Short-term Spoken Chinese: Glossary for ZDT

[Olle Linge]

Hello,

I have just finished a year studying Chinese full-time. In the course, we have used Short-term Spoken Chinese: Threshold (both volumes) and Short-term Spoken Chinese: Elementary. I have assembled complete word lists for these books. I have put them online here, along with some disclaimers and information about the word lists. Also take some time to visit Hacking Chinese to learn how to study Chinese more efficiently!

Olle Linge

凌雲龍

http://www.snigel.nu - Personal website

http://www.hackingchinese.com - Website about learning Chinese

[bogleg]

Hi Snigel,

That's great! Do you mind if I put the lists on the ZDT word lists page as well?

Chris

[Olle Linge]

Hi Chris!

Of course you can, anything that I can do to promote your great software. It has helped me a lot in my studies and I have used it four hundreds of hours. Without it, learning Chinese would have been unnecessarily difficult. If you put it on the word list page, can you provide a link to my disclaimer? Thanks!

Regards,

Olle

[jbradfor]

Olle, what do you think of Short-term Spoken Chinese as a textbook? Did you find it good / useful? Based on the title, I assume it focuses more on conversation?

[bogleg]

Yup, I'll include the disclaimer. Thanks.

Chris

[Olle Linge]

jbradfor: In general, I find the books flawed in many ways. Still, my teacher thinks they are the best available, despite obvious weaknesses. Perhaps other books are even worse; I do not know. I have written reviews of the first three volumes. They can be found here:

Threshold: http://www.snigel.nu/?p=774

Elementary: http://www.snigel.nu/?p=874

As for the focus of the books, they are, as you say, on spoken Chinese. That does not mean that the emphasis is only on conversation. Each text is divided into three sections, two dialogue and one not. I would say that the "spoken" means that the words and grammar explained are that of everyday usage, not focusing on written or formal language. If you have any questions, feel free to drop a comment or ask here.

_______________

Olle Linge

淩雲龍

[jbradfor]

Thanks again for posting those lists. I've been going through the Elementary word list slowly (i.e. during boring meetings at work....). It does seem to be a useful set of words.

I did find a couple of errors in them. Since you asked for any corrections, here are the ones I found.

flashcards do not have traditional

開藥 kāi yào to prescribe medicine

準 zhǔn accurate; standard

氣派 qì pài manner; style

幹 gàn to work; to do

打氣 dǎ qì to inflate; to pump up

flashcards have wrong def

影響 yǐng xiǎng an influence; to influence; to affect (usually adversely); to disturb

-- def is wrong in flashcards

苗條 miáo tiáo slim, slender, graceful

-- flashcard def is nonsensical ("jimpness, gracility" ?!?!)

粉饼

-- flashcard def is weird ("pancake make-up") -- do you mean "pancake mix" (if powder) or "pancake batter" (if liquid)?

other errors

結 jié knot; sturdy; bond; to tie; to bind; to check out (of a hotel)

-- flashcards have it as first tone, which is a different meaning

念 niàn to read aloud; twenty (banker's anti-fraud numeral corresponding to 廿)

-- flashcards have the traditional as 唸; this is more of a variant than the traditional form; do a google search on '唸 site:.tw' and most hits will be 念

But again, thanks for making them available.

[Olle Linge]

A week ago, I moved to Taiwan to study Chinese (if you are interested in reading about my experiences here, you can go to my website). For this reason, I have carefully gone through the first two volumes of Short-term Spoken Chinese, especially with traditional/simplified characters in mind. Due to the fact that this was never a priority before, there were loads of errors (at least a hundred, probably more). I have now updated the files.

As for other comments here, including the ones above for the Elementary, I will come to that in due time. It takes an awful lot of time going through these lists. As for the pancake make-up, it's actually called that and that is what is meant in the text as well. It is together with serveral other words that have to do with make-up.