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nnozomi・Sometimes I think Dreamwidth is essentially an updated decentralized form of Mass-Observation. (This is a good thing; I love the M-O diaries etc., and there's something of the same pleasure in reading various people's accounts of their everyday lives here.)
・Lots of work (much of it actually interesting, which is good, but bad timing), health so-so, not writing nearly as much as I should, although the characters are still there in my head. In August if I don't have a lot of work I might just try and declare a week of all-day writing and see how much I can do.
・The supermarket here sells fruit vinegars in the summer, so I bought a bottle of lemon vinegar and have been drinking it with lemon seltzer over ice; excellent quasi-lemonade, not too sweet, not too tart.
Assorted Chinese-related fun
・Talking to Yu-jie, we found that the Yiddish proverb kleine kinder, kleine tsuris; grosse kinder, grosse tsuris (little children little troubles, big children big troubles) translates very smoothly into Chinese (小孩子小麻烦，大孩子大麻烦); cultural overlap...
・From a-Pei: in Taiwan people say "who's been eating pineapples?" when they're super busy, because 凤梨 pineapple sounds the same in Taiwanese as 旺来, thriving business. So doctors, cops etc. are supposed to avoid eating it...
・I'm still totally absorbed with the active version of Anki, where it gives me a sentence in English and I type in the Chinese and it tells me if my answer matches; it's ideal practice, repetitive but not boring, letting me choose how often to repeat a given sentence (roughly) and, unlike Duolingo and its dumb judgments, whether or not it's right.
・Speaking of Duolingo, my session this morning had the following exchange.
Duolingo: 在我的女朋友来之前，我有什么必须要做的？
Me: What do I have to do before my girlfriend comes?
Duolingo: Correct!
Me: ... ... maybe just ask her what feels good to her?
・One gets spoiled by how easy things are to find on YouTube. I heard Liu Chang singing something I liked (晚婚, a c-pop standard on the old-fashioned side?), went looking for it (I’m kind of pleased with myself for having reached the point where I can hear enough of the lyrics to google a line successfully) and found several versions, none of which hold a candle to Liu Chang’s rendition as far as I’m considered (seriously, his high note on 他能不能...<3 🎵). The only thing is, it’s only available in the middle of much longer videos on B站, so it’s kind of hard to recommend to anyone. (To do so anyway, it’s from about 33:20 to 38:10 here.)
・Photos: I don't seem to have a lot lately, but here are some nice cool ones: a pond at the university up on the hill, some flowers oddly enough named Takarazuka, my latest veranda bounty.
Be safe and well.
・Lots of work (much of it actually interesting, which is good, but bad timing), health so-so, not writing nearly as much as I should, although the characters are still there in my head. In August if I don't have a lot of work I might just try and declare a week of all-day writing and see how much I can do.
・The supermarket here sells fruit vinegars in the summer, so I bought a bottle of lemon vinegar and have been drinking it with lemon seltzer over ice; excellent quasi-lemonade, not too sweet, not too tart.
Assorted Chinese-related fun
・Talking to Yu-jie, we found that the Yiddish proverb kleine kinder, kleine tsuris; grosse kinder, grosse tsuris (little children little troubles, big children big troubles) translates very smoothly into Chinese (小孩子小麻烦，大孩子大麻烦); cultural overlap...
・From a-Pei: in Taiwan people say "who's been eating pineapples?" when they're super busy, because 凤梨 pineapple sounds the same in Taiwanese as 旺来, thriving business. So doctors, cops etc. are supposed to avoid eating it...
・I'm still totally absorbed with the active version of Anki, where it gives me a sentence in English and I type in the Chinese and it tells me if my answer matches; it's ideal practice, repetitive but not boring, letting me choose how often to repeat a given sentence (roughly) and, unlike Duolingo and its dumb judgments, whether or not it's right.
・Speaking of Duolingo, my session this morning had the following exchange.
Duolingo: 在我的女朋友来之前，我有什么必须要做的？
Me: What do I have to do before my girlfriend comes?
Duolingo: Correct!
Me: ... ... maybe just ask her what feels good to her?
・One gets spoiled by how easy things are to find on YouTube. I heard Liu Chang singing something I liked (晚婚, a c-pop standard on the old-fashioned side?), went looking for it (I’m kind of pleased with myself for having reached the point where I can hear enough of the lyrics to google a line successfully) and found several versions, none of which hold a candle to Liu Chang’s rendition as far as I’m considered (seriously, his high note on 他能不能...<3 🎵). The only thing is, it’s only available in the middle of much longer videos on B站, so it’s kind of hard to recommend to anyone. (To do so anyway, it’s from about 33:20 to 38:10 here.)
・Photos: I don't seem to have a lot lately, but here are some nice cool ones: a pond at the university up on the hill, some flowers oddly enough named Takarazuka, my latest veranda bounty.
Be safe and well.
no subject
Date: 2022-07-20 12:51 pm (UTC)Edited to add that apparently vinegar is another thing you eat rather than drink in Mandarin: 吃醋
no subject
Date: 2022-07-20 11:12 pm (UTC)哈哈哈 omigod, I never thought of that but you're so right. (I wonder why 吃, who knows.)
no subject
Date: 2022-07-21 12:59 am (UTC)