I’d like to mention Signese, which bills itself as “a daily look at Chinese characters, as seen by one man and a poorly treated camera.” This pleasantly minimalist site looks at the “public face” of Hanzi by displaying a wide variety of photos of Chinese characters, especially as used in signage. Have a look.
Lately I’ve been adding the lyrics to some songs, including titles by Cui Jian, Faye Wong, Wu Bai and China Blue, and Jay Chou.
I haven’t included Chinese characters. Keep in mind that songs are meant to be heard, not read. Also, tones generally disappear when words are sung. Thus, these songs should be considerably easier to understand when read in Pinyin transcriptions than when listened to alone. (It’s the same with other languages, too, of course.) If you find you’re having trouble, liànxí, liànxí.
香港新設英文路標 犯人製錯誤多
中廣新聞網 2005-02-16 12:30不過，香港政府前不久才花了一筆錢，設置新的英文路標，結果錯誤百出，讓港府官員尷尬不已！
香港〔南華早報〕報導，不少新路標的英文拼音不是多一個字母、就是少一個字母，甚至應該小寫的字母弄錯變大寫。這些新路標花了港府上百萬元，但是錯誤百出，貽笑大方。一名政府官員說，這些英文路標都是監獄犯人製造，而典獄官沒有仔細檢查就出貨。
The Examinations & Assessment Authority released today the results of the September Language Proficiency Assessment for Teachers. Some 29% of English teachers have acquired the basic requirement in writing, with 43% and 64% of candidates attaining the basic requirement in English speaking and listening.
For Putonghua papers, 43% of teacher candidates attained the basic requirement in listening and recognition, 63% in Pinyin and 42% in speaking.
It’s interesting that people do so much better in Pinyin than in not only listening and recognition but also speaking. Moreover, compare those with the figures for English. Hmm.