Dreaming in Chinese: Mandarin Lessons In Life, Love, And Language
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.70 (816 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0802779131 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 208 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2015-11-29 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
From observations about maps, naming children, and the struggle over one language for a nation where over 300 million speak something other than Mandarin, Fallows takes readers on a ride through Chinese culture that is as entertaining as it is informative. Fallows makes all this fascinating by writing in a thoroughly engaging manner that not only invites readers into her experiences, but also delights them with her discoveries. Such as the fact that there are 400 syllables in Mandarin as opposed to 10 times that number in English, making tone crucial in conversation. From Booklist Fallows manages to take the relatively dry subject of translation and create a warm and witty memoir. Dwelling less on her own feelings then on the intricacies of language mastery, she shares experiences after she and her husband moved to China that taught her just how complex Mandarin can be. There is confusion with a Cantonese cab driver, the manicurist who envisioned “almost p
Thom Mitchell said Superb Insight and a Great Read. Ms. Fallows does an admirable job breaking down and explaining what learning Chinese is all about - and does this in a very engaging fashion. Her skill as a linguist gives her the skill to provide insight covering not only the language aspect of learning Chinese, but more importantly into the cultural aspect of learning Chinese, which I think is even more valuable and much rarer. For example she discusses the ramifications of using a single spoken word "Ta", but different characters to mean he, she, it and the history of the word. Her chapter on direction, or. Great book; don't read it on your Kindle I quite enjoyed this book. Like the author, I am a linguist who has studied Chinese, though I've only had the opportunity to make one short visit to China. This book was a chance to vicariously visit China with someone whose perspective I very much admire.However, the type-setting in the Kindle edition was VERY disappointing. About half of the Chinese characters show up as little boxes. Another 25% are weirdly big and pixelated. It's as if they weren't aware that the book had non-Roman characters in it, or didn't proof-read. I expect better from the Kindle ex. jimsecor said What and Where has this Woman Lived?. For me, who expected, according to the marketing PR, much more, this was a shallow, useless book that is about this rich woman's idea that the cuteness she found in China is, in fact, Chinese culture. It is not. Not by a long shot. All one learns from this book is how very shallow the author is, from the get-go: Wo ai ni. Chapter One. The Chinese do NOT say this, even though the translation is "I love you." The Chinese say something different. Chapter two, bu yao, furthers her misconceptions. I expected far more from the PR/marketing. What a disappointment.
But nothing prepared her for the surprises of learning Mandarin, China's most common language, or the intensity of living in Shanghai and Beijing. She learned that English speakers' trouble with hearing or saying tonesthe variations in inflection that can change a word's meaningis matched by Chinese speakers' inability not to hear tones, or to even take a guess at understanding what might have been meant when foreigners misuse them.In sharing what she discovered about Mandarin, and how those discoveries helped her understand a culture that had at first seemed impenetrable, Deborah Fallows's Dreaming in Chinese opens up China to Westerners more completely, perhaps, than it has ever been before.. Deborah Fallows has spent much of her life learning languages and traveling around the world. Over time, she realized that her struggles and triumphs in studying the language of her adopted home provided small clues to deciphering the behavior and habits of its people,and its culture's conundrums. As her skill with Mandarin increased, bits of the languagea word, a phrase, an oddity of grammarbecame windows into understanding romance, humor, protocol, relationships, and the overflowing humanity
She is a Harvard graduate and has a PhD in Linguistics, and is author of A Mother's Work (Houghton Mifflin). They have two sons and two daughters-in-law.. She most recently worked in research and polling for the Pew Internet Project and in data architecture for Oxygen Media. When in the US, she and her husband live in Washington,