Duibuqi wo ting bu dong! ( sry I don't understand)
Door: Tommy
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Tommy
14 Juli 2011 | Taiwan, Taichung
After a Long time I’ve finally managed to create a new blog. I guess what they say is true: “no news is good news” I’m having a good time and am quite busy but, although I’ve been doing a lot of things and been studying hard I should have written something a lot earlier, sry…
As I said I’ve been doing a lot of things, I went to chinshui again(home town of my friend) and Taipei (hiking on all stars and visit night market), went to the movies (with 3d glasses that were way to big).
I’ve also been eating in a lot of different restaurants, Sushi (with the famous sushi plate escalator)
Japanese curry, Tepanyaki ,where the table is against the bar and there is a tepanyaki plate in front of you where the chef prepares your meal.. it goes really fast and tastes quite nice.
I went to a traditional teahouse with my teacher and class and then again with my friend to eat and drink traditional Taiwanese/Chinese food and tea.. it was reeaaaaly delicious yet a bit expensive for Taiwanese standards, the tea was about 10 euro (more expensive then the food)
But really good!
I’m now planning some trips to Kaohsiung a big city in the south of Taiwan where I have some friends that were guest in the Intersail hostel and where my friend has classmates.
To Vietnam where I of course have all the friends I got to know last travel to Asia
And to Korea where I have one friend that I know from my university in the Hague. And my Taiwanese friend has a classmate.
Because my friend’s aunt works at Korea airlines we are able to get plane tickets with discount, yet they still are not really that cheap. A return flight is about 200-300 euro..
The study is going well but it’s very difficult.
We get a lot of vocabulary and complicated grammar rules (although higher levels say that our level is soooo easy…).
Where I had no grammar education in Amsterdam I now have to distinguish a lot of different major words.
For example one glass of coke = Yi bei kele , but 1 cup of tea = yi bei cha
We learned about 10 different measurewords, that are distinguished by sometimes weird rules.
For example all things that look like sticks are “zhi” and all animals are “zhi” it’s the same pronunciation but they are different characters.
All things that have a big flat surface are “zhang”, and all things put together are “fen”..
Paper and table are both “zhang” because it has a big surface, yet a newspaper is papers put together so it’s “fen”…
Etc, etc.
Next to that I’ve learned that Chinese don’t count in thousands but in ten thousands.
So where we distinguish 1000; 100,000; 100,000,000
They use 1,0000; 1000,0000; 1000,0000,0000
The word for 1000 = qian(tsian) and the word for 10000 = wan ( one)
So instead of saying 10 thousand they say one “wan “
And instead of 100 thousand they say 10 “wan”.
There are a lot more rules in counting nrs besides this but I thought this was the most confusing one..
I now understand why Chinese sometimes make mistakes when talking about nrs.
There are a lot of typhoons passing and coming to Taiwan which makes it rains really heavily. Which is awesome when you are in side, however when you are outside for about 5-10 seconds (even with umbrella (yu san)) you are absolutely soaking wet…><
And!! I felt my first earth quake 2 days ago, which apparently is normal for Taiwan...
It was a bit scary because I was alone, however because there were no screaming people outside I figured it was ok.
The study goes quite fast and it’s quite a lot of things that we have to remember.
And this sometimes makes me ask myself why on earth I decided to take this “quite” intensive course during my summer break.
However I do enjoy learning Chinese, I still manage to eat and drink something new every single day , I see a lot of stuff and experience new things and I’ve got a nice friend here. All of this immediately makes me forget any doubt about my decision.
I’ll try to upload some of the pictures we took and a movie of the rain a.s.a.p. on Facebook.
Ltrs,
Tommy
As I said I’ve been doing a lot of things, I went to chinshui again(home town of my friend) and Taipei (hiking on all stars and visit night market), went to the movies (with 3d glasses that were way to big).
I’ve also been eating in a lot of different restaurants, Sushi (with the famous sushi plate escalator)
Japanese curry, Tepanyaki ,where the table is against the bar and there is a tepanyaki plate in front of you where the chef prepares your meal.. it goes really fast and tastes quite nice.
I went to a traditional teahouse with my teacher and class and then again with my friend to eat and drink traditional Taiwanese/Chinese food and tea.. it was reeaaaaly delicious yet a bit expensive for Taiwanese standards, the tea was about 10 euro (more expensive then the food)
But really good!
I’m now planning some trips to Kaohsiung a big city in the south of Taiwan where I have some friends that were guest in the Intersail hostel and where my friend has classmates.
To Vietnam where I of course have all the friends I got to know last travel to Asia
And to Korea where I have one friend that I know from my university in the Hague. And my Taiwanese friend has a classmate.
Because my friend’s aunt works at Korea airlines we are able to get plane tickets with discount, yet they still are not really that cheap. A return flight is about 200-300 euro..
The study is going well but it’s very difficult.
We get a lot of vocabulary and complicated grammar rules (although higher levels say that our level is soooo easy…).
Where I had no grammar education in Amsterdam I now have to distinguish a lot of different major words.
For example one glass of coke = Yi bei kele , but 1 cup of tea = yi bei cha
We learned about 10 different measurewords, that are distinguished by sometimes weird rules.
For example all things that look like sticks are “zhi” and all animals are “zhi” it’s the same pronunciation but they are different characters.
All things that have a big flat surface are “zhang”, and all things put together are “fen”..
Paper and table are both “zhang” because it has a big surface, yet a newspaper is papers put together so it’s “fen”…
Etc, etc.
Next to that I’ve learned that Chinese don’t count in thousands but in ten thousands.
So where we distinguish 1000; 100,000; 100,000,000
They use 1,0000; 1000,0000; 1000,0000,0000
The word for 1000 = qian(tsian) and the word for 10000 = wan ( one)
So instead of saying 10 thousand they say one “wan “
And instead of 100 thousand they say 10 “wan”.
There are a lot more rules in counting nrs besides this but I thought this was the most confusing one..
I now understand why Chinese sometimes make mistakes when talking about nrs.
There are a lot of typhoons passing and coming to Taiwan which makes it rains really heavily. Which is awesome when you are in side, however when you are outside for about 5-10 seconds (even with umbrella (yu san)) you are absolutely soaking wet…><
And!! I felt my first earth quake 2 days ago, which apparently is normal for Taiwan...
It was a bit scary because I was alone, however because there were no screaming people outside I figured it was ok.
The study goes quite fast and it’s quite a lot of things that we have to remember.
And this sometimes makes me ask myself why on earth I decided to take this “quite” intensive course during my summer break.
However I do enjoy learning Chinese, I still manage to eat and drink something new every single day , I see a lot of stuff and experience new things and I’ve got a nice friend here. All of this immediately makes me forget any doubt about my decision.
I’ll try to upload some of the pictures we took and a movie of the rain a.s.a.p. on Facebook.
Ltrs,
Tommy
-
14 Juli 2011 - 12:00
Pa:
Nou dat klinkt goed je. Jullie eten dus vaak buiten de deur en koken nooit zelf! Het weer is hier momenteel ook niet goed, regen, wind, zeg maar herfstachtig.
Maar Typhonen hebben we nog niet. Jij houdt het nog wel even uit zo te horen, keep on moving!
Hug Dad -
14 Juli 2011 - 12:22
Tommy:
we eten altijd buiten de deur, voor elkke maaltijd, ik zal volgende blog wat meer uitleg geven over de keuken cultuur hier.
het komt er in het kort op neer, dat het goedkoper is, en bijna geen een huis een keuken heeft... -
14 Juli 2011 - 17:18
Ben:
Elke dag wat nieuws!
klinkt als een geweldige ervaring daar. geniet er van en vakantie? komt wel weer eens, volgens mij is dit iets passenders!
ben benieuwd naar de foto's.
greetz, ben -
14 Juli 2011 - 21:33
Gji:
nice to hear that you are enjoying everyhing there. ;) -
16 Juli 2011 - 09:00
Ymkje:
wouw Tom wat poëtisch zijn je laatste zinnen. Je hebt helemaal gelijk, je bent er drukdruk mee maar de andere kant is natuurlijk alle indrukken en ervaringen zijn voor geen goud te koop. Dus toch nog naar Vietnam??
Hoop je snel weer op skype te ontdekken btw Toon kun je nu ook skypen op de I phone. Ik nog niet maar ik laat het je weten als ik deze heb. kuzzzzzzzzzzzz -
16 Juli 2011 - 09:02
Ymkje:
geen keuken... GEEN KEUKEN???? Dat ga ik ook in Nederland introduceren!! -
31 Juli 2011 - 07:16
Vincent:
Ha Tommy,
Van harte gefeliciteerd met je verjaardag! Maak er een mooie dag van! -
31 Juli 2011 - 21:41
Marianne:
Hi Tommy,
van harte met je verjaardag!!! Hoewel je in Taiwan misschien al niet meer jarig bent... of zelfs nog niet jarig bent?!?!?
Anyway: ik hoop dat je een leuke dag hebt/had/krijgt. En blijf vooral bloggen, super om je verhalen te lezen.
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