Time for a new blog

We started a new blog a month or so ago to encompass all of our integrated learning through life…Being in Our Element.  This blog was getting old, but will stay up as it has so much information and links for Mandarin learning used by lots of Chinese Teachers 🙂 Most of that stuff is from years ago, so feel free to browse for ideas for learning Mandarin in the class or at home 🙂

Bye for now 🙂

Bù kěyǐ song!

This week at our Mandarin Song and Story Time, we read 大卫, 不可以!(Dàwèi , bù kěyǐ!) the Chinese translated version of ‘No, David!’ by David Shannon.

It is a simple book with the ‘No!’ and ‘’Don’t!’ things that adults often say to children. The illustrations are fun and convey all the meaning needed for reading in a second language, will encourage lots of discussion in both English and Chinese, and lots of repetition in the text to reinforce some key Chinese phrases.

不可以玩食物!(bù kě yǐ wán shí wù) ‘Don’t play with your food!’

Chinese doesn’t really have a word for ‘No!’ So instead the translators have used the modal verb ‘Can’ to translate ‘No’ in this context as ‘You can’t’. When we say ‘can’ in English, it can mean ‘you know how’, or that you ‘are able to’ or that you are ‘allowed to’, all depending on the context. In Chinese, there is a different modal verb for each one…’会 (huì), 能 (néng), and 可以 (kě yǐ)’. It is 可以 kě yǐ that is the one used to say that you are permitted or allowed to do something. At pre-school in China, when teachers are telling kids what ‘not to do’, it is this ‘不可以!’ (bù kěyǐ!) that is used…No! Don’t! For English learners of Chinese, learning how to use these different forms of ‘can’ in Chinese can be tricky. So this book is also great for older students of Chinese to reinforce the usage of one of these ‘can’ modal verbs. It will only take a couple of readings and some fun discussion of the illustrations to remember that ‘不可以!’ is the ‘can’ that means ‘allowed’ or ‘permitted’.

不可以挖鼻孔!(bù kěyǐ wā bíkǒng!) ‘Don’t pick your nose!’

Of course the little ones at our story time will pick all this grammar up naturally just by enjoying the story!

Here is a song to practice singing bù kěyǐ!

可以去吗?不可以!(kěyǐ qù ma? bù kěyǐ!) = Can (I) go? (You) can’t!
可以买吗?不可以!(kěyǐ mǎi ma? bù kěyǐ!) = Can (I) buy (it)? (You) can’t!
以吃吗?不可以!(kěyǐ chī ma? bù kěyǐ!) = Can (I) eat (it)? (You) can’t!
以吗?    不可以!(kěyǐ ma? bù kěyǐ!) = Can (I)…? (You) can’t!

可以看吗?不可以!(kěyǐ kàn ma? bù kěyǐ!) = Can (I) watch (it)? (You) can’t!
可以穿吗?不可以!(kěyǐ chuān ma? bù kěyǐ!) = Can (I) wear (it)? (You) can’t!
可以走了吗?不可以!(kěyǐ zǒu le ma? bù kěyǐ!) = Can (I) leave? (You) can’t!
可以吗?不可以!(kěyǐ ma? bù kěyǐ!) = Can (I)…? (You) can’t!

中秋节歌 Mid Autumn (Moon) Festival Song

Mid Autumn Festival (Or the Moon Festival) is on the 24th Sept this year. Who better than Groovi Pauli to give us a great song and video to learn all about traditions for this festival. You can purchase his ‘Celebrations in Chinese 4 Kids’ that this song comes from on album on iTunes. But here is a video for you, we will be singing this song every week in our Mandarin Song and Story Time till the festival 🙂 We will also tell stories and make some things over the next few weeks to help us learn all about the things in Groovi Pauli’s song 🙂

Here are the lyrics:

月亮月亮圆圆圆 yuè liang yuè liang yuán yuán yuán
(moon, moon, round round round)

月饼月饼香香香 yuè bing yuè bing xiāng xiāng xiāng
(moon cakes, moon cakes, fragrant fragrant fragrant)

嫦娥嫦娥飞飞飞 cháng é cháng é fēi fēi fēi
(Chang-E Chang-E fly fly fly) Chang E is the name of the moon fairy!

中秋中秋中秋节 zhōng qiū zhōng qiū zhōng qiū jié
(Mid-Autumn, Mid-Autumn, Mid-Autumn Festival)

非洲的地缝 African rift!

非洲的地缝 (Fēizhōu de dìféng). We learned today that Kenya all of a sudden started to split…

Here is a picture Lucas made for our big world map…

The text reads:   这里的土地慢慢裂成了两半,一天这一大片地会变成两快。

(Zhèlǐ tǔdì mànmàn lièchéng le liǎng bàn , yī tiān zhè yī dàpiàn dì huì biànchéng liǎng kuài).

‘Here the land is slowly splitting in half, one day this big continent could become two!’

Thanks to Randall Munroe’s Chinese version of the book ‘Thing Explainer’ for sparking our curiosity to learn more about this!

Here are some videos to explain what is happening 🙂

 

 

巧克力‘木制芝士板’! Chocolate Cheese Board!

Kids made a Cheese Board with a twist for their birthday afternoon tea 🙂 Here is a video they made showing some of the steps in Mandarin 🙂

Transcript:

是木制芝士板吗?
看起来像木制芝士板。。。
        牛奶巧克力在烤盘上,像木纹一样。
将软糖   杏仁糖   干果坚果    棉花糖  撒在巧克力上。
添加更多 巧克力!
四公斤巧克力
放在冰箱里让巧克力变硬。
摩擦直到光滑,像木板一样。
乳酪   饼干  草莓  放在巧克力‘木制芝士板’上。
跟朋友一起吃!

shì mùzhì zhīshì bǎn ma
kànqǐlái xiàng mùzhì zhīshì bǎn

lín bái
hēi niúnǎi qiǎokèlì zài kǎopán shàng xiàng mùwén yī yàng
jiāng ruǎntáng
xìngréntáng gānguǒ jiānguǒ miánhuātáng sā zài qiǎokèlì shàng 
tiānjiā gēngduō 
qiǎokèlì
sì gōngjīn qiǎokèlì 

fàng zài bīngxiāng lǐ ràng qiǎokèlì biànyìng

mócā zhídào guānghuá
xiàng mùbǎn yī yàng
rǔlào
  bǐnggān  cǎoméi fáng zài qiǎokèlì ‘ mùzhì zhīshì bǎn ’ shàng
gēn péngyou yīqǐ chī

Is this a wooden cheeseboard?
It looks like one…
Drizzle white, dark and milk chocolate on the tray, like wood grain.
Scatter jelly beans, marzipan, fruit and nuts, and marshmallows on the chocolate.
Add more chocolate!
4 kgs of chocolate
Put in the fridge to set.
Grate and rub till smooth like wood.
Put  cheeses, crackers and strawberries on the chocolate ‘wooden’ cheeseboard

Share with friends!

This is the video that the kids followed to make their Chocolate Cheeseboard if you want to try making your own!

艾德希兰 Ed Sheeran

Ed Sheeran’s Chinese name is 艾德 希兰 (àidé xīlán) or 红头艾德 (hóng tóu àidé) ‘Red Head Ed’.

There are lots of Mandarin cover versions of his songs on YouTube.  So if you like his songs, try searching and singing along to some of them in Mandarin. Singing along to songs in Mandarin is soooo good for Mandarin learners.  You can study the lyrics, or just sing along without knowing word for word…either way it gets Mandarin in your brain!

Here is a cool video of one of his songs ‘Shape of You’, ‘疯狂的爱上你’ (fēng kuáng de ài shàng nǐ), by Echo Lee. Below that is a link to a Mandarin version of Ed’s ‘Perfect’ by Sophie Chen. The lyrics in both videos are in traditional characters, so I have converted them to simplified below the videos for those studying simplified Chinese.  I have also converted to pinyin for your singing along convenience 🙂

Shape of You

去酒吧是因为夜店不是一个
找寻真 爱的 好去处
我和朋友们 喝烈酒 喝得快
超过我们说话 的速度 恩~~
你缓缓的走来 我们开始了邂逅 这感觉
不需任何 理由
相信我 会 握住你的双手
带领你 跟着这节奏
想被对妳共 我苏耀你ㄟ爱
你的出现是因为我的存在
跟着恋爱的节拍
不想今晚这么快 就说掰掰
也许有点坏 慢慢的逼近 将你心房打开
跟着恋爱的节拍
就跟着恋爱的节拍 嗯
我已疯狂的爱上你
像是磁铁的正负极
我的心正在靠近
就想和妳在一起
将你搂进我的怀里
香味还留在被单里
每天发掘你身上不同惊喜
我已疯狂的爱上妳
喔 爱 喔 爱 喔 爱 喔 爱
我已疯狂的爱上你
喔 爱 喔 爱 喔 爱
喔 爱 我已疯狂的爱上你
喔 爱 喔 爱 喔 爱 喔 爱
就想要和你在一起
每天发掘你身上不同惊喜
我已疯狂的爱上你
Verse2
你的美 让我如此沉醉 在每一刻和你的约会
餐厅不需要最贵 只要有你坐陪 都是最甜蜜的滋味
和你在一起的时间 快得好比火箭 好像永远都不会

Qù jiǔbā shì yīnwèi yèdiàn bùshì yīgè
zhǎoxún zhēn’ài de hǎo qùchù
wǒ hé péngyǒumen hē liè jiǔ hē dé kuài
chāoguò wǒmen shuōhuà de sùdù ēn ~~
nǐ huǎn huǎn de zǒu lái wǒmen kāishǐle xièhòu zhè gǎnjué
bù xū rènhé lǐyóu
xiāngxìn wǒ huì wò zhù nǐ de shuāngshǒu
dàilǐng nǐ gēnzhe zhè jiézòu
xiǎng bèi duì nǎi gòng wǒ sū yào nǐei1 ài
nǐ de chūxiàn shì yīnwèi wǒ de cúnzài
gēnzhe liàn’ài de jiépāi
bùxiǎng jīn wǎn zhème kuài jiù shuō bāi bāi
yěxǔ yǒudiǎn huài màn man de bījìn jiāng nǐ xīnfáng dǎkāi
gēnzhe liàn’ài de jiépāi
jiù gēnzhe liàn’ài de jiépāi ń
wǒ yǐ fēngkuáng de ài shàng nǐ
xiàng shì cítiě de zhèng fù jí
wǒ de xīn zhèngzài kàojìn
jiù xiǎng hé nǎi zài yīqǐ
jiāng nǐ lǒu jìn wǒ de huái lǐ
xiāngwèi hái liú zài bèidān lǐ
měitiān fājué nǐ shēnshang bùtóng jīngxǐ
wǒ yǐ fēngkuáng de ài shàng nǎi
ō ài ō ài ō ài ō ài
wǒ yǐ fēngkuáng de ài shàng nǐ
ō ài ō ài ō ài ō ài
wǒ yǐ fēngkuáng de ài shàng nǐ
ō ài ō ài ō ài ō ài
jiù xiǎng yào hé nǐ zài yīqǐ měitiān fājué nǐ shēnshang bùtóng jīngxǐ
wǒ yǐ fēngkuáng de ài shàng nǐ
Verse2
nǐ dì měi ràng wǒ rúcǐ chénzuì zài měi yīkè hé nǐ de yuēhuì
cāntīng bù xūyào zuì guì zhǐyào yǒu nǐ zuò péi dōu shì zuì tiánmì de zīwèi
hé nǐ zài yīqǐ de shíjiān kuài dé hǎobǐ huǒjiàn hǎoxiàng yǒngyuǎn dōu bù huì lèi

Perfect

这样的你
多么神奇
可以让我不顾一切道理
这样的你
多么甜蜜
难以相信这是命中注定

爱上你的我是多年轻
不懂如何珍惜
但这次绝对不放弃

再给我一个吻
感受爱有多深
让你感到我多认真

Baby

点缀了夜晚
天空变璀璨
我找到了答案
原来一切就这么简单
不想要继续隐瞒
只要在你的身边
就能感觉
幸福多么温暖

这样的你
比谁都坚强
想和你分享同个未来
同一个家

爱着你的我虽然年轻
有时有点任性
但这次绝对不放弃

慢慢地靠近你
紧紧地抱着你
让你感到我多认真

Baby

点缀了夜晚
天空变璀璨
我找到了答案
原来一切就这么简单
不想要继续隐瞒
只要在你的身边

Zhèyàng de nǐ
duōme shénqí
kěyǐ ràng wǒ bùgù yīqiè dàolǐ
zhèyàng de nǐ
duōme tiánmì
nányǐ xiāngxìn zhè shì mìngzhòng zhùdìng
ài shàng nǐ de wǒ shì duō niánqīng
bù dǒng rúhé zhēnxī
dàn zhècì juéduì bù fàngqì
zài gěi wǒ yīgè wěn
gǎnshòu ài yǒu duō shēn
ràng nǐ gǎndào wǒ duō rènzhēn
Baby
ài
diǎnzhuìle yèwǎn
tiānkōng biàn cuǐcàn
wǒ zhǎodàole dá’àn
yuánlái yīqiè jiù zhème jiǎndān
bùxiǎng yào jìxù yǐnmán
zhǐyào zài nǐ de shēnbiān
jiù néng gǎnjué
xìngfú duōme wēnnuǎn
zhèyàng de nǐ
bǐ shuí dōu jiānqiáng
xiǎng hé nǐ fēnxiǎng
tóng gè wèilái
tóng yīgè jiā
àizhe nǐ de wǒ suīrán niánqīng
yǒu shí yǒudiǎn rènxìng
dàn zhècì juéduì bù fàngqì
màn man de kàojìn nǐ
jǐn jǐn de bàozhe nǐ
ràng nǐ gǎndào wǒ duō rènzhēn
Baby
ài
diǎnzhuìle yèwǎn
tiānkōng biàn cuǐcàn
wǒ zhǎodàole dá’àn
yuánlái yīqiè jiù zhème jiǎndān
bùxiǎng yào jìxù yǐnmán
zhǐyào zài nǐ de shēnbiān
jiù néng gǎnjué xìngfú duōme wēnnuǎn

杰米奥利弗 Jamie Oliver

My little boy loves cooking, and he loves following Jamie Oliver’s recipes. So when I saw Jamie Oliver’s cook books in China I didn’t hesitate to buy! Integrated English, Health, Maths, Home Economics, Chinese…and the pleasure of making dinner for the family…all wrapped in fun and yummy food!

Jamie’s Chinese name is 杰米奥利弗 Jiémǐ Aolìfú (to see how a Chinese name is made you can click here).  And this book is his 15 minute meals, or 十五分钟开饭 (shíwǔ fēnzhōng kāifàn), literally ’15 minutes serve a meal’.

Lucas loves making a ‘fancy weekend dinner’ for the family, so straight away he looked through the recipes, this is the one he picked to make this weekend for us.  Lucas can follow an English recipe independently with ease now…so I have given him the task of making this dinner for us, with no help from me…from translation, to shopping, to cooking (of course I will go to the shops with him and monitor the stove top cooking bits :-))

‘Glazed sizzling chops with sweet tomato and asparagus lasgnetti’.  So Lucas set to translating the recipe.  Lucas can recognize about 75% of characters in a regular text.  That doesn’t mean he will know 75% of all the ‘words’ in the text, just the ‘characters’ that will make up those words.  His strategy therefore is to type the whole recipe out, using the pinyin for the characters that he knows, and looking up the ones he doesn’t know in a handwriting recognition tool.  Once he has the whole recipe typed out, it is then easy to look up the words that he doesn’t know using online tools.

Some words just don’t come up in even the most updated dictionaries, because new words are being formed all the time in China. As western food products increase in the market, phonetic names are made up for them, and often different areas of China may have different names.  For example 帕尔玛干酪 (pronounced ‘pà ěr mǎ gān lào”, Lucas knew ‘gān lào’ as cheese.  But an element of common sense guessing had to be used with the ‘pà ěr mǎ’ bit…a word in an Italian Pasta recipe…a kind of cheese…it didn’t take long to work out that ‘pà ěr mǎ’ was a phonetic for ‘parmesan’. After spending some time in Kunming, Lucas knows that only a handful of very upmarket supermarkets with international sections would stock such an item as parmesan cheese. So words like these can take a while to appear in online dictionaries.

Next Lucas had to write a shopping list of the ingredients that he needed, taking into account the quantities/measurements and making sure it’s enough for all 4 of us.  So he printed his typed out list and wrote the English over the top. His translation for a ten year old is pretty amazing I think 🙂 (Please note I don’t correct any work of my children as I believe they ‘improve’ without the need of a teacher’s red pen). A few mistakes like writing ‘kg’ instead of ‘g’ they realise themselves…it is much more powerful for kids to find their own mistakes than have a teacher point them out 🙂

The dinner was an absolute hit…and an amazing feeling of accomplishment for Lucas…not only did he prepare, cook and serve a really fancy yummy dinner for our family’s Friday night chill…he had to translate the recipe from Chinese beforehand…some pretty amazing skills being developed 🙂

Ok…the work involved to get this recipe translated, shopped, prepared and on our dinner table was more like 15 hours spread over the week… not 15 minutes 🙂 But who cares…in the moment, meaningful and rewarding learning 🙂

拟声词!Onomatopoeia story and songs

We will read this book this week: 听, 是谁在唱歌? (tīng, shì shéi zài chàng gē ?)  ‘Listen, who is singing?’

It is full of Onomatopoeia, or words that make a sound like the sound they are trying to describe.  They are called  拟声词 (nǐ shēng cí) in Chinese, or literally ‘imitating sound word’.  These are great for young learners of Chinese, because just like in first language acquisition, these words can allow children to explore the ‘sounds’ of a language.  You will notice that most of the characters in the table below for these ‘sound’ words, have the 口 radical on the left side of the character, which is the ‘mouth’ radical…often giving a clue it is an onomatopoeia word!

The children will have to try and guess which animal is making the singing noise!

Below is a table that has a list of the animals in the book, and the animal sounds that the children will enjoy, but till Story Time enjoy this song! The words to the song are far too long to post here, but this link will take you to them 🙂 You will note some of the animal sounds in the song are a little different to some of the animals in the book…like the Rooster goes ‘ wowo’ in the book and ‘o o’ in the song…but just like animal noises in English…there is no law!

here are the animals in the book:

Cow niú Moo 哞哞 mōu mōu
Duck 鸭子 yā zi Quack 嘎嘎 gā gā
Dog gǒu Wuff 汪汪 wāng wāng
Cat māo Meow 喵喵 miāo miāo
Lion 狮子 shī zi Roar 嗷呜 áo wū
Sheep yáng Baa miē
Rooster 公鸡 gong jī Crow 喔喔 wōwo
Horse Neigh 嘶嘶 sī sī
Pig zhū Oink 哼哼 hēng hēng
Frog 青蛙 qīng wā Croak 呱呱 guā guā

Here is another more familiar song to help us make those animal sounds!  The first sound in the song is a chicken, which is not in our book (we have a rooster in our book crowing ‘wōwō!’. The chicken says 叽叽 ‘jījī’, more like the ‘cheep cheep’ sound of a baby chicken.  Lyrics to the song are under the video. Old MacDonald in Chinese is 老王先生 lǎo wáng xiānsheng, the ‘lǎo’ is a polite address of a senior, the ‘wáng’ is his surname, and ‘xiānsheng’ is the word for ‘Mr.’ In Chinese we say ‘Wang Mr’, not ‘Mr Wang’ 🙂  Enjoy!

wáng lǎo xiān shēng yǒu kuài dì yī yā yī yā yōu

地,

tā zài tián lǐ yǎng xiǎo yī yā yī yā yōu

zhè lǐ jī jī jī nà lǐ jī jī jī

叽叽叽 叽叽叽

zhè lǐ nà lǐ dào chù dōu zài jī jī

叽叽

wáng lǎo xiān shēng yǒu kuài dì yī yā yīyā yōu

地,

Literal English Translation:

Farmer Wang had a plot of land, yiya yiya yo

On his land he raised little chicks yiya yiya yo

With a cheep cheep here, and a cheep cheep there,

Here a cheep, there a cheep, everywhere a cheep cheep

Farmer Wang had a plot of land, yiya yiya yo

Whose bottom? and Handkerchief Game!

We love stories and songs about bottoms 🙂 So we will read 谁的屁股? (shéi de pìgu) ‘Whose Bottom?’ this week, Wednesday 10am in our Mandarin Song and Story Time. For more posts on bottoms check out our wiping bottoms page, who did the poo page, tones and poo page, and poos and water page!

We will also play the traditional Chinese game ‘Hide the Hanky’ as long as it is not raining!  There is a version of the song that accompanies the game below, together with the lyrics for you.

hide-hanky2

 

丢手巾丢手巾,轻轻地放在,小朋友的后面,大家不要告诉他,快点快点捉住他,快点快点捉住他

diū shǒu jīn diū shǒu jīn , qīng qīng de fàng zài , xiǎo péng yǒu de hòu mian , dà jiā bù yào gào su tā , kuài diǎn kuài diǎn zhuō zhù tā , kuài diǎn kuài diǎn zhuō zhù tā

Drop the hanky, drop the hanky, lightly put the hanky behind a friend, everybody don’t tell him/her, quickly quickly catch him/her, quickly quickly catch him/her.

Chinese teachers wishing to get their students to explain how to play the game in Chinese could show this video:

The simplified script is :

不知道小朋友有没有玩过丢手巾?那是一种小朋友玩的游戏。游戏的方式很容易。只要几位小朋友围成一个圈。另一个小朋友拿着手巾放在他们后面。谁拿到手巾就要追回放手巾的那位小朋友。

hide-hanky

See you Wednesday 🙂

家 Family: Mandarin Motion Song and Story Time Wed 21st June 2017

We will read all about family over next few weeks.  We might start with this one for our next story time 袋鼠也有妈妈吗? (dài shǔ yě yǒu mā ma ma?) ‘Does a Kangaroo have a mother too? ‘ by Eric Carle.  Some vocab from the book is at the bottom of this blog post.

 

Here is a video Aurora made for our ‘I love my family song’ that we sometimes sing in class.  We have included this song for many years in our story times, the kids learned it when they were little from the ‘Better Chinese: My first Chinese Words’ series.  Hope you like Aurora’s production of it:

 

Here are the words to the song:

wǒ ài wǒ de bà ba

wǒ ài wǒ de mā ma

wǒ ài wǒ de gē ge

wǒ ài wǒ de jiě jie

wǒ ài wǒ de jiā

Translation:

I love my Dad, I love my Mum, I love my older brother, I love my older sister, I love my family.

The second time around the words 哥哥 (gē ge) big brother’ 姐姐 (jiě jie)  big sister’ are replaced with 弟弟 (dì di) little brother’ and 妹妹 (mèi mei) little sister’.

Here is a little bit of the Kangaroo book for reference of vocab:

dàishǔ yě yǒu māma ma? yǒu! dàishǔ yǒu māma

jiù xiàng wǒ yǒu nǐ yě yǒu.

袋鼠有妈妈吗? 有!袋鼠有妈妈,

就像我有你也有。

Literal translation: Does a kangaroo also have a mother? Yes (has), a kangaroo has a mother, just like I have and you have too.

This is the same each page, just replace kangaroo (red highlighted) with following animals:

狮子 shīzi lion 长颈鹿 chángjǐnglù giraffe 企鹅 qǐ’é penguin 天鹅 tiān’é swan 狐狸 húli fox 海豚 hǎitún dolphin 绵羊 miányáng sheep xióng bear 大象 dàxiàng elephant 猴子 hóuzi monkey