Tag: mandarin chinese tutor

Draw it Out

Published on by Zhi-Juan Guo

—how were Chinese Characters created? Part One

So the courteous Chinese man, after taking his bow, went on looking into himself. He looks at his hand, his face, his eye, his nose, his mouth, his ear, his body, his heart and even his eyebrow: he is determined to know himself: a human.

And to the best of his ability, he draws out the part of himself he sees and examines.

First the hand. How do you draw a hand? Everyone, in an idle minute, must have put their hand on a piece of paper and traced it. Indeed the very first pieces of arts we could trace are little hands imprinted on a rock:

Does not it look like so many humans, so many brave new people, in the very beginning of human race, in the most innocent and frank manner screaming out: I AM HERE! And ten thousand years later, we could still hear them!

The Chinese man looked at his hand and thought it’s a good idea to trace it too, only he did it in a slightly different manner:

And for a very long time, this image served as the symbol for the hand.

With time it evolves to:

Next he went to a clear river and looked at his own face. He came up with images like these:

Being an abstract artist, at first he draws an eye, puts a frame around it to mean the whole face.

With time, it evolves into this:

Does not this woman’s face intimate the character?

Or the face of this honest-looking, square-faced, big-eared man?

The Chinese man, after giving himself a good long look, went on looking up and down, right and left, till he draws out a picture for the sky, the sun, the moon, the tree, the fish, the ox…..indeed, he looks, he sees and he draws.

How many can you guess right? From left to right: moon, rain, mouth, ox, goat, wagon(car), boat, spring(water), melon.

So the Chinese man sticks to himself; so the Chinese man sticks to nature. There is no god in his thinking and there is no god in his drawing. There is, though, an infinite intimacy with the man himself, an infinite intimacy with all the things that are around him: nature, animals, all things living, all things he could see.

This is the character for sky. The Chinese man looks up and sees an enormous square, a roof above his head.

So we say the Chinese man has nature in his very blood and soul–there are thousands of poems and paintings to prove it. So we say there is a solid practicality in the craziest Chinese man: that man is part of nature; that man needs food; that food for every mouth means peace.

Speak to Me

Published on by Zhi-Juan Guo

“Put me down!” The little tyrant demanded in her small voice, kicking her tiny legs– indeed cute as a little daisy she was, and looked no more than three years old. The dad–giant he looked in contrast with the infantile figure–set the tyrant on the ground with nervous haste: you could tell, from his clumsy movements and his uneasiness, that he must be a first timer, and did not yet quite know how to best serve his little daisy.

Now the balloon on the stroller somehow untangled itself and threatened to flee, the dad caught it just in time, but the little tyrant snatched the string from the giant’s hand. Out she spoke: “My balloon!” Then she emphasized: “Mine!” And off she carried her treasure and out she strode in mighty steps in front of the giant her slave.

Words must be a kind of magic for children when they are learning language: you say a thing, and it’s done; you claim a thing, and it’s yours. You could direct and demand and assert by simply opening your mouth and utterring some sounds.

Next to the striding little daisy with her smiley face of a red balloon, were two dogs sniffing each other, then all of sudden, upon some sign only they themselves could sense, amity turned into enmity, and they started barking. The two owners, while pulling the leashes and trying to calm their dogs down, greeted each other good morning and talked about the weather:

“It’s so humid!”

“I know! It’s awful! It’s been humid this whole summer!”

While the dogs could only bark, their owners–human–could make a lot more complicated sounds that they call language. And without knowing it or much thinking about it, these two humans followed a few principles of communication: they exchanged information, they cooperated with each other, and even in so small a talk–only two lines indeed before they passed out of each other’s way–there was a sense of mutual goodwill.

It sets you wondering what is the very first sound, the very first word, human made that could be called language–it is, when you think about it, not surprising that in almost every language the word for mother sounds similar: mama. There must be a long period of barking, hissing, granting, roaring, piping…before humans could express themselves properly.

And the need must be the drive behind it. The little girl commanded “put me down” for her desire, perhaps, to walk by herself. And in the very beginning of human existence, it must be the need to exchange information that sets off the creating of language. At last they could say to each other: the pond on the north has more fish in it, and tomorrow there is a storm coming you’d better shelter yourself.

“Language learning is both socially motivated and socially constructed.” Said an eminent language teacher. “Looking for ways of exploiting the learning opportunities offered by the raw materials of the classroom, that is the language that emerges from the needs, interests, concerns and desires of the people(the students) in the room.”

This concept also concers with a language learning method developed in the 1950s: PPP which stands for Presentation, Practice and Production.

Which basically, if I could use learning to ride a bike as a metaphor (after all, learning languages and learning to ride a bike have some similarities: it’s a skill, and when you learn a skill, you need to practice, practice, practice), means I (the teacher) show you how to ride a bike, you( the student) imitate a few times what I just showed you, then you(the student) are put out on the road( the real situation) to ride the bike with the skill you just learned while I (the teacher) guide and correct and help to improve.

And ideally the Production part–the stage you are put out on the road–should be by far the largest part of the lesson, which means you have to swim to learn to swim. And you have to speak to learn to speak.

So we could begin with a new word, we could warm up by making a few sentences with this new word, then maybe you could start really speaking to me, say something you really want to express, something that you are dying to tell, some information you have to pass on, some emotions you must vent…… Speak to me.