Chongqing

[ickaimp]

David just got a request back for a job interview thingie for a place in Chongqing, China.

Anyone know if it's a good place to live? Yes / no? Espeically for someone who doesn't know any of the language?

[Edit: Thanks for everyone's responses. If the interview goes well and David accepts the job offer, it looks like it would be one of those things that we'd go for a year, see everything we could and head back to Western civilisation. We'll see how it goes.

Comments

[hoshi-ryo.livejournal.com]

It is harder.

Y'gotta be on key, or at least on pitch, and the writing is pictographic/idiographic with no real syllabary or alphabet aside from the occasional observable roman characters.

It's generally considered to be rather hopeless to expect to ever speak Chinese without a horrid accent unless you start learning the language during childhood or perfect pitch & a talent for singing.

[ickaimp.livejournal.com]

I'm one of those weird ones who found Japanese infinitely easier to learn than than German or Spanish. Mostly because I think in pictures more than letters or words. Last trip to Japan was learning a Kanji a day, just by wandering around.

Unfortunately, I'm pretty much completely tone deaf, so figured out a long time ago that speaking Chinese was out of the question. But reading? I'm still kind of hopeful. ^^;;

[hoshi-ryo.livejournal.com]

Then you're buggered unless you can convince everybody there that you're a deaf-mute. Unless you think you would enjoy never knowing if you have, for example, accidentally called somebody's mother a large Africian mammal.

[hoshi-ryo.livejournal.com]

Well, if we're talking about learning both languges, then whichever one you learn first will be harder since Japanese borrowed a lot from Chinese, even though the languages aren't kin.

However...this order of learning mainly means that you get to spend even more time trying to train your ear to pick up the tones and get them correctly when speaking -- which is considered incredibly hard to manage without some sort of early start, something not naturally provided by English as it is relatively atonal. (English actually uses a grand total of one tone, attached to the final syllable of the final word of a question. Not all English-speakers are too good about either picking this sole tone up, or about having it present when it is required.)

[hoshi-ryo.livejournal.com]

...

That last part...

One could use the same logic to argue that punctuation is not required -- as the tone is the vocal equivalent of the question mark -- as not all native speakers use it, either.

One could also use it to argue that the final particle 'ka' in Japanese is not required to make a statement a question, as sometimes native speakers will drop it as well.

You want to address this?

[hoshi-ryo.livejournal.com]

*sigh* Look, it's hard to explain in written form, because the best way to explain it is to provide an example of the lack of it in speech.

Think of it as trying to figure out what is intended by a person who never, ever uses punctuation when typing...and has just 'said' something which you simply cannot decide the meaning of from the context without at least some punctuation.

Or perhaps you may have experianced having to figure out which meaning of 'yes' somebody had used -- "Yes. (I understand.)" or "Yes? (I hear you, go on.)" It's the same word, but the nonverbal component can be much more important than the verbal...

( A lot of what I've focused upon is the nonverbal flags, as I am rather reliant upon some of them; there is some reason to suspect that English is merely the first secondary language I learned and that feline is in fact my primary language. )

[hoshi-ryo.livejournal.com]

(Sorry, was called off to lunch, now shall address the rest.)

Musical talent is not required, merely not being tone-deaf -- something that is incredibly rare among peoples who speak tonal languages (reasons for this should be rather easily deduced) -- and having had a semi-successful attempt to teach one how to sing, since tonality is part of singing.

Meanwhile, on where the brain processes language, or anything else -- you are woefully incorrect. Where/how the brain processes language depends incredibly upon the age at which the person first learned a secondary language and their gender -- and this is ignoring the fact that, when dealing with spoken language, a recent study indicates that where & how it is processed depends on the gender of both parties. On top of all that, all of this may be culturally determined anyway...

[windtear.livejournal.com]

I think that hoshi_ryu meant that having the ability to sing is necessary in order to speak in a given Chinese dialect, and that you are deliberately being obnoxious. Because when I was trying to learn Hanyu (Mandarin), the only way I could get the tonalities was to literally sing my conversations. That is the only way tonality is taught in English - in singing class, to match the melodies being played.

Actual talent is not necessarily required, especially if you start early, but it makes things so much easier it's not funny and lack of it is a real disadvantage. If you can't tell the difference between a high C sharp and a low C sharp (and from experience I can tell you that is not easy) then you are indeed in trouble.

[dreamingcanyon.livejournal.com]

...Sorry to Icka for messing up her thread. I won't comment anymore.

[impfics.livejournal.com]

No worries, you're not messing up my thread or anything. ^^;;

I just didn't have anything to contribute, so was keeping mum.

[samcurt.livejournal.com]

1. You have to be careful about the words deliberately being obnoxious; attacks ad hominum is not well-regarded here. According to what I know about dreamingcanyon, she is also in a Chinese major and she learnt enough college Japanese to translate Magic Kaito. (Ask Icka. dreamingcanyon was previously known as Jessica R.) I think she have enough expertise to comment on this issue.


2. Originally the talk was pretty academic, and, IMO, was nowhere obnoxious.


3. As a person of Chinese blood, and a native speaker of a language more tonally complex than CHinese (Cantonese), I can vouch that speaking is not like singing.