Monday, April 22, 2019

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

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