Brendan with a final thank you and end of the year wrap-up for my Cantonese I and Mandarin I Monday night 2018-2019 students...

Hi Gangs,

Many thanks again to everyone who attended my classes at anytime this past academic year, and in particular to my students who stuck it out to the very end of classes 2 Mondays ago! I sincerely appreciated everyone's interest in and passion for learning Chinese. I hope that you all got something positive out of my classes and that maybe you were inspired to continue with further ALESN classes next fall or perhaps with self-directed study on your own. I know that some students from both classes were talking about setting up a regular time to meet at the Houston St. Whole Foods. Please let me know if that happens and I will try to attend here and there this summer as my schedule permits.

During our final classes 2 Mondays ago, I briefly reviewed the lesson materials and vocabularies that we had covered the week before and then we spent the rest of each class discussing various ways to continue your learning -- on your own or at ALESN. I mentioned various DVDs from among my list of personal favorites that I have used over the years to improve my own conversational Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese. We discussed the various course offerings at ALESN as well as my suggestion to the Mandarin I class to try to cover the remaining vocabulary and dialogue material in your textbook between now and September (on your own or in small groups if you do meet up at Whole Foods, etc.) so that you will be ready for ALESN's Mandarin II class, which uses the next book in the same series. This has always been an issue for our program, that we never finish Book 1 and yet Mandarin II starts with Book 2, which assumes that you have learned all of the materials from Book 1. Yes, it would be ideal if ALESN were to offer Mandarin 1.5, covering lessons 6-10 in Book 1, but that never happens.

Maybe if enough of you directly contact Tony Parisi or Tsz Fong, both of whom are cc'ed on this email, and you request such a class, it is possible that someone might want to step up and teach Mandarin 1.5 on Thursday or Saturday starting in the fall?

As I mentioned to my classes, I will be taking a break from teaching in the fall in order to devote my time and attention to my singing. I have deeply appreciated the opportunity to learn and grow through teaching for ALESN over the past 6 years or so, and I will definitely miss everything about it. Even though I am putting aside my own Chinese studies and teaching for the time being, I will still offer private tutoring at a discounted rate for any recent or former students who might have enjoyed my teaching style and would like to continue with their learning one-on-one. Please reach out to me if you are interested. 

I am also open to possibly teaching a weekly group lesson if a certain # of students would commit to attending regularly and each student were to pay something modest per class. We could hold the classes at Whole Foods or some other convenient space in Manhattan, or even outside in a park if the weather will be nice on a given evening. I would certainly be willing to teach a Mandarin 1.5 class in this manner if someone wants to organize it and get a group together at a mutually convenient day and time each week. If this interests you guys, let me know. We could go a bit longer, say 1.5 or 2 hours each time and try to finish Book 1 in this manner.

Because I will not be teaching on Mondays in the fall, there is a possibility that our Monday night ALESN classes are in jeopardy of not happening in September. So -- if any of you knows anyone qualified to teach Cantonese I or Mandarin I on Monday nights starting in the fall and who would be willing to make that commitment from 6 to 7:15 and 7:15 to 8:30 pm every Monday during the 2019-2020 academic year, please contact Tony or Tsz and refer this person as a potential new teacher. I would hate to see Monday night classes go away once I am no longer teaching next year.

Many thanks again to everyone for an excellent and productive Cantonese and Mandarin learning experience. Give yourselvesa round of applause! I hope that each of you will continue on in your own way -- either through private study, self-study or via ALESN classes in the fall. Please feel free to reach out to me with any questions or concerns, or to ask about books, DVDs, web resources, Youtube videos -- whatever you might want to know about regarding continuing your Chinese learning odyssey.

Best wishes to Everyone!

MANDARIN CLASS SUMMARY Monday, June 3, 2019 -- sorry for delay!!!

MANDARIN CLASS SUMMARY FROM LAST WEEK:    

Last week, we finished the Grammar and Language Practice sections of Lesson 4 Dialogue 2 and we previewed Lesson 5 Dialogue 1's vocabulary and dialogue. We will begin class today with this material and spend maybe 30 minutes learning some new stuff pertaining to visiting friends. 

From here, we will spend the rest of class tonight reviewing the general scope of what we covered this year in Mandarin I and discussing what might be next for each of you in your personal journeys to learn to speak and possibly even read Mandarin Chinese. I am happy to recommend appropriate "next steps" for each of you, both within our ALESN program continuing next fall as well as via self-studies and possibly even short-term immersion vacation trips to China or Taiwan -- something I have done for myself three times for one month each time (mainly in Hong Kong with side trips to Taipei, Beijing, and various towns in Guangdung Province). I also co-planned a several day side trip Mandarin language immersion "sights and shopping" bus tour in and around Shanghai with our Head Administrator for ALESN, Mr. Tsz Fong, for 2016, but I had to bow out at the last minute due to a personal emergency here in the US. will share brief stories of my trips to China and Taiwan and of the ways that I attempted to practice my ALESN-gained language knowledge while there in 2014 and 2017. 

I am also happy to share the names of all of my personal favorite Chinese language learning resources with the class and to tell you all what has inspired me most to learn and to improve my Chinese since I started studying with Tony Parisi at ALESN 10 years ago.

Many thanks to everyone who attended any of my Mandarin classes this past academic year. I will be taking a break from teaching for ALESN next fall in order to devote all of my time and energy outside of work to singing and recording music. I will, however, continue to offer reasonably priced 1 hour and 2 hour weekly or one-off private tutoring sessions for anyone who has enjoyed my teaching style and philosophy -- which I think I made pretty clear over the course of this past year, losing many students in the process, ahem...

Big thanks to my more serious and dedicated students with a passion and drive to learn who decided to stick it out with me until the end of this current academic year. I sincerely hope that I have helped you to grow your Mandarin Chinese knowledge and perhaps your confidence to attempt to speak with native speakers whom you do not already know...

Very best wishes to All!

Brendan

CANTONESE CLASS SUMMARY Monday, June 3, 2019 -- sorry for delay!

CANTONESE CLASS SUMMARY FROM LAST WEEK:

Briefly, last week we went over the vocabulary and dialogue from Lesson 7. We repeated the dialogue a bunch of times and then you all broke into small groups, I believe, to run the dialogue with your partners. I do not recall that we started the pronunciation and grammar review sections, so we will quickly repeat the vocab and dialogue again tonight and then speed through some grammar. 

Instead of doing the lesson exercises for chapter 7, we will spend most of class tonight reviewing the general scope of what we covered this year and discussing what might be next for each of you in your personal journeys to learn to speak and possibly even read Cantonese. I am happy to recommend appropriate "next steps" for each of you, both within our ALESN program continuing next fall as well as via self-studies and possibly even short-term immersion vacation trips to Hong Kong -- something I have done for myself three times for one month each time. I will share some brief stories of my trips to Hong Kong and of the ways that I practiced my ALESN-gained language knowledge while there in 2013, 2014, and 2017. 

I am also happy to share the names of all of my personal favorite Chinese language learning resources with the class and to tell you all what has inspired me most to learn and to improve my Chinese since I started studying with Tony Parisi at ALESN 10 years ago.  

Many thanks to everyone who attended any of my Cantonese classes this past academic year. I will be taking a break from teaching for ALESN next fall in order to devote all of my time and energy outside of work to singing, performing, and recording music. I will, however, continue to offer reasonably priced 1 hour and 2 hour weekly or one-off private tutoring sessions for anyone who has enjoyed my teaching style and philosophy -- which I think I made pretty clear over the course of this past year, losing many students in the process, ahem...

Big thanks to my more serious and dedicated students with a passion and drive to learn, who decided to stick it out with me until the end of this current academic year. I sincerely hope that I have helped you to grow your Cantonese knowledge and perhaps your confidence to attempt to speak with native speakers whom you do not already know...

Very best wishes to All!

Brendan

Sorry for my not sending class summaries last week -- AND TONIGHT IS OUR LAST CLASS -- NOT NEXT MONDAY!!!

Hi Gangs,

Doh! [Insert best Homer Simpson impression here.]

I had a busy week preparing for a singing audition that happened this past weekend (I got the gig) and I didn't set aside time to type your class summaries from last Monday.

I also mistakenly suggested last Monday (I think -- honestly don't remember) that next Monday would be our last classes. 

ACTUALLY, TONIGHT IS OUR FINAL CANTONESE CLASS AND OUR FINAL MANDARIN CLASS. 

I sincerely apologize for not reading my ALESN closings calendar properly. 

See everyone tonight. I will try to type up quick summaries right now to send before I leave for tonight's classes of what we covered last week if possible. If not, I promise to type a double summary email for each class sometime in the next 1-2 days.

Again, sorry for not sending your weekly summary email, AND MORE IMPORTANTLY, SORRY FOR SUGGESTING THAT WE HAD 2 MORE CLASSES INSTEAD OF JUST ONE MORE CLASS TONIGHT!!!

See everyone in 2 hours,

Brendan

ALESN Monday Night Mandarin I Brendan's class Email Summary and Notes 5/13/19

Hi Gang,

This past Monday night, we covered:

·         5 Grammar Points for Lesson 4 Dialogue 1 on pages 102-106. That's a lot of grammar for one class. Thanks to everyone for your attention!

·         You guys broke into small groups and did the various Language Practice exercises on pages 107-109, with me walking around and answering any questions.

·         I quickly previewed the vocabulary and dialogue for Lesson 4 Dialogue 2, in which Wang Peng asks Gao Wenzhong if he wants to hang out and do various sports things over the weekend, but Gao Wenzhong only wants to eat and sleep - so lazy! At the end, Wang Peng is fed up and basically says, "Screw you -- I'll go find someone else to hang out with!"

We reviewed the basic word order for a Chinese sentence. I drew my own diagram that I use to teach with every year for both Cantonese and Mandarin basic syntax (grammatical word order) and then we compared that with the way the book teaches the same material. Please review the book's explanation of syntax on page 102, as this is very important to your developing ability to make correct basic sentences in Mandarin Chinese.

Next, we covered/reviewed more about "Affirmative Negative A not A Questions." This time, we saw that if there is any kind of adverbial modifier to the adjective or verb in the question, the question must be expressed as a "[Blah blah blah] ma" question and CANNOT be expressed as a "Verb BU4 verb?" or "Adjective bu4 adjective?" question. Remember that the asterisked / greyed out examples in the grammar sections of your textbook are INCORRECT EXAMPLES and are NOT TO BE REPEATED OR STUDIED! Do not accidentally study this incorrect examples!!! Please review all of the examples in this section on pages 102-104.

Next, we covered the use of NA4 or NA4 ME as a conjunction meaning, "Well..." or "Then..." or "So..." or "In that case..." Please review the text and pay attention to how this is used in everyday conversation, because it is an excellent transition word for you to learn to help make your beginner level Mandarin conversations flow more naturally when you are trying to speak with native speakers.

We discussed QU4 + an action [verb], as in someone is physically GOING [someplace] else to do that action. If you are "going to" do something the way we most often use that phrase in English (i.e. "I WILL do that thing at some point in the future" as opposed to necessarily moving from where you are right now to another physical location to do the action), then Mandarin more often uses YAO4 + verb to mean that you will do that verb in the future, or that you intend to do that verb in the future. HOWEVER, if you need to physically move from where you are right now to another location in order to do the action [as in "I am GOING to play baseball" because we are in a classroom and you need to physically leave the classroom and walk to the baseball field to play the game], then this is the use of QU4 + verb that the book is discussing here on page 106. Please review and make sure you understanding the subtle difference compared to English's use of the concept of "going to do something," which can have either or both meanings.

Finally, we discussed HAO3 MA as a tag to statements, turning them into a question with the exact same meaning as “STATEMENT + ZEN3 ME YANG4?” This basically means, "Is it ok that...?" or "Can [I / we / etc.] do this..." or "Will that work?" -- something to that effect. Please review the examples on page 106 and make sure you can create a variety of [Blah blah blah statement] HAO3 MA? questions in Mandarin.

Please also review the Language Practice activities that you all did in class this past Monday and make sure that there are no questions. If you do have questions, please ask at the beginning of next week's class.

See everyone on Monday, when we will dive right into Lesson 4 Dialogue 2 and then you will all break into small groups and run the dialogue with your partners.

YOUR HOMEWORK IS TO WATCH THE VIDEO SEGMENT FROM THE RHODE ISLAND OR SAN FRANCISCO STATE UNIVERSITY WEBSITES FOR THIS NEW DIALOGUE (LESSON 4 DIALOGUE 2).

Best,

Brendan

ALESN Cantonese I Monday Class Summary and Notes 5/13/19

Hi Everyone,

This past Monday night, we covered:

·         a review of the concept of measure words on pages 133-136

·         the concept of boundwords like NI1 or GO2, which cannot stand on their own but must be followed by the appropriate measure word (page 136)

·         the difference in grammatical word order (syntax) between English and Mandarin's uses of the indirect object and Cantonese's use of the indirect object (p. 137)

·         GEI2 (DO1) as our question word for "How much?" or "How many?" (pages 137-138)

·         MH4 JI1 [blah blah blah] A3 or NE1 = "I wonder if..." (page 138)

·         Various drills on pages 139-143. We will pick up on page 144 next Monday, finishing the chapter and then beginning the next lesson.

Please review the concept and usage of measure words as explained in the book and try to remember the more detailed discussion that I gave in class this past Monday as well as during various previous lessons when the topic has come up.

Please remember that proper Cantonese can only use ONE of the two possible word orders (syntaxes) for an indirect object that English is able to use:

English:

"Give ME the book"

or

"Give the book TO ME."

Mandarin:

"Give ME the book."

BUT CANTONESE MUST ONLY BE:

"Give the book TO ME."

"Bei2 ni1 bun2 syu1 ngoh5."

Remember the use of measure words in Cantonese to stand in for nouns that have already been specified previously during the conversation. Please review the section on GEI2 DO1 questions if you are unsure about this concept.

Please review the drills that we covered this past Monday so that we can quickly finish the remaining chapter 6 drills and move on to lesson 7 halfway through next week's class.

Best wishes to all and see everyone on Monday,

Brendan

ALESN Cantonese Class Email and Summary from Monday Night, 5/6/19 class

Hi Everyone,

Sorry for my delay in sending this out, but at least I am getting it to you before the weekend.

This past Monday night, we reviewed the vocabulary and dialogue from Lesson 6. We took a look at the 36 vocabulary words on pages 150-151 of the textbook and we chunked some of the knowledge thematically and categorically during our review, which will help you during memorization -- if you paid attention. We reviewed the Recapitulation of the Dialogue on pages 128-129, pointing out the use of measure words when counting pieces of clothing.

Because this past Monday night was entirely review, picking up from where we left off before the Easter Break and then my unfortunate kidney stones absence 2 Mondays ago, there isn't much for me to type. Please take some time this weekend, if you haven't already this past week, to review the vocabulary and dialogue so that we can move forward with minimal questions on Monday.

Following your breaking up into small groups to run the dialogue this past Monday, we reviewed some pronunciation comparisons between short and long vowel sounds/finals on pages 129-131. I also quickly glossed over a review of the numbers chart that we studied earlier this spring, which I had drawn on the white board maybe a month ago or so. Please make sure that you are comfortable with your numbers and go back and review counting from 1 to 99 if you are having any issues recalling the system for constructing numbers in Cantonese.

See you all on Monday. We will pick up with some more grammar and then move onto this lesson's exercises during our next class.

Thanks again to all of the well wishes regarding my recent illness. I wound up having crystals (microscopic kidney stones) and some other complicating factors that made me sick for about 9 or 10 days. I really appreciate the nice emails and welcome backs from students in class this past Monday!

Best wishes to all,

Brendan

ALESN Mandarin I Class Summary and Notes email from 5/6/19 class

Hi Everyone,

Sorry for my delay in sending this out, but at least I am getting it to you before the weekend.

This past Monday night, we reviewed the vocabulary and dialogue from Lesson 4 Dialogue 1 and then you all broke into small groups to run the dialogue with your partners. Unfortunately, we did not have time to begin the lesson's grammar points, so that is what we will start with on Monday.

Because this past Monday night was entirely review, picking up from where we left off before the Easter Break and then my unfortunate kidney stones absence 2 Mondays ago, there isn't much for me to type. Please take some time this weekend, if you haven't already this past week, to review the 20 new vocabulary words on pages 102-103. Please also review the dialogue on page 99 (PINYIN VERSION ONLY AT THIS POINT, PLEASE! LET'S MAKE SURE THAT WE ARE PRONOUNCING EVERYTHING CORRECTLY BEFORE THE READERS AMONG YOU MOVE OVER TO PAGE 98 AND THE CHINESE CHARACTERS!).

Your homework is to watch the video version of the dialogue from either the San Francisco State site or the Rhode Island site, both of which were mentioned in my blog last September/October 2018. I assure you all that the links are there, so please go to www.sayitrightchinese.com and take the time to search the September / October 2018 Mandarin I archives at the right side of the screen until you find the appropriate entry.

See you all on Monday. Thanks again to all of the well wishes regarding my recent illness. I wound up having crystals (microscopic kidney stones) and some other complicating factors that made me sick for about 9 or 10 days. I really appreciate the nice emails and welcome backs from students in class this past Monday!

Best wishes to all,

Brendan

Cantonese I ALESN 4/15/19 Class Summary and Notes AND NO CLASS TONIGHT FOR EASTER MONDAY/SPRING BREAK!!!

Hi Gang,

Before I go over what we covered last week, I want to mention that one thing that I am not a big fan of is when people either quit my class and do not tell me, or when new students drop in, are added to the class email list, realize that my class is hard or that it will take a lot of work to catch up this far into the semester, and then I never see or hear from them again.

THERE ARE WAYYYYYYY MORE PEOPLE ON THIS CLASS EMAIL LIST THAN ARE ACTUALLY ATTENDING MY CLASS RIGHT NOW.

As it is, I am giving away all of this information and my time FOR FREE without any kind of payment or compensation other than the warm, fuzzy feeling in my heart that I might be reaching a few of you and helping you to learn basic Chinese.

PLEASE REPLY TO THIS EMAIL TO DO THE RIGHT THING AND HAVE YOURSELF REMOVED FROM MY EMAIL DISTRIBUTION LIST IF YOU ARE NO LONGER ATTENDING MY CLASS. ESPECIALLY IF YOU HAVE NOT YET EXTENDED THE FUNDAMENTAL COURTESY TO ME OF LETTING ME KNOW THAT YOU ARE NO LONGER ATTENDING MY CLASS.

I really hate it when people take me for granted in this life, especially when I am already giving my time and energy for free at ALESN. Thanks.

OK -- cool.

For everyone else who is still attending my class:

NO CLASS TONIGHT -- DO NOT COME TO THE SCHOOL, AS IT WILL BE PHYSICALLY CLOSED FOR SPRING BREAK/EASTER MONDAY, WHICH IS AN OFFICIAL NEW YORK PUBLIC SCHOOL CLOSING.

Let's see what we covered last Monday in class:

• We covered the Vocabulary for Lesson 6 on pages 150-151.
• We covered the Build-Up and Recapitulation of the Dialogue for Lesson 6 on pages 127-129.
• We saw some new measure words for nouns in this lesson. Please memorize these.
• We learned the names for various pieces of male and female upper and lower body clothing in Cantonese, along with their measure words. Please memorize these.
• We learned the terms for store clerk and customer. Please memorize. Remember that part of the word for customer is haak3 = guest, which we have already seen as part of several previous vocabulary words from the politeness conversation in the previous chapter.
• We experienced a very basic general introduction to the concept of and one possible situation for buying something in Cantonese -- in this case clothing at a store.
• Pay special attention to asking how much something costs and the example responses for the shirts, etc. in the dialogue.
• Pay special attention to "haih6 mh4 haih6 dou1 haih6..." as it is used by the customer when asking if these shirts cost the same as those shirts. I explained this in detail during last class. Please ask me to explain this again at the beginning of next week's class if anyone still has a question about this common Cantonese way of asking if something is also...[whatever you want to know].
• "...bei2 bi1 gihn6 ngoh5 laa1." Remember that I explained that Mandarin and English both share the syntax "Give ME the shirt," WHEREAS PROPER CANTONESE [grammatically correct and syntactically correct Cantonese] MUST use the word order, "Give the shirt TO ME." Remember that on the one hand, I told you all this -- and then on the other hand, I pointed out that Mandarin speakers of Cantonese often use the Mandarin syntax when asking someone to give them something. This will definitely be understood, but it is not "proper" Cantonese. Please ask me to explain this again next week if anyone has a question about this point.
• Notice the somewhat forceful sales person trying to close the deal and the way that the customer politely says no and asserts that he or she just wants the items that he or she wants.

We will review this vocabulary and dialogue next Monday and then move through some pronunciation review, some grammar and culture notes, and then onto our various drills for the lesson.

See everyone next week. REMEMBER -- NO CLASS TONIGHT!!!

Best,

Brendan

Mandarin I ALESN 4/15/19 Class Summary and Notes AND NO CLASS TONIGHT FOR EASTER MONDAY/SPRING BREAK!!!

Hi Gang,

Before I go over what we covered last week, I want to mention that one thing that I am not a big fan of is when people either quit my class and do not tell me, or when new students drop in, are added to the class email list, realize that my class is hard or that it will take a lot of work to catch up this far into the semester, and then I never see or hear from them again.

THERE ARE WAYYYYYYY MORE PEOPLE ON THIS CLASS EMAIL LIST THAN ARE ACTUALLY ATTENDING MY CLASS RIGHT NOW.

As it is, I am giving away all of this information and my time FOR FREE without any kind of payment or compensation other than the warm, fuzzy feeling in my heart that I might be reaching a few of you and helping you to learn basic Chinese.

PLEASE REPLY TO THIS EMAIL TO DO THE RIGHT THING AND HAVE YOURSELF REMOVED FROM MY EMAIL DISTRIBUTION LIST IF YOU ARE NO LONGER ATTENDING MY CLASS. ESPECIALLY IF YOU HAVE NOT YET EXTENDED THE FUNDAMENTAL COURTESY TO ME OF LETTING ME KNOW THAT YOU ARE NO LONGER ATTENDING MY CLASS.

I really hate it when people take me for granted in this life, especially when I am already giving my time and energy for free at ALESN. Thanks.

OK -- cool.

For everyone else who is still attending my class:

NO CLASS TONIGHT -- DO NOT COME TO THE SCHOOL, AS IT WILL BE PHYSICALLY CLOSED FOR SPRING BREAK/EASTER MONDAY, WHICH IS AN OFFICIAL NEW YORK PUBLIC SCHOOL CLOSING.

Let's see what we covered last Monday in class:

• We covered the vocabulary for Lesson 4 Dialogue 1 on pages 100-101. Make sure you review this words, memorize as many as you can now, and then go over the dialogue, making sure that you understand everything that is said.
• We covered the dialogue on page 99 for the pinyin. Remember that you must read from the pinyin until your pronunciation of all new words is 100% accurate -- and then you can choose to read from the Chinese characters if you are able to do so and would like to do that.
• This is a lesson about hobbies and things that we like to do in our spare time. We learned the words for weekend; paying all kinds of sports involving balls (we will learn later on how to specifically say tennis, baseball, basketball, and perhaps some other sports); watching sports -- either at a game or on TV;  singing songs and singing karaoke; dancing; listening to music; reading books; going to movies.                                                     
• We learned how to talk about time: a period of time; how often something happens; sometimes; often.
• We reviewed the concept of inviting someone to do something, which we have seen in the previous 2 dialogues regarding inviting someone to dinner. Now we are inviting them to do a hobby or pastime with us.
• We learned a basic sentence structure involving: BECAUSE...THEREFORE...
• In the dialogue, we saw Gao Wenzhong attempt to ask out Bai Ying'Ai, only to be put in "the friend zone" when Bai Ying'Ai also invites Wang Peng and Li You and suggests that Gao Wenzhong pay for all of them. The subtext here adds humor to the dialogue and the situation behind the dialogue is continued from the 2 previous dialogues, tying lesson 4 to the events of lesson 3. This is helpful when thinking about what is happening here and remembering the storyline, who does what, as well as the new vocabulary words.

Please review the dialogue and vocabulary. I believe that we are set to break into small groups and run the dialogue at the beginning of class next week. From there, we will cover 5 grammar points (wow!) and then break into small groups to do some Language Practice, pending time towards the end of class next week.

See everyone next Monday. I hope that most of you will be able to join Cliff et. al. at I believe it is the Whole Foods on Houston for a review session tonight. Great job organizing that, guys and gals!

Best,

Brendan

ALESN Monday night Mandarin I Class Summary and Notes 4/8/19

Hi Everyone,

Finally, a week when I am sending out this email with a more reasonable timeframe for you all to consider and review.

This past Monday, we reviewed Lesson 3 Dialogue 2's vocabulary and dialogue. Following this, we covered the grammar points, then you all broke into small groups and did the Language Practice exercises. I had hoped to preview Lesson 4 Dialogue 1 Hobbies, but we will instead begin class next week with the next dialogue.

Of particular note regarding the material that we covered this past Monday:

• Please make sure you memorize the new "time phrases:" NOW, TODAY, TOMORROW, etc. Very important. Please also remember where they go (word order-wise or SYNTAX-WISE) in a proper Chinese sentence. We have covered this concept multiple times this year, but please ask me if you have any questions, because it is fundamental to your ability to make correct Mandarin sentences with correct word order.
• The concepts of WHY? and BECAUSE..., both of which share the word or "root" WEI4, for [the purpose of]
• Again, this idea that Chinese as a family of languages is great at making up new words using basic "Lego" building block concepts: TONG2XUE2 = [literally] "WITH STUDY" = "SOMEONE YOU STUDY WITH" = "CLASSMATE."
• We reviewed the dialogue again. Please make sure you understand what is going on here with Bai2 Ying1 Ai4 asking Wang2 Peng2 if he is free and then inviting him to Gao1 Wen2 Zhong1's birthday dinner the following evening.
• GRAMMAR POINTS THAT WE COVERED:
• Affirmative+Negative A NOT A questions: VERB BU4 VERB or ADJECTIVE BU4 ADJECTIVE questions. We discussed that the meaning of these questions is the same as the equivalent VERB MA? or ADJECTIVE MA? question. I gave the example that the standard Mandarin set phrase, "Ni3 hao3 ma?" can also be worded (and has the same meaning as) "Ni3 hao3 bu4 hao3?" -- but, please remember that "Ni3 hao3 ma?" is the set phrase to ask someone how they are doing -- and that "Ni3 hao3 bu4 hao3?", while carrying the same meaning, does not also function as a set phrase greeting in Mandarin.
• Please remember that the exception to the above VERB BU VERB? or ADJ BU4 ADJ? format is YOU3 MEI2 YOU3 for "have not have" questions. For YOU3, you always use MEI2 to negate --  you never use BU4 to negate YOU3, EXCEPT IN THE VERY SPECIFIC EXCEPTION GIVEN ON PAGE 54 INVOLVING THE USE OF DOU1 FOR INCLUSIVENESS WHEN ASKING IF SOME MEMBERS OF A CERTAIN GROUP DON'T HAVE SOMETHING.
• Use of HAI2 when constructing "afterthought" statements meaning that someone or something ALSO does something, in addition to the people or things doing it in the beginning of the sentence. Remember that using HAI2 in this situation is different from using HE2 to rattle off a list of nouns, because when we use HAI2 to construct a "So and so [or such and such] is ALSO VERB'ing [whatever the verb is]," WE NEED TO REPEAT THE VERB IN THE HAI2 PORTION AT THE END OF THE SENTENCE IN ORDER FOR HAI2 TO BE USED PROPERLY. OTHERWISE, YOU WOULD REWORD THE SENTENCE, INCLUDE THE LAST PERSON OR THING AS PART OF THE ORIGINAL LIST, AND JUST USE HE2. Got it? Good.
• I was encouraged that some groups finished the entire Language Practice section and then made up additional practice exercises on their own using the lesson material and vocabulary. Way to go, guys and gals! For those of you who struggled with the material or didn't finish the Language Practice exercises during the last 15-20 minutes of class, keep at it -- you are doing great and will get it soon enough.

FINALLY, before I go, I want to suggest that you all check out the remaining screenings from this great new NYC Chinese film festival going on right now -- as sent to me by our new student, Jose Payamps:

CineCina Film Festival

https://cine-cina.co

CineCina Film Festival (CineCina) is the only New York-based film festival dedicated to promoting excellent Chinese films. Founded in 2018, it was organized and planned by a group of young film scholars and filmmakers active in New York.

CCFF aims to bring the best Chinese films to New York. Starting from the exhibition of wonderful Chinese films, the committee of CineCina is committed to making CCFF a platform for the export of Chinese culture, and increasing opportunities for the development and distribution of Chinese films in North America. Meanwhile, CineCina is going to put the rapid development of Chinese film under more diversified exposure, and extends the influence of Chinese cultural industry in North America.

Best wishes to Everyone, and see you next week!
Brendan

ALESN Monday night Cantonese I Class Summary and Notes 4/8/19

Hi Everyone,

Finally, a week when I am sending out this email with a more reasonable timeframe for you all to consider and review.

This past Monday, we reviewed lesson 5's vocabulary and dialogue, then moved through the pronunciation points, the grammar points, and the drills. This put us in a position to begin lesson 6 next week. Yay!

Of particular note when reviewing lesson 5:

• Please review all of the politeness terms and phrases in the vocabulary for this lesson. With the exception of the sentence final particle LEH5 (which I need to research), all of the vocabulary for this lesson is still very much in use everyday throughout the Cantonese speaking diaspora.
• Remember the various ways that the guest attempted to politely decline the offers for cigarette, food and beverage before ultimately capitulating to all but one offer (the final offer declined with LEH5).
• Pronunciation review: comparing and contrasting short and long vowel pronunciations for:
• AI vs. AAI
• ANG vs. AANG
• AK vs. AAK (with explanation of the -K "stop tone" final sound and a review of -P, -T, and -K final stop tone consonants used in Cantonese, reminding you that they are not so much spoken as FELT)
• AU vs. AAU
• Politeness culture notes. I had elaborated on these concepts during your previous class, so we skilled this section in the book, but I recommend that you all read it and see how the book explains Cantonese host-guest politeness behaviors in polite society. Again, I recommend my Hong Kong friend Cecilie's Cantocourse Youtube spoof video entitled, "In Polite Society." I wrote about this last week in your email/blog entry and have mentioned it in class at least twice.
• Grammar points:
• LAAK3 as the sentence final particle LA3 with the added -K final stop tone sound for enthusiasm or liveliness. We discussed LA3 as a sentence final particle signifying change: The situation used to be this way (whatever "old way" the situation was), but now things have changed and it is this way LA3 (a "new situation," in whatever way the situation is now "new")
• Sentence suffix LEH5: again, I need to research this and find out if it is still in use. I have never, to my knowledge, encountered this sentence final particle in my personal studies of Cantonese or during my 3 months in Hong Kong.
• Sentence final particle LA1 for polite suggestion, softening what would otherwise be an order or even a "barked order." Please review the use of this particle in Lesson 5's dialogue and make sure you understand it.
• The verb suffix/verb final particle HAH5, indicating casualness or TO DO THE VERY A LITTLE BIT. Most often used with SI3, TO TRY, as in "SI3 HAH5 LA1" "try a little bit," when offering food to a guest, etc. Can also be used with other verbs -- in particular with YAM2 and SIHK6, to drink and to eat, from Lesson 5. Drink a little bit; eat a little bit...
• and finally, the use of YIU3 (TO WANT) as a helping verb meaning TO NEED TO DO ANOTHER VERB -- or MUST TO THAT VERB. The big example from the dialogue was "NGOH5 YIU3 JAU2 LA3." "I NEED to go." Not "I want to go," but rather, " I NEED to go." We pointed out that in question form, we can either ask "NEIH5 YIU3 MH4 YIU3 [VERB]?" or "NEIH5 SAI2 MH4 SAI2 [VERB]?" for "Do you NEED to [verb]?" -- but that SAI2 MH4 SAI2 [NEED NOT NEED][ TO DO A VERB]? might be the more common way to be very clear that we are asking, "Do you NEED to do this verb?" Please let me know if this is unclear and we can discuss at the beginning of next Monday's class.
• DRILLS: We went through all of the various drills for Lesson 5, doing 2 or 3 examples from each drill. Everyone did very well with these and there didn't appear to be any questions or sticking points where students were struggling in any way.

I was very encouraged with everyone's pronunciation and tones this past Monday, and with everyone's apparently comprehension of the material. Assuming that your apparent comprehension was actual comprehension, we are definitely ready to begin lesson 6 next week.

Very best wishes to All and see everyone next Monday!

Mandarin I ALESN Class Summary and Notes Monday, April 1, 2019

Hi Gang,

Big delay this time, this week. I was all set to get up early today and type this, but there was a huge explosion on my block here in Brooklyn and the entire block without power this morning as Con Ed figures out how to fix the issue. SO, I am at a cafe on my laptop because THAT is how dedicated I am to bringing you guys your weekly update email...ahem...6 days late...ahem...

Anywho...

This past Monday, we covered Lesson 3 Dialogue 2's vocabulary and dialogue. We will pick up tomorrow night with the 2 grammar points for this dialogue and then you will break up into small groups to do the Language Practice exercises.

Of particular note for Lesson 3 Dialogue 2:

• The placement of time phrases (now, today, tonight, tomorrow night, etc.) in a Mandarin Chinese sentence. These time phrases can ONLY go in 2 possible places: either right before or right after the subject: "You TODAY (very) busy" or "TODAY, you (very) busy" -- BUT NEVER "You very busy TODAY" word order wise (syntax-wise). It is very important that you remember this always for the rest of your time studying and speaking Mandarin Chinese. 1 billion people thank you in advance.
• We discussed the grammar of HEN3 as A PLACEHOLDER for "Subject [is/are] adjective" statements in Mandarin. Remember that although equivalent English sentences involve some form of the verb TO BE ("He IS fat," "She IS ugly," etc.), the equivalent Chinese grammar dictates use of HEN3 as A PLACEHOLDER between the subject and the adjective, BUT EVEN THOUGH HEN3 TECHNICALLY MEANS "VERY," IN THIS PARTICULAR USAGE, A "SUBJECT [IS] ADJECTIVE" STATEMENT IN CHINESE USING HEN3 DOESN'T NECESSARILY MEAN THAT THE SUBJECT IS ACTUALLY "VERY" THAT ADJECTIVE. Huh?! If you were in class, please remember that I went on and on about this for like 15 or more minutes. If you were not in class, please Google the use of HEN3 in "subject is adjective" type Mandarin statement sentences and you will learn that if you do not use HEN3 as a placeholder in such statements, you will imply a comparison between the subject and some other unspecified person or thing related to that adjective. Don't worry; I will explain again tomorrow night! Feel free to email me with any questions if you don't understand this fundamental Mandarin Chinese grammatical concept. It is very important that you eventually understand what I am talking about here!
• Memorize WHY and BECAUSE and pay special attention to how we use these new vocabulary words in this lesson and going forward. Asking WHY things are the way they are and explaining to people that things are such and such way BECAUSE of such and such reason is fundamental to your growing ability to communicate with people in basic Mandarin.
• Notice the way that Bai2 Ying1 Ai4 invites Wang2 Peng2 to dinner -- first inquiring about his schedule and then working around his lack of availability to have dinner that evening. This is good, basic language stuff and should be understood, drilled, and memorized asap.

We will review the vocabulary and dialogue for the first 5 minutes or so of class tomorrow night, then go through the grammar points and break into small groups for the Language Practice. Ideally, I would like to finish this dialogue tomorrow and either preview Lesson 4 Dialogue 1 at the end of class tomorrow night or begin the following class with the next dialogue and its vocabulary.

See everyone tomorrow night.

Best,
Brendan

Cantonese I ALESN Class Notes and Review Monday, April 1, 2019

Hi Gang,

Big delay this time, this week. I was all set to get up early today and type this, but there was a huge explosion on my block here in Brooklyn and the entire block without power this morning as Con Ed figures out how to fix the issue. SO, I am at a cafe on my laptop because THAT is how dedicated I am to bringing you guys your weekly update email...ahem...6 days late...ahem...

Anywho...

This past Monday, we covered Lesson 5's vocabulary and dialogue. I covered the Build Up properly this time, and then we repeated the Recapitulation multiple times and at the end of class broke into small groups to run the dialogue. We will pick up tomorrow night with a quick review of the vocabulary and dialogue, then a speedy overview of the lesson's pronunciation reminders; some culture notes about Cantonese life in Hong Kong; and then we this lesson's grammar points. Following this, we will hopefully begin to go through some of this lesson's drills -- seeing how far we can get during our hour or so of class time tomorrow night.

If you haven't already done so, now is a great time to visit the newly relocated DVD store on Grand Street and 2nd Ave I think it is, and select something fun from their kids' and cartoon sections to reinforce your beginning Cantonese studies. I recommend one of the Harry Potter Movies. They also had a $1 copy of Megamind outside in their discount rack last week, which is one of my all time favorite American kids' movies to watch in Cantonese. 

Of particular note in Lesson 5:

• Remember the extreme, comic level of politeness going on here. If you have time and interest, compare and contrast this "serious" dialogue in your textbook with the joke video by Cecilie Gamst Berg on the Cantocourse Youtube channel called "In Polite Society," which I mentioned last week. A quick search of Youtube for the keywords mentioned above will find this video.
• Please start to memorize most of the new words in lesson 5's vocabulary. These are good basic words that we will continue to see and use -- except, perhaps, the references to cigarette smoking.
• Pay special attention to the various polite phrases and their logical responses: "Thank you." "No need to thank me." That kind of stuff. These are all stock sentences right out of a phrasebook and will work well for you when meeting Cantonese speakers and attempting to thank them for their hospitality.
• Notice the interplay, as we discussed, between the forcefully polite host and the ubermodest guest who doesn't really want certain things, but also doesn't want to offend the host by declining various offers. This is typical of a Cantonese get together at someone's home. Things are forced upon you and in the end, no matter how much you politely protest, you kind of have to just accept some things like the food items, etc., and say thank you and at least try them -- even if you are a squeamish eater and have been offered something that you think is yucky. Welcome to Cantonese hospitality!
• Notice the polite way that the guest disengages himself from the social situation at the end of the dialogue and tells the host that he has to leave. This is also typical and can stand you in good stead if you ever feel awkward when talking to someone in Cantonese and want to politely excuse yourself from the conversation and leave -- which will happen ALL THE TIME if/when you decide to start having random conversations in Cantonese with random people in NYC to practice your new language skills. Some of those conversations will go well or "be successful," but others will be very awkward and uncomfortable. It is always good to know how to politely extricate yourself and run away...

Run away...

Ok, that's all for now. See everyone tomorrow night when we continue with this nonsense.

Best to all,
Brendan

Mandarin I ALESN Class Email Summary and Notes from last Monday's class and see you all tomorrow!

Hi Everyone,

Yet again, I am delinquent in sending out my weekly summary and notes email for what we covered in last Monday's class. Hopefully, everyone reviewed the material that we covered in last class and will come to class tomorrow night ready to continue with Lesson 3 Dialogue 2: Inviting Someone to Dinner, which we will begin tomorrow night.

Last Monday, we began class by reviewing the numbers in all of their glory as covered by Lesson 3 Dialogue 1, and then reiterating the first several, very detailed grammar points and their charts on pages 70-75. If you haven't already memorized the following, you need to asap:

• the numbers from 0 to 99
• basic telling of dates and time
• the 3 systems for telling days of the week
• the 12 months
• the syntax (word order) for telling complete dates in Chinese ("Sunday, March 31, 2019" said in the proper Mandarin word order)
• the various vocabulary words and concepts introduced on pages 74 to 75, allowing you to tell time in 15 minute increments or according to the exact time (3:17)

I know this is a lot of new information, but you just need to memorize it.

All of it.

Sorry, not sorry.

Following a review of the numbers and all of the charts mentioned above, I went over the 3 additional non-numerical grammar points on pages 76-77:

• The use of DE as " 's " ("apostrophe s") to suggest possession and when it can be omitted when speaking of close personal and family relationships. We actually covered this briefly way back before Christmas break, when we first saw DE and a few students asked about this exact topic. Please review the way your textbook explains this concept on the top of page 76 and come to class with any questions regarding eliminating or requiring DE for "apostrophe s" for close personal relationships and family members.
• The sentence structure of "I will treat you to dinner." WO3 QING3 NI3 CHI1 FAN4. Please review this and come to class tomorrow with any questions regarding the grammar or syntax (specific word order in Mandarin Chinese) of this sentence.
• Alternative Questions (asking about this OR that). "Is it this OR that?" "Did you do this OR that?" Etc... In this case, we are learning to use HAI2SHI TO ASK THIS OR THAT QUESTIONS. Please note that HAI2SHI is used in questions, but either a spoken pause (a comma is used in written English and Chinese) or HUO4ZHE3 (not covered yet) are used IN STATEMENTS (i.e. in responses to HAI2SHI questions). We will see this again in future lessons when choice questions are asked. Please study the 4 examples, as well as a possible response using a spoken pause (written comma) in example 4 on page 77.

From here, I quickly reviewed Lesson 3 Dialogue 1's vocabulary and dialogue, so we would remember what happened, as you all needed that information for the Language Practice exercises that you did in small groups and pairs on pages 78-82. We finished out the class with me walking around helping everyone with any questions regarding the Language Practice exercises for Lesson 3 Dialogue 1.

Please review this material before tomorrow's class, if you haven't already. Tomorrow night we will jump right into the next Dialogue and its vocabulary on pages 83-85.

See everyone tomorrow night!

ALESN Cantonese I Class Email Summary and Notes -- see everyone tomorrow night!

Hi Everyone,

My apologies for not typing an email this past week. Hopefully everyone reviewed what we covered last Monday. Because we spent all of last class going over drills from Lesson 4, there wasn't really much for me to type, other than to suggest that everyone review Lesson 4, basic numbers and all of that from 2 weeks ago, and please be ready to dive into Lesson 5 tomorrow night.

After doing 3 examples from each of the Lesson 4 drill exercises, we did a few examples of the "Say It In Cantonese" section from Lesson 4. If you haven't been reading and trying to do these sentences on your own over the past 4 lessons, I highly recommend that you review Lesson 1 through 4 "Say It In Cantonese" on the next to last page of each lesson, and that you start studying these sections going forward for the rest of the academic year (another 2 and 1/2 months).

At the end of last Monday's class, we previewed the Lesson 5 vocabulary on pages 125-126 and then I quickly read you all the Recapitulation of Lesson 5's conversation/dialogue on pages 106-107. We briefly discussed that this lesson features obsequious politeness phrases for welcoming guests into your home as well as offering things; accepting things offered to you; and politely declining things that are offered to you when you don't want those things. We mentioned that this lesson's dialogue spends a lot of time with one person offering a cigarette to their guest, a bit of political incorrectness in today's world.

See you all tomorrow. Please come to class ready to jump right into Lesson 5's vocabulary and dialogue.

Best,

Brendan

Mandarin I ALESN Class summary and notes from this past Monday, March 18, 2019

Hi Gang,

Another late email. It happens.

This past Monday, we covered:

• a quick mention of Lesson 3 Dialogue 1's premise and its use of numbers, dates, days of the week, etc.
• the chart for the numbers from 1 to 99, plus a brief mention of the words for zero and 100 -- on page 70
• Dates and Time on pages 71-75

We covered a lot with various uses of numbers this past Monday, but at this point, the MOST important thing is that you take the chart on page 70 of your book and mark it in your mind. Memorize it, make sure that you understand the system for using the words for the numbers 1 through 9 and the word for 10 to create all of the rest of the numbers from 11 through 99. I cannot do the work for you. I have presented you with the table and you simply need to memorize it.

How to memorize and work on your progressively faster recall of the numbers so that you can eventually use them comfortably, in real time, when telling time or handling money or counting objects or whatever?

There are all kinds of exercises you can do for yourself, but the 3 that I mentioned in class which worked the best for me when I was first learning my Chinese numbers and telling time were:

1. Simply telling time -- lots of different times throughout the day -- in Mandarin. Every few minutes, pause and recite the time back to yourself in Mandarin to practice the system that we have learned;
2. Looking at every license plate as you walk down the street, anytime you walk down any street until you have learned your numbers well, and say to yourself the numbers component of that license place. Be careful to make sure you get it right, check your answers the first few times to make sure you are remembering the vocabulary words, and then go nuts, challenging yourself to say the number portions of as many license plates as possible to yourself while walking down the street from your home to the subway or from your job to lunch or whatever; AND
3. Grab a page from your company's phone directory, or from any phone book for that matter, and just start reciting phone numbers in Mandarin.  You already "know" the numbers from 0 to 9. Go nuts and try to read as many phone numbers as possible in Chinese before your brain cramps. Seriously, feel your brain start to cramp and then say maybe 3 or 4 more full phone numbers. This is like cranking out extra reps at the gym with a spotter. You are cranking out extra brain reps. Good for your language learning brain -- I promise you -- and good for general cognition, regardless of the subject matter.

If you haven't already, take some time this weekend and work on your numbers using any or a combination of the above 3 suggested methods. Or make up your own fun study routine with the numbers. If you come up with something good that works for you, please share in class this coming Monday.

After discussing the numbers in general during our last class, we took a look at dates, beginning with DAYS OF THE WEEK. Please memorize the first 2 systems on page 72 and be aware of system 3 using the word ZHOU1. This system is mainly for written Chinese, whereas the other 2 systems at the top of this table are for spoken Mandarin.

Next, we covered MONTHS. Remember that in Chinese, the months are named by simply taking the numbers 1 through 12 and adding the word month afterwards. This is similar to the naming of the first six days of the Chinese week (in principle, but with the word order reversed). If you don't understand what I just said, reread it until you do, because this statement will help you to memorize and remember your days of the week and months in Mandarin Chinese.

From here, we briefly discussed the principle of naming things in Chinese in a progression from most general to most specific, and we showed how the word order for Saturday, March 23, 2019 in Mandarin is:

TWO ZERO ONE NINE YEAR, THREE MONTH, TWENTY THREE DAY, SATURDAY

Live it. Love it. Learn It.

We talked about the use of the word LIANG3 for 2 o'clock -- WE DON'T USE THE WORD ER4 FOR TWO WHEN TELLING TIME! We talked about telling exact times using FEN1. Our visitor, native speaker Qian Qian from Taiwan, confirmed various uses of FEN1 when telling time. We talked about the use of KE4 and BAN4 to tell time in 15 minute increments: a quarter after, half past, and three quarters after such and such hour.

PLEASE REVIEW THE TELLING TIME EXPLANATIONS ON PAGES 74-75 OF YOUR TEXTBOOK.

We will pick up on Monday with the several non-numbers grammar points on pages 76-77, and then you will break up into pairs or small groups to do the Language Practice exercises on pages 78-82. This will put us in position to begin Lesson 3 Dialogue 2 the following class.

See everyone on Monday.

Best to All,

Brendan

Cantonese I ALESN Class summary and notes from this past Monday, March 18, 2019

Hi Gang,

Another late email. It happens.

This past Monday, we covered:

• a review of the pronunciation and grammar points up to page 94
• the chart for the numbers from 1 to 99, plus a brief mention of the words for zero and 100

Since I spent most of the time last class going over the numbers with you, there is not much for me to write in this week's email summary. It is important that you take the chart that I drew on the whiteboard and mark it in your mind, memorize it, make sure that you understand the system for using the words for the numbers 1 through 9 and the word for 10 to create all of the rest of the numbers from 11 through 99. I cannot do the work for you. I have presented you with the table and you simply need to memorize it.

How to memorize and work on your progressively faster recall of the numbers so that you can eventually use them comfortably, in real time, when telling time or handling money or counting objects or whatever?

There are all kinds of exercises you can do for yourself, but the 3 that I mentioned in class which worked the best for me when I was first learning my Cantonese numbers and telling time were:

1. Simply telling time -- lots of different times throughout the day, in Cantonese. Every few minutes, pause and recite the time back to yourself in Cantonese practice using the 3 systems that we have learned: the fan1 jung1 system for precise times to the minute; the daahp6 #1 through 11 system for telling time in 5 minute increments; and the go3 jih6 system for telling time the same way as with the daahp6 system;
2. Looking at every license plate as you walk down the street, anytime you walk down any street until you have learned your numbers well, and say to yourself the numbers component of that license place. Be careful to make sure you get it right, check your answers the first few times to make sure you are remembering the vocabulary words, and then go nuts, challenging yourself to say the number portions of as many license plates as possible to yourself while walking down the street from your home to the subway or from your job to lunch or whatever; AND
3. Grab a page from your company's phone directory, or from any phone book for that matter, and just start reciting phone numbers in Cantonese. Remember that the word for zero, not covered in this lesson, is LIHNG4. You already "know" the numbers from 1 to 9. Go nuts and try to read as many phone numbers as possible in Cantonese before your brain cramps. Seriously, feel your brain start to cramp and then say maybe 3 or 4 more full phone numbers. This is like cranking out extra reps at the gym with a spotter. You are cranking out extra brain reps. Good for your language learning brain -- I promise you -- and good for general cognition, regardless of the subject matter.

If you haven't already, take some time this weekend and work on your numbers using any or a combination of the above 3 suggested methods. Or make up your own fun study routine with the numbers. If you come up with something good that works for you, please share in class this coming Monday.

See everyone in class. We will quickly go through the Drills on pages 95-101, putting us in a position to begin Lesson 5 either at the end of this Monday's class or, more likely, the following week.

Best to All,

Brendan

ALESN Cantonese Class Summary and Notes Monday night 3/11/19 -- sorry for delay...

Hi Everyone,

Sorry for my delay in sending this. Please review this material over the weekend and be ready to pick up where we left off.

This past Monday, we again reviewed Lesson 4's Vocabulary and Dialogue, this time proceeding from the Recapitulation instead of the Build-Up. In the vocabulary section, we saw the following, repeated from the last email I sent you 2 weeks ago. Please remember that you can chunk your knowledge for the 43 vocabulary words of Lesson 4 so that in reality, especially once we go over the numbers more in depth on Monday, it will be FEWER items that you actually have to separately memorize:

1. First of all, though it appears that we have 43 new vocabulary words, we actually have only 34 new concepts, some of them using multiple possible pronunciations or uses of old or new vocabulary items. If you group this new information properly during your home study time, you will only need to memorize at most 34 new concepts, not 43. You can further group these new vocabulary items into a very limited number of CATEGORIES, as I will try my best to explain below.
2. Remember that 1 and 33 are the same word, same usage, but that 33 is with the initial "ng" sound and 1 is after dropping that sound due to "the ng phenomenon" that I have explained multiple times in class.
3. 2, 7, 16, 28, 29, 35, 36, and 37 are all numbers that you will need to eventually know, but it will make more sense after next Monday's class, when I will draw a chart of the numbers on the board: first zero, then 1 through 10, and then using the words for 1 to 10, we will construct the Cantonese terms for 11 through 99.
4. 4, 25, 26, 27, 38, and 39 are all sentence final particles that we will see in action in various places in the dialogue.
5. 5, 21, 34 and 41 are terms related to telling time in 15 minute intervals or on the half hour.
6. 8, 9, 10, 13, 19, and 24 are related to 3 different methods of telling time, which we discussed in class this past Monday. These 3 methods are the DAAHP6 + number 1 through 11 SYSTEM, letting us tell time in 5 minute increments (10 after the hour, 25 after the hour, etc.); the GO3 JIH6 SYSTEM (allowing us to do exactly the same thing as the DAAHP6 SYSTEM); and the FAN1 JUNG1 SYSTEM, allowing us to tell the exact time (9:17, etc.).
7. The rest of the vocabulary words are related in this lesson to the concept of telling time: watches running fast, slow, ready yet, not ready yet, this kind of stuff. PLEASE MEMORIZE THESE WORDS, AS THEY ARE VERY BASIC TO CANTONESE AND YOU WILL EVENTUALLY NEED TO KNOW ALL OF THESE ITEMS.

Once we reviewed the vocabulary and recapitulation, we broke into Happy Happy Groups and everyone had a chance to run the dialogue with partners. Finally, we briefly went over some pronunciation points on pages 86-87, which is where we will pick up on Monday.

Though I had promised to cover a chart/table of the Cantonese number system from 1 to 99, I did not get to that, so THIS will be the first thing that I write on the whiteboard this coming Monday. Please review the vocabulary, dialogue, and scan forward to pages 92-93 for the condensed explanation that the textbook gives regarding numbers.

Don't worry -- I will make it much more visual for you with a chart that will be very clear and very tidy for you all to memorize. It will be up to YOU to actually memorize the numbers, but I will show you a very clear system to do so using only 11 different words to construct all of the numbers from 1 to 99. We briefly touched on this concept this past Monday, but we will spend more time with it next class.

For your homework, please review work on memorizing the vocabulary from this lesson, and please also review the textbook's explanations of the various pronunciation issues and concerns detailed on pages 86-88.

As I have said before quite a few times, Cantonese is a new language for most of you, and for those of you who did not grow up in a Cantonese speaking household, THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT THING FOR YOU THIS ENTIRE ACADEMIC YEAR IS SIMPLY THAT YOU START MAKING SOUNDS THAT ACTUALLY SOUND LIKE CANTONESE.

This may seem self-evident, but it is the single most important concept that I can possibly communicate to all of my Chinese students this year -- whether Cantonese or Mandarin students:

Most beginner students of Chinese anywhere in the world quit once they realize that it is very challenging to produce accurate sounds and tones that actually sound like real, spoken, comprehensible Chinese -- especially when coming from English or another Western language as the first language. It is even difficult for Cantonese speakers to make accurate Mandarin sounds and for Mandarin speakers to make accurate Cantonese sounds -- and they are coming from another Chinese dialect as their first language!

At a certain point during all beginner level Chinese studies, the student needs to decide once and for all that he or she WILL open their mouth and produce accurate sounds and tones of spoken [Cantonese, Mandarin, whatever] -- or that THEY WILL DO WHATEVER THEY NEED TO DO in order to make that happen as quickly as possible over the course of the first year or two of study. If the student is not able to get over this initial hump, then no matter how many vocabulary words are memorized and no matter how many hours are spent pouring over textbooks or mp3s or videos or whatever, the student might as well quit and take a cooking class.

IF THE BEGINNER STUDENT CANNOT GET TO A POINT IN 1 TO 2 YEARS WHERE THEY ARE PRODUCING ACCURATE CHINESE SOUNDS AND TONES WHEN THEY OPEN THEIR MOUTHS TO SPEAK, THEN THEY ARE WASTING THEIR OWN TIME AND EVERYONE ELSE'S. THE SOLE PURPOSE OF LANGUAGE IS TO COMMUNICATE, AND IF THE BEGINNING STUDENT CANNOT EVENTUALLY LEARN TO COMMUNICATE WITH NATIVE SPEAKERS IN THE NEW LANGUAGE -- NATIVE SPEAKERS WHO DO NOT ALREADY KNOW THE STUDENT AND WHO DO NOT NECESSARILY CARE ABOUT THE STUDENT OR WHAT HE OR SHE IS SAYING, THEN THIS IS FAILED COMMUNICATION. THE STUDENT MIGHT AS WELL BE BARKING LIKE A DOG OR MAKING CHICKEN CLUCKS, BECAUSE NO EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION CAN TAKE PLACE UNLESS AND UNTIL BEGINNER LEVEL STUDENTS ARE ABLE TO REPLICATE THE MOST BASIC SOUNDS OF THE NEW LANGUAGE AT THE MOST BASIC LEVEL OF COMPREHENSIBILITY.

This has been my "Brendan is an asshole" guiding principle of learning and teaching Chinese since first studying at ALESN so many years ago.

Please tell yourself everyday that you need to keep making your sounds more and more accurate until they are within a window of comprehensibility that a native speaker would understand without knowing you in advance. To go back to something I said during your very first class last fall, you want to eventually be able to ask someone where the bathroom is and be understood the first or second time, before you pee and poop in your pants.

Thanks again to all of my dedicated students and see you on Monday,

Brendan

ALESN Mandarin I Class summary and notes from Monday night, 3/11/19 Class -- sorry for delay

Hi Gang,

Sorry for my delay in sending this. Luckily for me, we covered some material that I taught last year, so I will once again paste a blog entry from last year for you all to reference this weekend before next Monday night's class.

This past Monday, we backtracked a bit and covered the Lesson 2 Dialogue 2 grammar point DOU1 (both or all) on pages 53 and 54. These were very important points that we did not cover the previous week before moving onto Lesson 3 Dialogue 1. Here, again, is a blog entry covering this grammar point:

http://www.sayitrightchinese.com/2018/01/mandarin-i-alesn-thursday-january-18.html

Following this, we went over the vocabulary and dialogue for Lesson 3 Dialogue 1, covered by this blog entry from last year. You guys broke up into small groups and ran the dialogue and I think that everyone did ok with it -- there were some questions, but everyone seemed comfortable with the new material:

• Remember that in Chinese, the names of the 12 months are simply the word for the number 1 through 12 plus the word for "month." Thus, the word for September, the 9th month out of the year, is JIU3YUE4, literally "9 month."
• Though not discussed yet, please remember that when we mention any quantity of any noun in Chinese, we need to insert a measure word between the quantity and the noun. This will hold true when speaking about "9 months" as in, "9 months ago" or "he has studied Chinese for 9 months," which would be JIU3 GE YUE4: 4 measure word month. We will cover this eventually, but I am mentioning it now so you can keep in in mind.
• We will learn all of the numbers from zero to 99 or 100 starting next week, which will create a system for you to memorize many of the new vocabulary words from Lesson 3 Dialogue 1.
• The weekly calendar in Chinese begins with Monday, which is considered the first day of each week. Monday through Saturday are simply called, "WEEK [day] ONE," etc. up to "WEEK [day] SIX." There will be a separate term for Sunday, which we will learn next week.
• Obviously, when discussing when someone's birthday is, we need to be able to say the terms for various days, dates, days of the week, etc. That covers some of the new vocabulary words from this lesson.
• Talking about age using SUI4. We will discuss more of this and see more examples next week.
• Various vocabulary terms for telling time, which we will see more of next week in the grammar points for this lesson and dialogue. Please review what we have covered so far and be ready to continue with our discussion of telling time next Monday.
• Finally, we covered the table on page 70 for the numbers from 1 through 99. PLEASE REVIEW THIS TABLE AND BE READY TO TALK ABOUT IT ON MONDAY.

We will pick up on Monday with this table/chart. Remember that there is a whole system with a chart/table and once you memorize the system (and once you PRACTICE...), you will be able to easily say any number from 1 to 99!

See you all on Monday. Again, sorry for the delay in sending this out.

ALL ALESN CLASSES ARE CANCELLED FOR TOMORROW -- MONDAY, MARCH 4, 2019

Hi Gang,

Per the ALESN website email that was just sent out:

There will be NO classes Monday 3/4. The school is closed Monday 3/4 due to the winter storm.

As I have mentioned many, MANY times, please make sure that all of you are subscribed to and are receiving weekly website email updates from www.alesn.org. They look like this:

Though I was able to double up on the communications this time and send an email to all of my currently registered students for my 2 Monday night classes, I have no way of getting in touch with any drop-ins or any former students who might decide to stop by and rejoin my class at any given time. However, if you've signed up for the website email updates, which are usually sent once a week (except in the case of inclement weather school closings or other schedule changes), you will always know about any ALESN schedule changes as they happen -- in case I am not able to get in touch with you all last minute one day, etc.

Sorry that we will miss another Monday night. See you all the following Monday. Be safe in the snow tomorrow, and when you have time this coming week, please review the appropriate vocabulary and dialogue for your class so that we can pick up where we left off a week from tomorrow.

Best,

Brendan

Cantonese I Monday Night ALESN 2/25/19 Class Summary and Notes

Hi Gang,

This past Monday night, we covered new material that I didn't cover during the 2017-2018 academic year because I had to stop teaching last February because my work schedule had changed. Therefore, going forward, I will type your class all new weekly notes and blog entries, the extent of which will depend on how much free time I have during a given week. Let's see how much time I have today to summarize your lesson and provide any notes along the way...

Vocabulary-wise, without actually re-teaching the lesson here in this email/blog entry, let me point out the important observations I made during class pertaining to our new words:

1. First of all, though it appears that we have 43 new vocabulary words, we actually have only 34 new concepts, some of them using multiple possible pronunciations or uses of old or new vocabulary items. If you group this new information properly during your home study time, you will only need to memorize at most 34 new concepts, not 43. You can further group these new vocabulary items into a very limited number of CATEGORIES, as I will try my best to explain below.
2. Remember that 1 and 33 are the same word, same usage, but that 33 is with the initial "ng" sound and 1 is after dropping that sound due to "the ng phenomenon" that I have explained multiple times in class.
3. 2, 7, 16, 28, 29, 35, 36, and 37 are all numbers that you will need to eventually know, but it will make more sense after next Monday's class, when I will draw a chart of the numbers on the board: first zero, then 1 through 10, and then using the words for 1 to 10, we will construct the Cantonese terms for 11 through 99.
4. 4, 25, 26, 27, 38, and 39 are all sentence final particles that we will see in action in various places in the dialogue.
5. 5, 21, 34 and 41 are terms related to telling time in 15 minute intervals or on the half hour.
6. 8, 9, 10, 13, 19, and 24 are related to 3 different methods of telling time, which we discussed in class this past Monday. These 3 methods are the DAAHP6 + number 1 through 11 SYSTEM, letting us tell time in 5 minute increments (10 after the hour, 25 after the hour, etc.); the GO3 JIH6 SYSTEM (allowing us to do exactly the same thing as the DAAHP6 SYSTEM); and the FAN1 JUNG1 SYSTEM, allowing us to tell the exact time (9:17, etc.).
7. The rest of the vocabulary words are related in this lesson to the concept of telling time: watches running fast, slow, ready yet, not ready yet, this kind of stuff. PLEASE MEMORIZE THESE WORDS, AS THEY ARE VERY BASIC TO CANTONESE AND YOU WILL EVENTUALLY NEED TO KNOW ALL OF THESE ITEMS.

When I did the Conversation Build Up, we went through word at a time, phrases at a time, and then sentences at a time. *Remember that I pointed out that it appears that the 2 speakers' names have been reversed in the book as to who is actually speaking when addressing the other person. Ask me about this during next class if you are unsure what I mean; I don't feel like explaining it here.

We saw that our dialogue takes place in an office, where one guy has come to get the other guy for their lunch together. They ask if they are ready yet. They talk about what time it is. The one guy asks the other guy if his watch is fast or slow or accurate. They talk about the possibility that the one guy's watch is no longer accurate, but that he isn't sure (special sentence final particle to communicate doubt, as we discussed in class). The one guy asks the other guy to wait for him. Sure, no problem. Sorry. It's all right.

YOUR HOMEWORK: Please go back and reread the dialogue after reviewing the vocabulary and understanding how the vocabulary words fit into related categories as I have mentioned above. If you can, try to memorize the new vocabulary words while keeping in mind that they are related to each other in the ways that I have suggested. If you need to, or maybe just as a nice review of the sounds of spoken Cantonese, please listen to the mp3 that goes with this lesson.

We will pick up next time with the Recapitulation on page 85, answer any questions, and then you all will break up into "Happy Happy Groups" to run the dialogue with a partner or partners. Following this, we will review some pronunciation reminders on pages 86 through 88 and then mention some Culture notes on page 89. Finally, I will cover or begin to cover some grammar points ("Structure Notes") beginning on page 89. Before explaining these grammar points, I will draw a chart on the board, as suggested at the beginning of this email, and explain to you the beautiful and simple system that Cantonese uses to count things. We will learn the words for the numbers 0 through 10, and then using the Cantonese words for the numbers 1 through 10, we will learn how to construct the remaining numbers from 11 through 99.

Thanks again for attending class and see you all on Monday.

Mandarin I ALESN Monday Night 2/25/19 Class Summary and Notes

Hi Gang,

This past Monday, we began Lesson 3 Dialogue 1 vocabulary and dialogue. HOWEVER, that is not where we left off the previous class.

You guys jumped ahead a few pages. When I asked where we were in the class, whoever told me was wrong, and whoever agreed with that person/persons was also not paying attention during our previous class.

No problem.

It's all good, because it was my responsibility for believing you guys. I accept full responsibility for accidentally skipping several important pages at the end of Lesson 2 Dialogue 2's Grammar Points. Therefore, we will need to backtrack a bit next Monday, catch up, and then move forward.

Please review Lesson 2 Dialogue 2 from this next blog entry below. This is just to set the stage for the stuff that we missed.

http://www.sayitrightchinese.com/2018/01/mandarin-i-alesn-thursday-january-11.html

I am absolutely certain that I did not cover some of the following material yet in your class, also from Lesson 2 Dialogue 2:

http://www.sayitrightchinese.com/2018/01/mandarin-i-alesn-thursday-january-18.html

I know this because the subtle nuances of mixed uses of bu4 and mei2 with you3 (to have) on the bottom of page 54 always confuse multiple students every year and lead to a somewhat long discussion each year regarding how this works. We absolutely did not discuss this particular stuff yet in your class.

This is where we will pick up next Monday, with the material covered in the second blog entry above (the Grammar Points for Lesson 2 Dialogue 2 -- mainly Grammar Point # 7). From here, we will quickly do the Lesson 2 Dialogue 2 Language Practice. And then, finally, we will move on to Lesson 3 -- hopefully towards the end of next Monday's class.

Regarding our false start with Lesson 3 Dialogue 1 last week, we went over the vocab and then I repeated the dialogue 3 times (3 different speeds from slow to almost normal). Once I go over the remainder of the Lesson 2 Dialogue 2 material mentioned above, we will finally move onto Lesson 3. At that point, we will review the vocab, dialogue, break into groups and then do the Grammar Points for Lesson 3 Dialogue 1. These will mainly focus on the numbers from 0 to 99. We will learn numbers, then applications of numbers, such as telling time, days of the week, months, years, and even the concept of money eventually.

But for now, sorry...we need to finish Lesson 2 Dialogue 2's Grammar Points. Future lessons will assume that you have learned this material and have some command of it. I would rather explain this stuff to you now than have to backtrack later on when the same material is repeated in the book and you guys might be confused about what is going on -- especially the dou1 stuff on page 54.

See you all on Monday,

Brendan