podcast episode 51

51. The Children of the Corn Sing Beatles Songs

Podcast Duration: 00:50:33

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The Mandarin Blueprint Podcast focuses primarily on The Mandarin Blueprint Method online curriculum. Creators Luke Neale & Phil Crimmins answer questions and comments, discuss topics related to China and Mandarin learning, and have special guests.

51. The Children of the Corn Sing Beatles Songs

09:20 Props!

This blog post explains the theory behind props and Chinese character components.

ALINA DANA COROIAN ON “PICK A PROP 代“

Dragon Zakura substitute teacher (from “Dragon Zakura” Japanese movies).
Probably there are not many persons here watching Asian movies but still may be of help for someone else someday.

ALINA DANA COROIAN ON “PICK A PROP 手“

Buddha’s Hand – it masters many fighting techniques, also it can come from the sky like a huge squashing hand. After disappearing it leaves a huge hand print carved into the floor
Prop inspired form an old movie ”Buddha Hand (Kung Fu Hustlle)”, which I remember it was some kind of comedy.

MATEUSZ STRZELECKI ON “PICK A PROP 句“

Harry Potter writing with the black quill ‘I must not tell lies’ sentences is a good prop for me ?

DANIEL LÉO SIMPSON ON “PICK A PROP 占“

Looks like an old-fashioned coffee grinder

ALINA DANA COROIAN ON “PICK A PROP 用 “

Corkscrew

ALINA DANA COROIAN ON “PICK A PROP 旦“

Prop for 旦 Goddess Eos (dawn goddess in Greek Mythology, described with rosy fingers or rosy forearms as she opens the gates of heaven for the Sun to rise.)

ALINA DANA COROIAN ON “PICK A PROP 木“

I thought of mythological “World Tree” Yggdrasil as a possibility but finally went with the violet huge Tree of Souls from the Avatar movie because it seems more visual to me.

ERIN ON “PICK A PROP 云“

I’ve got this one as a cloud made out of pink cotton candy that is lighting up like the type of lightning that only sparks inside the cloud. This gives me so many sensory elements : the taste & feel of cotton candy, plus memories of watching storm clouds.

JACK BRADY ON “PICK A PROP 乙“

I chose Zed from League of Legends. prop looks like a Z. plenty of emotion tied to me getting one shot as Vayne against Zed.

JACK BRADY ON “PICK A PROP 乞“

it looks like a knight from chess. facing to the left with a piece of armour guarding its nose. this is the prop i used.

KENNETH MORGAN ON “PICK A PROP 相“

Egyptian plover birds pick leeches off crocodiles’ gums even standing in their mouths as the crocodiles lie calmly with jaws wide open. So, I’ll use a crocodile for this prop.

RIVER NIXON ON “PICK A PROP 子“

Isaac and Malachai, from the movie Children of the Corn, are both burned into my brain. A good example of a movie seen at too young of an age, but both are completely unforgettable. I went with, Isaac.

RIVER NIXON ON “PICK A PROP 寸“

I went with Hedwig from “Hedwig and the Angry Inch.” A memorable character to say the least!

RIVER NIXON ON “PICK A PROP 才“

A bike pictured from behind leaning on a kickstand (from behind because most kickstands are located on the left).

NATHALY DEVIA ON “PICK A PROP 乙“

The character looks like the number 2 ?

20:15 Actors! 

This blog post explains the theory behind actors and Pinyin Initials.

ALINA DANA COROIAN ON “CASTING CALL ZHU- 39/55“

Zhulong (Chinese Torch Dragon) – giant red solar dragon and god in Chinese mythology. It supposedly had a human’s face and snake’s body, created day and night by opening and closing its eyes, and created seasonal winds by breathing.

21:40 Movies! 

This blog post explains the theory behind Movie Scenes and learning characters.

ERIN ON “MAKE A MOVIE 周“

This one was a little tough to put together with the props. I eventually landed on my ZH actor outside the entrance of my -OU place handing out flyers for a performance this WEEK only.
I then have him performing inside a giant glass cover, miming behind the glass. Inside the glass is a giant rolling stones mouth, which he then uses as a swing.
He then jumps from the mouth to a giant pot of soil (which is above the mouth). He burrows himself inside and starts sprouting.
At the end of the week, he closes shop.
Adding the Beatles’ song “Eight Days A Week” to my scene also helped anchor the meaning to my movie. I used it to make a ‘montage’ of the different days of the week he did his performance.

24:07

GREGG REED ON “MAKE A MOVIE 走“

Zach Galifianakis is in the living room of my grandmother’s house. He is fascinated by a rocket launcher on the ground and decides to pick it up. He gets excited at how cool it is, but in doing so accidentally fires a rocket causing the room to explode. He ascends to heaven where a large cross is before him. In the background, Kanye West’s song, Jesus Walks, is playing. As he starts to nods along to the song, Jesus himself walks by.

28:00

IJA AMRAHI ON “MAKE A MOVIE 南“

Actor : Neil Armstrong
Set : My anatomy lab
Props : Syringe, Glass cover, A docked sheep (sheep with shortened tail, a common practice in sheep farming)

Neil Armstrong has finally retired from collecting specimens on the moon and is now collecting animal specimens on earth. During his visit to New Zealand, he was given a sheep by a friend named William Edmeades. Neil is now in the hallway of my anatomy lab, prepping the sheep for taxidermy.

But since sheep with shorter tails are super cute, he decides to keep the sheep alive under a giant glass cover with a syringe on the outside for feeding. Now, whenever he looks at the cute sheep, Neil is reminded of all the preciousssss memories he had down south.

30:15

ALINA DANA COROIAN ON “MAKE A MOVIE 呆“

Possible useful suggestions for script:
Nirvana – “Dumb” song
“Dumb and dumber” movie

30:42 Miscellaneous

REBECCA WHEBLE ON “COMPOUND FINAL IE (YE): 也 YĚ,我也是 WÓ YĚ SHÌ“

I’m from NZ and I was thinking it sounded just like yeah!

31:47

KATHLEEN GANS ON “ANKI DECK(S) INSIDE – REQUIRED: ANOTHER SRS LEVEL-UP!“

I’ve started the first few grammar building Anki cards today. I have noticed that in the audio recordings sometimes two third tone words follow each other and rather than making the first word second tone, both are kept third tone, but with a short pause between them. The sentence 我的马很胖。seems to be an example where both 马 and 很 sound like they’re third tone. This sentence is within the first 20 grammar building sentences of level 13. See the audio files from the card:
我{{c1::的}}马很胖。[sound:rec1544500544.mp3][sound:rec1544860490.mp3]

35:30

FRED SNYDER ON “UNIT 5 WRAP-UP“

I have a problem pronouncing the initial C together with the finals ao, and ai. Any suggestions?

Thanks

37:20

ERIN ON “NEW VOCABULARY UNLOCKED! 认为 “

This Wei seems to be a second tone rather than a fourth. Is this character pronounced both in second and fourth tones? If so, what is the meaning of this second tone Wei? Thanks!

39:35

ALINA DANA COROIAN ON “IT’S A WORD!“

Is it a hint why 你干的工作不错。 is translated in past and not in present ? It happened to me a few times to translate simple sentences like that into present but than I see other people make them past. I have no hint why.

41:30

CLAYTON LEE ON “IT’S A WORD! 江“

What’s the difference between 河 and 江?

42:25

ERIN ON “NEW VOCABULARY UNLOCKED! 以为“

I don’t understand how 以 (by means of) + 为 (for) come together to mean to think mistakenly. Sometimes the meaning of words like this with two or more characters don’t always make sense based on the definition of each separate character. Do you have tips for these kinds of compound words ?

45:05

JACK BRADY ON “BONUS: STRATEGY IS EVERYTHING WHILE LEARNING CHINESE“

“We’re not ingrained. We’re just a couple of fellas who had enough of the nonsense teaching materials out there and decided to change it.”

and somehow a couple fellas have done a better job than tens of thousands of academics around the world.

47:10

FRED SNYDER ON “(BONUS) HOW TO FIND & FIX PRONUNCIATION PROBLEMS“

Great summary of helpful resources! Have you considered listing some helpful external tools as part of “resources?” I particularly would like to know where I can get Chinese movies. Have found Viki with many free TV series and movies. Some have “learning mode.” Would welcome others.

Let me share another resource I found. “DimSum” at Mandarin Tools particularly the Chinese reading assistant and dictionary. Another free tool is “praat” – Dutch for to speak. It does a frequency analysis of audio input. This one is a little “techie” but may be of interest to you.

48:33

ALINA DANA COROIAN ON “LEARN MANDARIN BOTTOM-UP & TOP-DOWN“

Thank you so much for sharing your experience ! It gives me courage and hope. Two years ago I began to study Chinese and even if just as a hobby I was very passionate about it. I attended a course once a week having a native Chinese teacher and in 2 month I passed HSK 1 exam with maximum scores. BUT after that the real struggle began. I wanted to progress but every method I tried by myself finally proved REALLY useless, objectively speaking. I’ve tried some of the ways you talked about here, including tenaciously writing again and again pages full of the same characters…and just when thinking I know them, I was discovering after a few weeks it was just a sand castle. I could not remember things like was it “human legs” or “animal legs” ?? And so many details without which you practically have learned….NOTHING. And also the tones were a pain. At a point I tried to use different colors when writing but this was not only exhausting but also leaded to no result. In short the next year I had periods I just abandoned Chinese and then tried it again with new ideas just to achieve nothing really. But with your method, at least until now, I finally feel some progress, and even better I finally feel progress is possible. Thank you so much.

26 September, 2019
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