Practicing humble tasks

[abcdefg]

Early on I learned an "Imron Principle" that has proved very useful. He urged that we practice the skills we hope to master. Seems obvious, but is often overlooked in the dash or struggle towards language proficiency. Simple can sometimes be profound.

 

As someone interested in food and cooking, I pick up the weekly "specials" flier at the entrance to Walmart when I go to shop. These kick around on the coffee table in my living room or on the kitchen table for a week or two. I study them like a textbook, learning common names for foodstuffs, ingredients, seasonings, drinks, woks, rice cookers and other counter top small kitchen appliances. Along the way I pick up names for common brands. Eventually I toss these all out and start collecting new ones. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I get my purchases home, I read the cash register tape, trying to figure out what I've paid for what. Sometimes things are abbreviated and I have to scratch my head. Gradually this process has become faster and I do it quickly the first time while I'm still in the check-out area of the store. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Do the same with menus at restaurants I visit. Particularly like the ones with pictures. I typically put a copy in my pocket and study it when I get home and the dishes are still fresh in my mind. More and more restaurants have these "disposable" menus, partly for use by take-out customers. Then I refer to them when I'm thinking about making a dish or going out somewhere to sample a new version. When I can pick one up and read it well enough without the help of a dictionary, I throw it out. The goal is to let me read new menus at a glance, scanning quickly for things I might like to try. 

 

   

           

 

Sometimes a special opportunity presents, such as this one at KFC where they were highlighting all the spices that they use in making a new signature crawfish dish, 小龙虾。They list the the spices (bottom of picture) along with pictures of them. Good for a review. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I suppose all these tasks could be done in a completely digital form, but I find that having the actual paper copies around the house leads me to pick them up for just a couple of minutes of casual review. Seeing them serves as a reminder. I do browse lots and lots of Chinese recipes on line, not having any Chinese cookbooks. As I read these materials, I put new words automatically into a Pleco review queue and hit them a few times more on my phone as flashcards when I'm sitting on the bus or waiting my turn at the bank or otherwise just killing time. 

 

Small things like this are all around us while living in China. Paying attention to them and using them to build useful vocabulary is an easy thing to do and it's one way to get full value from your "immersion dollar." It's not a glamorous process or one you can brag about back home; but as a refinement of "survival Chinese" it's kind of fun and relatively painless. 

 

 

[889]

Yes. I also like to read: notices and warnings, tickets (including the reverse), bottle labels, signs of all sorts, sad missing people flyers, etc.

 

So if you see someone at a Metro station somewhere in China with their nose up against the wall trying to read the passenger rules and regulations, it's probably me.

[Bibu]

• one question ? would you guess the hanzi that you do not recognize?
• if yes, by radical, by context?
• do you know "望文生义?

 

Happy 2019 to all!!

[889]

Ages ago using a paper dictionary I relied on radicals a lot. Now, I usually first try to make a reasoned guess of the Pinyin, and if that fails I'll probably try to write it out on Pleco or the like.

 

And so if I just type wangwen into Pleco I get the answer.

 

Of course it's easy to make mistakes by taking a text too literally sometimes, but the sort of formal stuff I tend to read like those notices usually can be taken literally.

[abcdefg]

@Bibu -- I use the 889 method. Plus the pictures help immensely. My personal rules for understanding Chinese are similar to my rules for gunfighting. Number one is "always cheat, always win." 

 

 

[889]

Poker, too?

[abcdefg]

Quote

Poker, too?

 

On counsel's advice, I invoke my right under the fifth amendment...  

[roddy]

Any of these, by the way, would make ideal Signese posts. 

[agewisdom]

Excellent post. Learn by doing.

 

Now, I've got to think on to apply this to my own learning.

[Shelley]

When I lived in Montreal, Canada everything and I mean everything is written in French and English. While sitting on the bus or the metro or just about anywhere you had 5 min I would read both, food packaging was very enlightening. and increased my vocabulary.

It did make smile that even the doors had push and pull in both languages, things like exit signs and all the common sorts of things were all in both languages, I always wondered as a kid why they didn't come up with a common picture everyone understood. All signs were twice as big as they needed to be.

 

 

[Bibu]

21 hours ago, abcdefg said:

, I invoke my right under the fifth amendment... 

could u shed a light on these words? my poor English is not enough to interpret it...

[Bibu]

23 hours ago, 889 said:

ges ago using a paper dictionary I

 This is not the guess work i refer. 

 

No Dict, no Pleco, just by the context and the character (radicals  of course) , and figure out the meaning of it...this is 望文生义

[889]

It's called "taking the Fifth," because under the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, no person "shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself."

 

 

[abcdefg]

23 minutes ago, 889 said:

It's called "taking the Fifth," because under the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, no person "shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself."

 

And I used the phrase in jest, because I would never cheat at cards. 

 

I do, however, "cheat" by using the pictures which accompany text to help me understand meaning. 

[imron]

16 hours ago, agewisdom said:

Excellent post. Learn by doing.

Here's a discussion of this particular "Imron Principle"

[agewisdom]

46 minutes ago, imron said:

Here's a discussion of this particular "Imron Principle"

 

Excellent. I'm bookmarking the post in question! ?