Cantonese ALESN Monday night class summary from last week, REMINDER THAT THERE IS NO CLASS TONIGHT, and holiday school closing schedule...

Hi Gang,

FIRST OF ALL, A REMINDER THAT THERE IS NO CLASS TONIGHT. We dd a survey and enough students said that they were attending family and work events tonight that it didn't make sense to hold classes, even though the school will be physically open.

I apologize for my delay in sending this summary and notes on last week. We announced last week in class that there would be no class tonight. Since no one has emailed me regarding the holiday schedule and since class was pretty full last week (the fullest in weeks), I am assuming that everyone knows. If you show up for class tonight, I apologize, but that is what you get for missing classes and not checking in with me.

Related to our Holiday closings, we will resume classes on Monday, January 7, 2019.

Saturday classes will resume on Jan 5, 2019.

Monday classes will resume on Jan 7, 2019.
Thursday classes will resume on Jan 10, 2019.

For those among you who like to plan in advance, here are the official school, YMCA, and ALESN closings for the rest of the year:

2019 School closings:
Mon Jan 21 MLK
Tue Feb 5, 2019 Lunar New Year
   (Feb 18-23 Midwinter Recess)
Mon Feb 18 Midwinter Recess
Thu Feb 21 Midwinter Recess
Fri Feb 22 Midwinter Recess
Sat Feb 23 Midwinter Recess
    (Apr 19 - 27, 2019 Spring Recess)

Fri Apr 19 Spring Recess

Sat Apr 20 Spring Recess

I also have the following note:

" We'll be closed for 2 Saturdays from 4/19 - 4/27"

*I AM NOT SURE IF THIS MEANS THAT WE WILL ALSO BE CLOSED MONDAY, APRIL 22. I GUESS WE WILL FIND OUT...

Last Monday, we reviewed the Lesson 2 vocabulary on pages 54-55, then reviewed Lesson 2's dialogue and I believe, if I am remembering correctly, that everyone had a chance to break up into groups and run the dialogue with your partners. From here, we briefly reviewed some pronunciation and tones stuff on pages 34-37, and I asked you all to please read these text points on your own in the interest of saving time. We briefly discussed some Culture Notes and then moved onto some Structure Notes, which is how the book is going to refer to "GRAMMAR" from now on.

We talked about how in Cantonese in the present tense, there is no need for subject verb concordance like in other languages with verb forms, such as French, Spanish, German, etc. We also mentioned that in Cantonese, there is no distinction between singular and plural for the actual WORDS that we use to name our nouns: bridge = bridgeS, person = personS (PEOPLE), etc. Don't worry -- this will make Chinese easier in at least a couple of respects than some other languages you may have studied before. We also mentioned making singular pronouns plural by adding deih6, so ngoh5 (I), becomes ngoh5 deih6 (WE), etc. I reminded everyone that all 3 singular pronouns share the 5th tone, the low rising tone, so this is helpful when pronouncing the pronouns and when memorizing the sounds they make.

We started to take a bit about sentence final particles, which the book refers to as "sentence suffixes." We mentioned the ones we have seen so far:

ma3 (the yes or no question final particle, which turns a statement, any statement, into a yes or no question)

aa3 (also at times a question final particle, though in lesson 2 we see that it can soften a statement and make it "neutral" without attitude or mood)

ne1 (how about?)

We will review these and more after the break.

WE ARE GOING TO PICK UP AFTER THE BREAK WITH CHOICE TYPE QUESTIONS (YES OR NO QUESTIONS) AND VARIOUS "QUESTION WORD" QUESTIONS, SO PLEASE PREVIEW THE MATERIAL ON PAGES 42-44.

Here is last year's blog entry dealing with this section of Lesson 2:

http://www.sayitrightchinese.com/2017/12/cantonese-i-class-summary-insights.html

We will pick up next time with the grammar discussions on page 42. If you would like to preview the material that I will begin to discuss after Christmas break, you are welcome to check out the following blog entries from last year, which is from the classes right after the one referenced in the link above:

http://www.sayitrightchinese.com/2017/12/cantonese-class-summary-insights.html

http://www.sayitrightchinese.com/2017/12/cantonese-i-alesn-monday-december-11.html

Thanks and see everyone in a few weeks. Have a wonderful Christmas and a very festive New Years!