they not read it correctly: they might also fail to realise they can't. Quote
jonaspony Posted October 28, 2007 at 11:03 PM Report Posted October 28, 2007 at 11:03 PM Great idea. Wish someone had done it for me. One of the first phrases someone taught me in Chinese was 你替我选一个吧。As I needed to eat, and didn't know the local dishes and the menu meant nothing to me, it was pretty helpful. Maybe something like "a spicy/not too spicy/sweet dish" "with beef/fish/only vegetables etc". Even a tourist has to eat. Quote
simonlaing Posted October 29, 2007 at 02:26 AM Report Posted October 29, 2007 at 02:26 AM I used a menu like that a lot my first year in China, 2001. So I think you should put in 4-5 lines of food chicken, beef, Is is spicy. Also When I was living in an undeveloped suburb of Suzhou, many of the Taxi drivers didn't know my address even though it was written in Chinese. So learning some simple directions was helpful. Things like turn left, Right, go straight 2 blocks. It is not far. These directions also helped when I got lost and knew what to listen to. My friend Andy loved getting lost in dusty central china cities. (I got used to it, but it was good to have a few words of directions to help us.) A couple of consonants like the letter C at the beginning of words is tricky for newbies, you could add a (ts) so they know how to prononuce it. also the lv Lu french u but there are not many words with it so I wouldn't worry for this. Post it on the site when you're done. have fun, SimoN:) Quote
muyongshi Posted October 29, 2007 at 03:15 AM Author Report Posted October 29, 2007 at 03:15 AM Like I said, we have a great menu that has already been used for over a year with great feedback so I am not worried about the menu.... The problem I am finding is 1) I don't know how to do phonetics and 2) about half want to learn pinyin so already know a bit or know a lot and the other half wouldn't Any suggestions. I will definitely consider the character recommendation but like you said I know a lot of people like them as well... Quote
muyongshi Posted December 16, 2007 at 03:21 PM Author Report Posted December 16, 2007 at 03:21 PM Well after a month and a half (ish) I have come up with the "final" copy the point-n-go. I know there may be some things that don't appear to be logical as to why they are on there but this is very customized and everything (I think) has a purpose and now I'm just rambling. Also if you find this useful feel free to use it and modify as you wish (I guess that goes without saying but hey...). Just is one step closer to being finished than if you had started from scratch. (note: actual size is a bit bigger than posted; also formatting on the file may be off as it was created as an ODT but this site doesn't support that file type so I converted it to a doc file so who knows what it looks like now) Point n Go.doc Quote
ipsi() Posted December 17, 2007 at 01:27 AM Report Posted December 17, 2007 at 01:27 AM Nice. I've modified it a bit to give it some more consistent formatting (in my opinion, anyway, you may have had a reason for not doing so), and also added some column breaks and down-sized the pages a bit. They're now Landscape, but I don't think that makes a difference. It should also be possible to print them double-sided now, if you're keen on doing that. Point n Go.doc Quote
muyongshi Posted December 17, 2007 at 03:49 AM Author Report Posted December 17, 2007 at 03:49 AM They already work in current format for printing double sided (as that was the original intention). The reason I was having column break problems was due to neoOffice (it doesn't like me) so I didn't worry about it. In terms of the order of things I see why you changed it but it doesn't matter that much for my purposes (so the only reason thought that it was in like that was because it was the order that came into my head). Thanks for the look! Quote
ipsi() Posted December 17, 2007 at 03:51 AM Report Posted December 17, 2007 at 03:51 AM It didn't look like it'd work as double-sided when I opened it originally. I guess that was just you having issues with the word program? Anyways, it looks good, hopefully people will find it useful . Quote
muyongshi Posted December 17, 2007 at 03:53 AM Author Report Posted December 17, 2007 at 03:53 AM Yeah probably a formatting thing then. It was originally 2 front and back to a page so when printed front and pack you could get 4 sheets out of one A4 Quote
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