喵

[xiangqiankua]

Phrase of the day: 肉包子打狗 (有去無回) / to lose something forever, kiss it goodbye (money, efforts), literally ‘to fling a meat bun at a dog’ “你明明知道他從來不還錢， 還把錢借給他，肉包子打狗， 有去無回。” 有去無回 is optional, as the whole thing is a 歇後語 xiēhòuyǔ, “a saying in which the second part, uttered after a pause or totally left out, is the intended meaning of the allegory presented in the first part.”

[kemetic-dreams]

Why is it called Mandarin and not Chinese?

Because English people first encounter the language as the language spoken by Qing Dynasty officials whom they referred to as the Mandarin. Mandarin was originally the romanization of the Chinese term 满大人 (Mandaren), meaning Manchu Officers. The language spoken by this officers, which was actually the Beijing language, was referred to as Mandarin too

Actually, nowadays the preferred way of talking about the language of China is Putonghua or Chinese in English. The term Mandarin is discouraged. This is because the term Mandarin comes from the meaning Manchu (Manchurian) Big Person (Official) because the Manchurian people ruled China during the Qing dynasty, 1644–1911. Most historians see this as a weak, semi-foreign rulership. That is, the Manchurians are a kind of Mongolian descendant, not Han. Now that the Han peoples have regained control of Chinese government, the term Mandarin is being replaced with Putonghua, which means Common Language.

Note: Western business persons, missionaries, etc. cohabited China during the Qing dynasty in droves. So, they simply commonly used the term Mandarin.

It’s a more specific term that focuses on the fact that many “national” or “ethnic languages” are really fragmented in a natural state

Chinese as a people speak a wide variety of languages that uses the same script for reading and writing. Many of these are very unintelligible to each other. Mandarin is the official language of the nation state of China, which is why it’s important for official use as the language of trade and cross village communication

However I want to emphasize that as the nation of china is young and large, the difference between Mandarian and Chinese is notable but not unique. Without modern advances in communication and transportation, natural language tends to deviate outside of a small radius so many similar culture groups(like Chinese or French) might actually speak a multitude of wildly different languages

prior to the French Republic, only 25% of people actually spoke what might be recognized as French(Metropolitan/Parisian French)

France has many different languages that got suppressed in the project of national unity, such as Occitan. Listen for yourself the difference here

[mandarinvocabulary]

功 gōng = achievement, result 劳 láo = labor 功劳 gōng láo = contribution

[soleillei]

studying chinese ^^

[warmstudies]

a new HSK system got announced! instead of levels HSK 1 - HSK 6, the system now goes up to HSK 9.

there’s a lot of new changes, so i’ll try to summarize a bit below:

in order to counteract the “unbalance” in the system - namely, that HSK 1 and 2 were relatively easy to pass due to them having 150 words each whereas HSK 5 (2500 words) and HSK 6 (5000 words) were a lot more difficult - the new system tries to spread out learning more gradually. specifically, each level has a set number of 300 characters in each level and a varying number of words which are made using the 300 characters you must learn for that level. in effect, this makes levels 1 - 4 harder, but 5 and 6 easier.

word lists have also been revised to remove outdated words (such as “fax”)

levels 7 - 9 have been added as well! they are more advanced than HSK 6 and supposedly supposed to be for academic purposes. however, from what i understand is that these levels share a word list and once you take the test you will be put in level 7, 8, or 9 depending on your score.

also, HSK levels are now subcategorized by level of proficiency. HSK 1 - 3 is beginner, HSK 4 - 6 is intermediate, and HSK 7 - 9 is advanced. it is now considered to have “3 levels” (beginner, intermediate, advanced) and “9 bands” (1-9).

these new changes will go into effect on july 1, 2021

there’s a lot more information, but this is just a quick overview! i would highly recommend reading more here if you are interested.

i was just studying HSK 5 on the old system, so i’m really curious to see how that translates to the new system. regardless, i’m super excited to dig into the new material!

[allaboutchinese]

人生的成功，不在聪明和机会，乃在专心和有恒。  - 俞忒 Success in life does not lie in wisdom and chance, but in concentration and perseverance.

[allaboutchinese]

天有不测风云 Nothing is so certain as the unexpected.

[allaboutchinese]

能言是银，沉默是金。  Speech is silver, silence is gold.

[allaboutchinese]

成功路上没有捷径。

There’s no shortcut to success.

[zakkura]

Motor Neurone Disease Fund

I never thought I would be somebody to make a post like this but over the past few weeks my Uncle Nick declined horrifically in his health. He had a bag full of health problems anyway but it took forever for him to have the Motor Nerurone Disease diagnosed. 

When I say that he dramatically declined in health, I really mean it.

This disease is awful and horrific for everybody involved.

I watched my Uncle go from okay to in a medically induced coma in a matter of weeks. It was so fast. 

I’ve never seen a disease cause somebody to go down hill so fast in all of my life; his bod became so thin, he couldn’t focus on anything right, he was hallucinating me in his house when it was a blanket on the door, he kept trying to grab at the wall that he said was moving towards him, he wasn’t eating or drinking, he couldn’t breathe properly and therefore couldn’t even sleep so he found himself sleeping on the sofa downstairs in pain.

My Uncle was a sweet man and he deserved so much better than this. 

As you can tell from my tense, my Uncle passed away 30/07/2021 at 7:15 pm.

His family and my family were all there around him, holding his hands and cuddling his head as he lay there with a tube shoved down his throat and so, so many wires for machines I don’t even know the name of.

He was under sedation for days on end and he was under when we were all there with him. He’s the only person I have ever seen die and I am still trying to get that image out of my head a day later as I basically watched my Uncle suffocate to death.

Anyway.

My little sister has started a fund for the disease so that more research can be put into it as the entire situation with my Uncle was a crap show. 

The goal is only £150 but more would always be a bonus for the disease to be properly understood so it can be diagnosed sooner.

Please help us out if you can.

Thank you ever so much for reading and if you could please reblog this to spread this around; I’d really appreciate it.

Catherine x

[angstudy]

Rainy days call for studying in bed (even though I have a perfectly good and clear desk I could work on...)

[laranjatoranjalaranja]

Academic writing advice inspired by Umberto Eco’s ‘How to Write a Thesis’:

Planning

Determine primary sources/bibliography.

Determine secondary sources/bibliography. 

Find title.

Brainstorm a table of contents with as much detail as possible (with chapters, sections and even paragraphs and sub-paragraphs - see How to Write a Thesis’ own table of contents as an example at the end of this document) (if the first drafted table of contents is good enough, it will not be necessary to start the writing from the beginning).

Do a first draft of the introduction.

Note-taking and research

Use Google Scholar to make sure you do not miss important sources.

Keep the table of contents in mind when researching and take notes of which sources could go where.

While note-taking, differentiate which parts could be used as quotations from the ones that are simply important for the argument.

Eco underlines the importance of what he calls reading sheets, which can be understood as your notes on your readings. According to him, these should contain:

information about the author if he is not a well-known figure;

a brief (or long) summary;

they should mostly consist of quotations (accompanied by all the corresponding page numbers)

any commentaries you might want to add;

an indication of which part (or parts) of your table of contents the information mentioned belongs to.

Keep reading sheets on primary sources (which should be the longest) separate from those on secondary sources (which should only be 1-2 pages long).

In the end, re-read the notes and color-code all the different parts according to where they would fit in your table of contents.

Writing and editing

A good place to start would be by redrafting the introduction.

Define every key/technical term used/mentioned unless indisputably obvious.

General writing tips:

keep sentences short;

do not be afraid to repeat the subject twice (ex: Roberta went to the shop (…) Roberta bought carrots and tomatoes);

avoid excessive details;

avoid subordinate clauses (orações subordinadas);

avoid vague language;

avoid unnecessary adjectives;

avoid the passive voice.

While drafting, write everything that comes to mind. Leave the editing for the end.

Use your tutor as a Guinea pig. Make them read your first chapters (and, progressively, all the rest) well before delivery is due. 

Ask for as much feedback as possible. Ask colleagues, friends and/or family to read your work. They will provide you with more diversified feedback, as well as allowing you to know if your writing is clear to anyone.

Stop playing ‘solitary genius’.

Don’t insist on starting with the first chapter. Start with what you know best and feel more comfortable writing about, then fill in the gaps.

Leave time for editing and try to take at least a one or two days long break in between writing and editing. 

Do not forget to fill in the gaps. When you revisit your writing, go through it with all these writing tips in mind as well as a conscience of what your most common mistakes are.

Use Hemingway in the final editing phase.

Quotations and footnotes

Since there are two kinds of sources (primary and secondary), there are also two kinds of quotations: either we quote a text which we will interpret, or we quote a text which supports your interpretation.

Some quotation rules to know:

“Quote the object of your interpretive analysis with reasonable abundance.”

 “Quote the critical literature only when its authority corroborates or confirms your statements. (…)  when quoting or citing critical [aka secondary] literature, be sure that it says something new, or that it confirms authoritatively what you have said.”

“If you don’t want readers to presume that you share the opinion of the quoted author, you must include your own critical remarks before or after the passage.”

“Make sure that the author and the source of your quote are clearly identifiable.”

“When a quote does not exceed two or three lines, you can insert it into the body of the text enclosed in quotation marks. (…) When the quote is longer, it is better to set it off as a block quotation. In this case the quotation marks are not necessary, because it is clear that all set-off passages are quotes, and we must commit to a different system for our observations. (Any secondary developments [like the quote’s reference] should appear in a note.) (…) This method is quite convenient because it immediately reveals the quoted texts; it allows the reader to skip them if he is skimming, to linger if he is more interested in the quoted texts than in our commentary, and finally, to find them immediately when need be.”

Some footnote rules to know:

“Use notes to add additional supporting bibliographical references on a topic you discuss in the text. For example, ‘on this topic see also so-and-so.’”

“Use notes to introduce a supporting quote that would have interrupted the text. If you make a statement in the text and then continue directly to the next statement for fluidity, a superscript note reference after the first statement can refer the reader to a note in which a well-known authority backs up your assertion.”

“Use notes to expand on statements you have made in the text. Use notes to free your text from observations that, however important, are peripheral to your argument or do nothing more than repeat from a different point of view what you have essentially already said.”

“Use notes to correct statements in the text. You may be sure of your statements, but you should also be conscious that someone may disagree, or you may believe that, from a certain point of view, it would be possible to object to your statement. Inserting a partially restrictive note will then prove not only your academic honesty but also your critical spirit.”

“Use notes to provide a translation of a quote, or to provide the quote in the original language.”

[half-lakshmi-deactivated2016122]

For the record, I honestly don’t give a fuck how much cock you suck. Suck a thousand cocks. Suck a million cocks. There’s no such thing as a slut. That’s just a lie they told you born out of male anxiety. Anxiety about adultery and misattributed paternity. Sex isn’t sinful either, though you can trace a lot of sexual repression and misogyny back to the Abrahamic religions. Before Emperor Constantine tried to replace the pagan religions with Christianity, they used to have sex in church. Sacred prostitution. Happened a lot in Mesopotamia, for example. And the Mesopotamians weren’t stupid either. They invented the fucking wheel. It’s your body to do with as you please. If anyone tries to dictate a dick limit to you, they’re trying to take ownership of your body. And that’s slavery. If they call you a slut, that’s slavery. And I refuse it. Suck an infinite number of cocks for all I care. Just enjoy it.

Benedict Smith  (via miss-jolielaide)

[purisuka]

[goodworkspaces]

The Jack Erwin Office

[justdesk]

[emmastudies]

one of my lecturers printed us a step-by-step guide to writing an essay for an assignment we had. i decided to type it up and share it with you guys. i think for the most part it is really useful and a super simple way to break down your essay. hope this helps :~)