Teaching Chinese at Home

[tamarind]

Happybirdks:

On dangdang website, it mentioned that if we bulk order 20 books of the same titles, they will fulfill order even if items oos. Perhaps somebody with citibank cc can organise a bulk order just for 四无快读?


Tamarind, are you interested in organising? :lol:

Actually the books are still available in certain provinces in China, like Sichuan, Yunan etc. But since dangdang ship overseas from Beijing, and the books are out of stock in Beijing, I am not sure whether they can ship to us. Sorry I don't think I have the time to organize a bulk order now. May be someone else can try to email dangdang to find out first ?

[tamarind]

[quote]
Chinese language is best learnt thru Chinese culture. It can build another dimension to the otherwise dry language. [/quote]I fully agree with the first sentence. But I do not agree that Chinese is dry language. In fact, I have always thought that Chinese is much more beautiful than English, and it is much more flexible too, unlike English which has so many rigid grammar rules. This is my personal view only.

Both my kids speak English and Cantonese at home, no Mandarin at all. But both of them equate learning Chinese to fun. The important thing that I did was to read Chinese story books to them since they were babies :
http://tamarindvillage.blogspot.com/2008/07/chinese-books.html

These are the wonderful books that I bought recently from dangdang :
http://tamarindvillage.blogspot.com/2010/02/chinese-picture-books-4.html

My aim is to let them read at least one set of 金庸 武侠 novels by 12 years old Anyone who has read these novels will never say that Chinese is a dry language

[finder]

tamarind:

joshjay:

Hi Tamarind,


I have been following your posts and blog frequently and as per you recommendation, I place an order for some Chinese books at http://www.dangdang.com. After much difficulty in placing the order and making the payment, the current status has been the following for almost 2 weeks already. Is it supposed to be like this? Please advise whether the order is ok. Thanks.

等待审核

Thanks.

joshjay

Hi,
Did you receive an email from dangdang asking for you to verify your credit card ? For problems like this, you should email [email protected] to check with them directly.

When writing to dangdang for enquiry, do you write in chinese o english ?
Tks.

[windows]

just wondering, how long does it take for the whole process of online ordering from dangdang? it has been 2 weeks and they have yet to send the books…$ has alr been deducted and reflected on credit card statement, and they are still "verifying"… will it be faster the second round we place the order?

[Wan]

tamarind, agree with u.


my sec days were spent reading 武侠小说。

there are some Chinese 成语phrases that cannot be translated into English or other languages as there are so much depth by placing 4 simple words together. the ‘dry’ part is only when u have to memorise the meaning of a list of 成语for exam sake…

my children started speaking Mandarin and Cantonese at home. English is more like a ‘working’ language. This was how I was brought up and I will bring my children up the same way.

looking forward to more good recommendations on ur thread & blog!

[tatarah]

For Chinese books, you can try Amazon.cn. I think they ship to Singapore. Else, for English, you can go to local version of Amazon. http://www.buybooks.com.sg

[tree nymph]

windows:

just wondering, how long does it take for the whole process of online ordering from dangdang? it has been 2 weeks and they have yet to send the books....$ has alr been deducted and reflected on credit card statement, and they are still \"verifying\".... will it be faster the second round we place the order?

Hi!

wanna ask you if you receive any emails asking you for your 1st 4 digits and last 4 digits of your credit card? if not, you may want to call them, tell them your order no and let them know that you need to give them the nos? then after that - maybe a week or so, they will then ship out the books. books will take about 4 weeks to arrive i think.

[tamarind]

windows,

There was once I also waited more than 2 weeks and the books were still not shipped out.

I emailed to [email protected] :

订单号 xxxxxxxxx
请问这个订单为何还没有发货 ？

The books were shipped out within a few days. It turned out that some of the books I ordered were out of stock and they were probably trying to wait for new stocks to come before shipping out.

BTW, sometimes their reply emails end up in the spam folder. So remember to check that photo.

[tamarind]

finder:

When writing to dangdang for enquiry, do you write in chinese o english ?
Tks.

I always write in Chinese. I don't think they have staff who can understand English. Afterall, the bulk of their customers are in mainland China.

[tamarind]

Wan:

there are some Chinese 成语phrases that cannot be translated into English or other languages as there are so much depth by placing 4 simple words together. the 'dry' part is only when u have to memorise the meaning of a list of 成语for exam sake...

That is exactly what I think too

In fact, the shape of the characters are also much more interesting than English. I don't see them as individual strokes, but as small little pictures which often give hints for the meaning of the words.