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Dear Colleagues, I've put together a - what I thought would be - list of REDS for those who are interested in Chinese grammar and usage, partially for fun and partially to share thoughts on ... I'd like to point out that I wrote this piece without looking at any references except checking the accuracy of the last bit of the dialogue on the Internet with a bit of tongue in cheek. Hence oversights will appear. However, I'd like to give my thanks to those who have contributed to the enrichment of the Chinese language, and make acknowledgments to those who have first used and/or invented all the entries made here. As for teaching Chinese, the way of teaching is decided by many factors which include age, background, expectations, objectives, etc. Yin Cai Shi Jiao is important. However, in the first few weeks, Effective Communication is always a priority - in my humble opinion. Teaching Idiomatically Correct Chinese and pinning down the precise meaning of an element by putting it in the context have served me well; others may have their own tricks of the trade. Very best wishes to all, Cc -----Original Message----- From: Mandarin Chinese Teaching [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Qiao Liang Sent: 2007年11月11日 10:02 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Your views Many thanks for Cai Chun's contribution. This is what I meant by semantics as in Chinese, RED colour can be associated with some other meanings eg. 'Hong Hai Zi' 'Hong Ren' they don't really mean the physical red colour. This is just like BLUE in English another teacher contributed. Many thanks for everyone's contribution to make this discussion so interesting. Have a nice Sunday. qiao --On 10 November 2007 22:03 +0000 "Cai, Chun" <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Dear Chinese Teachers, > > If you ARE interested in GRAMMAR, then perhaps you might want to consider > to open the attachment. Before you do, there is a number of things to > clarify: > > 1. It is not an attempt to compile an exhaustive list of colours > 2. It is an attempt to share ideas > 3. The list is entirely composed out of memory, hence errors will occur > 4. I've had so much fan in writing it out > > I thank those who have provided the impetus for me to look into the > matter. > > With my very best wishes, > > Cc > > -----Original Message----- > From: Mandarin Chinese Teaching > [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Qiao Liang > Sent: 2007?11?8? 22:11 > To: [log in to unmask] > Subject: Re: Your views > > I am surprised that you all said that this sentence could be accepted > because it is 'grammatically correct'. How about semantics? Do we > actually say it like this in Chinese? (Surely this is not a good English > sentence.) Are we teaching our children to speak nonsense so long as it > is grammatically acceptable? I think everyone knows in languages there > are many exceptions to the rules of grammar so we as teachers should not > over emphasis the use of grammar in our teaching especially to our young > children. Most English children, as far as I know, are already very > confused by their English grammar so we should keep our grammar as simple > as possible. Unfortunately not many English people nowadays know the term > of 'predictive' except linguists. I think we should teach our learners > not only grammatically correct but also semantically sound Chinese > sentences. This is only my personal view, please let me know your > comment. Many thanks for your attention. > Qiao > University of Sussex > > --On 07 November 2007 23:18 +0800 Cheryl Huang <[log in to unmask]> > wrote: > >> >> Grammatically correct. If a student make a sentence such as this. I >> would accept it is a correct sentence, especially for the primary school >> pupils. (And give the pupil a good thumb up for the effort!) And it(the >> sentence) would work when talking about pictures, stories or some comic >> situations anyway. One might like to help them rephrase it to make a >> clearer context. Otherwise, it is nothing wrong to make a sentence that >> might seem a bit silly in a native speaker's ears. To my view, it is >> fine! For more able pupils, one can help making the sentence with more >> details, such as ÎÒÊǺìÉ«Í··¢µÄÅ®º¢. or ÎÒÊÇ´©ºìÉ«Ò·þµÄÄǸöÅ®º¢£¬ ... >> Let's not forget languages are also about creativity. >> >> Cheryl >> >> >> Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2007 14:24:08 +0000From: >> [log in to unmask]: Re: Your viewsTo: >> [log in to unmask] >> >> >> Dear Colleagues, I think you have already made that a bit complcated. if >> just talked about grammar, there is nothing with context of the sentence. >> ÎÒÊǺìÉ«Å®º¢. is grammatically correct, sub+ predicate + object, but >> maybe has many meanings which can not be changed to ÎÒÊǸöºìÉ«µÄÅ®º¢×Ó¡£ >> also, there is nothing with numbers of characters as your explanation. >> hope it is helpful. george> Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2007 11:51:14 +0000> From: >> [log in to unmask]> Subject: Re: Your views> To: >> [log in to unmask]> > Dear Isabella,> > In my >> humble view, '¡£' would be idiomatically better. > > Generally - from the >> top of my head - if the colour adjective has one only character, you may >> use it right before a noun, eg, ºìÅ®º¢; °×³ÄÉÀ. If there are two or more >> characters, you would like to use É«µÄ as a sort of suffix, eg, >> ÉîÀ¶É«µÄ³ÄÉÀ.> > However, there are exceptions - ÎÒ°®ÕâÀ¶É«µÄº£Ñó... or >> the repetitive form: À¶À¶µÄÌìÉÏ°×ÔÆÆ®¡£> > If there is a metaphor >> character before the colour, ie, Ñ©°×, »ðºì etc, then µÄ is commonly >> used: »ðºìµÄÄê´ú.> > It would be easier if you could provide a context, >> then the choice of words would be far more precise.> > We are talking >> about Modern Standard Chinese, not hangovers from Classical Chinese of >> course. ÎÒÊǺìÉ«Å®º¢¡£> > ×£ºÃ¡£> > Cc> > -----Original Message-----> >> From: Mandarin Chinese Teaching >> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Isabella >> Teng> Sent: 2007Äê11ÔÂ6ÈÕ 21:06> To: >> [log in to unmask]> Subject: Your views> > > > I >> would appreciate it very much, if you could give me any comments, in >> terms of accuracy, on the sentence below. > > I also put the pinyin down >> in case you cannot read the characters: W¨¯ sh¨¬ h¨®ng s¨¨ n¨· h¨¢i.> > >> This is just a single sentence, there is no context with the sentence.> > >> > > > Thank you in anticipation.> > > > Isabella Teng> > >> __________________________________________________> Do You Yahoo!?> Tired >> of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around > >> http://mail.yahoo.com >> >> Help yourself to FREE treats served up daily at the Messenger Caf¨¦. 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