What are you reading?

[Luxi]

On 10/30/2024 at 5:17 AM, Wei-Ming 魏明 said:

a novelization of 宋慈's casebook?

 

Not a novelization, but this edition of the Casebook might interest you 

https://read.douban.com/ebook/127420903/

The original classical text by Song Ci is followed by a modern translation, at first glance it reads like a novel. A rather macabre one, good for November reading.

 

Quick search on eBook Douban brings a few more 

https://read.douban.com/search?sort=default&page=1&q=宋慈

 

[becky82]

I just finished reading 老舍's 《猫城记》, a sci-fi political satire.  I read the whole novel aloud (~118000 characters), and it took me about 16 or 17 hours total (over 10 videos).

[Wei-Ming 魏明]

Well dang, 宋慈洗冤筆記 was gripping. I no longer care that 'the story you are about to read is a fib but the names are true to protect the innocent.' Just really enjoyed it a lot.

 

At the textual/linguistic level, there was a lot of fluctuation. On some pages I could read everything without references. There were about three pages where I shamefacedly had to go to Google Translate to figure out what in the world was going on. Just too much of a historical info dump with unfamiliar proper names, no-longer-used place names, and abbreviated sentence structures. That didn't dampen my interest in seeing what would happen in the story, and I appreciated that 巫童 needed the set the scene for events to come. 

[markhavemann]

On 11/3/2024 at 12:32 PM, becky82 said:

I read the whole novel aloud (~118000 characters), and it took me about 16 or 17 hours total (over 10 videos).

If you posted this on YouTube you should definitely post a link too. It's so nice to see (not just read) what other people are doing with their Chinese studies, and I couldn't seem to find any videos on your channel, although I admittedly didn't look past the main page.

[becky82]

On 12/5/2024 at 1:49 PM, markhavemann said:

If you posted this on YouTube you should definitely post a link too

 

There's a bit of a balance between sharing what you do, and not being a spammer.  Anyway I added the videos of me reading aloud the entirety of 猫城记 to a playlist just now and they're here.

 

This says the total length of the videos is:

 

Quote

Total length : 17 hours, 44 minutes, 43 seconds

 

[lordsuso]

hey @becky82 I have tried to read aloud from time to time to practice my pronunciation but I am never able to follow what I am saying when I do so, did that happen to you in the beginning? does it go away?

[becky82]

I usually find the opposite is true.  If I don't read aloud, my brain (or part of it) wanders off and thinks about other things.  My eyes will have looked at the content, but I'd have no idea what it says.  Reading aloud helps me stay present (in English and Chinese).

 

Was I unable to follow what I read when reading aloud in the beginning?  I actually don't recall (I've been learning Chinese for quite a while now).  I recall making lots of notes in the past, e.g., adding pinyin to characters I couldn't pronounce (you can see my annotations for Matilda in e.g. this video; the annotations were from when I was at a late-HSK4 level, but the video was made after I had passed the HSK5).

[markhavemann]

On 12/6/2024 at 9:17 AM, becky82 said:

There's a bit of a balance between sharing what you do, and not being a spammer. 

True, although for me at least, seeing you and others regularly posting stuff that you're doing is inspiring rather than annoying (and I doubt there's a financial incentive to push this kind of niche Chinese language learning content on YouTube). Also, I'd rather see a few too many posts about what people are doing with their Chinese studies instead of "what city should I go to" and "do you think I can get a scholarship" posts (not that there is anything wrong with those posts, they just aren't what keep me coming back to the site). That said, I do appreciate you being hesitant to post links to your own stuff too much.

 

On 12/6/2024 at 9:17 AM, becky82 said:

This says the total length of the videos is:

 

Quote

Total length : 17 hours, 44 minutes, 43 seconds

 

This is such a nice way of recording your reading level at a point in time in such a tangible way. I wish I'd done this for the first book that I ever read so I could compare now. I might do it for the next one I read though.

 

[Wei-Ming 魏明]

I've finished 第三顆子彈 by 張國立. Can't say that it was as good as 炒飯狙擊手, but it was a worthy sequel. It was exciting in some places and even managed to be touching in others. But in the final section it jumped the shark a little too irritatingly for me. And the theme of simple, honest people triumphing over cynical, political villains was just too cliché.  I think 國立's best writing is in dialogues and the ponderings and mutterings of his characters. And he keeps me entertained in his action sequences. All in all, this was worth reading if you already liked 炒飯狙擊手.

 

I always like to make sure I have a slightly challenging Chinese book on my computer, an easy read on my phone, and something on paper pages. So now I need a good paper reading recommendation. Anyone?

[lordsuso]

I also just finished 猫城记, and I really enjoyed it. I knew it was a satire of Chinese society, but I didn't expect it to be as direct and agressive. I definitely wouldn't describe it as science fiction, the setting is irrelevant. I will not dare say it was easy, but I read it just after Jin Yong so I actually experienced it as a pretty relaxed read. So I'm happy I tackled Jin Yong as early as I did, it was brutal but it softened the path down the road.

[liqi]

After much procrastination (and methylphenidate) I finally read beyond page 3 of 撒野! And wow... I suck at it 😆. I don't really struggle with lots of text, but I guess I never really read something literally before either, I don't really understand when the author strings a lot of ideas together in a really long sentence (like when describing an action instead of just doing it). I always knew that I was deeply lacking in grammar, but I didn't expected it to be that bad! It's not intentional, I'm just not really sure how to approach studying it.... I guess I'll just make a giant list of adverbs, prepositions and conjunctions and work from there 🫠. I have another (illegally smuggled) book I bought on 闲鱼, It's a translated Korean novel, seems much easier to read but it's also in traditional 😅. Let's just tackle one problem per time heh