materials to sharpen up my Chinese?

Hi all,

I was born and raised in Hong Kong, but left for Canada when I was 12 after graduating from elementary school. I'm now 30 and have come back to HK for work for a few years now, and since I had stopped learning Chinese in school during my many years in Canada, I feel I need to sharpen up my Chinese, especially the vocab, 四字词, 成语, etc.

The Chinese language is such a beautiful language, that being a Chinese, I feel ashamed for not knowing more about it. Recently I chatted with a Mainlander on QQ and when she said 伯乐, I didn't know what it means. I feel so ashamed of myself. But I try to learn more every day.

Anyway, my question is, is there any website or books you guys recommend for someone like me? Materials that are more advanced for someone who wants to expand his vocab, 四字词, 成语, etc?

Any advice appreciated. TIA.

P.S. That song by 周杰伦 -- 七里香 -- I've heard it many times before, but I didn't realize until today how beautiful the lyrics are. "A picture tells a thousand words"? How about "a word tells a thousand pictures"?

You might want to look at 中国文化中的典型人物与事件　陈贤纯　-编者，北京语言大学出版社。

The book covers a lot of famous events and famous people (including 伯乐). In other words, it provides you with a quick brush up with common historic and cultural refrences that almost all Chinese people know.

It also gives you example sentences of how the refrences are used in modern life.

I suggest reading all of 金庸's novels (reserve and borrow them from our libraries). If you like them you will finish them really quickly. Re-read them again and start to learn from them.

Learning materials are so dry ...

And since you are in HK, unless there are reasons for using the simplified script, why don't you switch to the traditional script?

Good luck.

Thank you both for your recommendations.

To skylee: Which of the 金庸 novels do you recommend? Which one is the most interesting to read?

I'm not really a novel person, although I've read 三国 (the abridged version) a few years ago, a bunch of 卫斯理 and 亦舒 in my teens. Had wanted to read 金庸 but never really found the time nor interest to take it up. Perhaps this is now the excuse I need.

Regarding the simplified script. I use it because I got used to it working with Mainlanders, and because I can learn Mandarin with the pinyin input system. Even when posting on HK forums I use simplified script.

Perhaps you could try 笑傲江湖 first? It has a very interesting story and there are only 4 volumes (unlike the most popular "Condor" series which consists of there stories each of 4 volumes). You may not learn a lot of idioms etc from them but surely you would learn something such as who 令狐沖 is etc. And you would get to enjoy the good story. haha.

I too use pinyin input method (PRC) when I type Chinese. But I have set the output to traditional Chinese. I am one of those people who feel strongly about the need to use traditional Chinese in HK. But nevermind me.