Laura Zhang's Posts - Changchun Friends2024-03-29T07:30:30ZLaura Zhanghttp://richardroman.ning.com/profile/YueZhanghttp://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2209115322?profile=RESIZE_48X48&width=48&height=48&crop=1%3A1http://richardroman.ning.com/profiles/blog/feed?user=1dr0novpxu98p&xn_auth=nogirls, SPAs for under 30 Yuan!tag:richardroman.ning.com,2012-06-08:4698766:BlogPost:3253002012-06-08T00:39:05.000ZLaura Zhanghttp://richardroman.ning.com/profile/YueZhang
<p>hey girls. there are some SPAs promotions on cc.meituan.com, a popular group-buying website in China. Below are two SPAs charged under 30 yuan! one of them offers free shower, the other doesn't. check them out!</p>
<p><a href="http://cc.meituan.com/deal/356610.html">http://cc.meituan.com/deal/356610.html</a></p>
<p><a href="http://cc.meituan.com/deal/936412.html">http://cc.meituan.com/deal/936412.html</a></p>
<p>hey girls. there are some SPAs promotions on cc.meituan.com, a popular group-buying website in China. Below are two SPAs charged under 30 yuan! one of them offers free shower, the other doesn't. check them out!</p>
<p><a href="http://cc.meituan.com/deal/356610.html">http://cc.meituan.com/deal/356610.html</a></p>
<p><a href="http://cc.meituan.com/deal/936412.html">http://cc.meituan.com/deal/936412.html</a></p>The secret to learning languagestag:richardroman.ning.com,2012-06-06:4698766:BlogPost:3250672012-06-06T16:28:27.000ZLaura Zhanghttp://richardroman.ning.com/profile/YueZhang
<div id="storyhead"><div class="headline"><h1>The secret to learning languages</h1>
</div>
<h3 class="deck">Tips from the polyglots: Find out how your brain works</h3>
<h5 class="byline">By Colleen Ross, <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/credit.html">CBC News</a> </h5>
<h4 class="posted">Posted: Jan 3, 2012 1:31 PM ET </h4>
<h4 class="lastupdated">Last Updated: Jan 3, 2012 1:30 PM ET </h4>
<span class="socialicons rec" title="2000478566"> …</span></div>
<div id="left"><div id="author"></div>
</div>
<div id="storyhead"><div class="headline"><h1>The secret to learning languages</h1>
</div>
<h3 class="deck">Tips from the polyglots: Find out how your brain works</h3>
<h5 class="byline">By Colleen Ross, <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/credit.html">CBC News</a> </h5>
<h4 class="posted">Posted: Jan 3, 2012 1:31 PM ET </h4>
<h4 class="lastupdated">Last Updated: Jan 3, 2012 1:30 PM ET </h4>
<span class="socialicons rec" title="2000478566"> </span></div>
<div id="left"><div id="author"><div class="opinion"><img src="http://www.cbc.ca/gfx/images/news/promos/2011/02/25/rosscolleen140x210.jpg" alt="Colleen Ross"/><p>Colleen Ross</p>
<span>Word of Mouth</span></div>
</div>
<div id="storymiddle"><div id="sharecount" class="sclt-share"></div>
<div id="aboutauthor"><div class="rounded"><h3>About The Author</h3>
<p>Colleen Ross is a national news producer for CBC Radio in Toronto with master's degrees in English literature and journalism. Trilingual, she has lived on three continents and taught at a German university before entering journalism. She is originally from Fruitvale, B.C.</p>
<h4>Also by the Author</h4>
<ul class="authlinks">
<li class="ext"><a target="_blank" href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2012/01/03/www.colleenross.org">Colleen Ross's Word of Mouth columns</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="storybody"><p>On a trip to Costa Rica, I marvelled at how a fellow traveller could flip so easily between languages. She would go from English to Italian with her friend, to French with someone else.</p>
<p>And then she picked up Spanish. Just picked it up as if it were an empanada at a street stall.</p>
<p>But this woman's prowess still can't compare to someone like Alexander Arguelles, an American polyglot who averages about nine hours a day studying dozens of languages.</p>
<p>A typical daily regime: writing and reading in Arabic, then writing at least two pages each of Arabic, Chinese, Russian and Latin, followed by reading Persian and writing two pages of Russian grammar before composing in Latin, doing grammatical exercises in Turkish, trying out a bit of Swahili, and reviewing Irish conversational dialogues.</p>
<p>When he goes running, it's a different "story." Literally. He hooks up his headphones and simply listens to an audio book in a foreign language, to exercise his brain as well as his legs.</p>
<h3>Hyperpolyglots</h3>
<p>Arguelles is featured in a new book by <a href="http://www.michaelerard.com/about/">writer Michael Erard</a> called <em>Babel No More: The Search for the World's Most Extraordinary Language Learners.</em></p>
<span class="photo right"><img src="http://www.cbc.ca/gfx/images/news/photos/2012/01/03/language-300-rtxvmyd.jpg" alt="The ability to listen. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, at a conference in Berlin. "/><em>The ability to listen. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, at a conference in Berlin. </em><em class="credit">(Reuters)</em></span><br/>
<p>The brightest of these super-learners is the 19th century Italian cardinal Joseph Mezzofanti, believed to have spoken 72 languages!</p>
<p>Legend has it that Mezzofanti picked up Ukrainian in two weeks, and that he learned the language of two prisoners overnight so he could hear their confessions and grant them forgiveness before they went to the gallows.</p>
<p>While that's obviously not normal, Erard says that polyglots and hyperpolyglots (people who speak more than six languages) can teach us something.</p>
<p>"The hyperpolyglots are people who have learned how they learn," says Erard. "They know their cognitive style, they know the strategies that work better for them, they know their environment, and the resources they have access to."</p>
<p>The challenge for the rest of us is figuring out how we learn languages best.</p>
<p>You may spend years working on Spanish grammar exercises only to find you can barely stitch together a sentence, and that a conversation is a match of linguistic tennis you're watching from the sidelines.</p>
<p>The way I learned French in school was completely ineffectual: the same grammar rules year after year, marginal increase in vocabulary and minimal dialogue, and unhelpfully taught in English. By the time I finished high school, all I could really do was ask where the train station is.</p>
<p>It took a year in France (and a lot of train travel) for me to become fluent.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, a few years later, a rigorous diet of German every morning, where I was taught in German and repeated everything I heard, had me speaking the language somewhat fluently within three months.</p>
<p>I thought there must be a way of recreating this rapid language learning back at home.</p>
<p>Turns out there is.</p>
<h3>Shadowing</h3>
<p>Some polyglots, as well as Erard who is not but writes about language, recommend a method called "shadowing."</p>
<span class="photo right"><img src="http://www.cbc.ca/gfx/images/news/photos/2012/01/03/author-michael-erard-233.jpg" alt="Author and language writer Michael Erard, a senior researcher and metaphor designer at FrameWorks Institute in Washington, D.C. "/><em>Author and language writer Michael Erard, a senior researcher and metaphor designer at FrameWorks Institute in Washington, D.C.</em><em class="credit">(Wyatt McSpadden)</em></span><br/>
<p>Erard says that when he tried this technique with Hindi one afternoon, "the heavens opened" and that he can still remember the Hindi words he learned that day.</p>
<p>The method is simple: go outside, put on headphones and play a bit of the language you're trying to learn.</p>
<p>Then walk briskly, staying upright and, in a loud, clear voice, try to repeat what you hear, simultaneously. Hear, repeat, hear, repeat and march around.</p>
<p>Odd, yes, but effective.</p>
<p>Erard says shadowing has a number of things going for it. It gets you used to people looking at you when you're doing something new, so it reduces the embarrassment factor.</p>
<p>It also hooks up kinetics to the language, so it engages those gross motor skills and makes you less focused on what's going on with your mouth and tongue. Plus it exercises your working memory, which is key to learning a foreign language.</p>
<p>Another key is making the experience enjoyable.</p>
<p>To acquire any language, you need to repeat words and phrases often, so repeat things you like. When we do something pleasurable, dopamine is released in the brain and that makes us want to do it again.</p>
<h3>Et voilà</h3>
<p>The underlying element to this, though, is to try to figure out something about your own style of learning. Is it easier for you to remember written material? Or is audio or video more effective?</p>
<p>Figuring out your neurology — how your brain is wired — can also help you learn a foreign tongue.</p>
<p>Erard says tests such as the Modern Language Aptitude Test can help determine your strengths and weaknesses by assessing your memory recall, executive (organizational) functions and ability to discriminate among sounds.</p>
<p>It can also measure the strength of your phonological loop — the ability to keep a string of spoken sounds in your brain while you figure out how to pronounce them.</p>
<p>Of course, these tests don't measure motivation or commitment or the cultural aspects of language learning, but they can give you valuable knowledge.</p>
<p>For instance, if the test shows your working memory isn't strong, you could do memory exercises while you learn Spanish grammar and vocabulary. And <em>ya está</em>! Before you know it you will be booking a trip with an off-the-beaten-track tour agency in Guatemala.</p>
<p>A test could also reveal that you are the type that tends to reach an intermediate level in a language, but then plateaus.</p>
<p>If that's the case, you can reset your goal: you won't be an ambassador, but you'll be able to travel with ease, or watch TV and read a magazine in that other language. It's a good reminder to be patient when people here speak English with a heavy accent or incorrect grammar. They may have been trying to improve for years, and they've simply plateaued.</p>
<p>We all have different language learning abilities; we just need to figure out what each of ours is.</p>
<p>When it comes to picking up new languages, we're not all hot tamales.</p>
</div>
</div>wrap up of 3 Jun and 4 Jun and some quotes from linyutangtag:richardroman.ning.com,2012-06-04:4698766:BlogPost:3248092012-06-04T15:00:00.000ZLaura Zhanghttp://richardroman.ning.com/profile/YueZhang
<p>1. i know it is really nerdy... but list of active and extinct volcanoes in China:</p>
<table border="1" cellspacing="0">
<tbody><tr align="center" bgcolor="#CCCCCC"><td rowspan="2">Name</td>
<td colspan="2">Elevation</td>
<td>Location</td>
<td rowspan="2">Last eruption</td>
</tr>
<tr align="center" bgcolor="#CCCCCC"><td>metres</td>
<td>feet</td>
<td><a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographic_coordinates" title="Geographic coordinates">Coordinates…</a></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>1. i know it is really nerdy... but list of active and extinct volcanoes in China:</p>
<table border="1" cellspacing="0">
<tbody><tr align="center" bgcolor="#CCCCCC"><td rowspan="2">Name</td>
<td colspan="2">Elevation</td>
<td>Location</td>
<td rowspan="2">Last eruption</td>
</tr>
<tr align="center" bgcolor="#CCCCCC"><td>metres</td>
<td>feet</td>
<td><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographic_coordinates" title="Geographic coordinates" class="mw-redirect">Coordinates</a></td>
</tr>
<tr align="right"><td align="left"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baekdu_Mountain" title="Baekdu Mountain">Changbai Mountain</a></td>
<td>2744</td>
<td>9003</td>
<td><span class="plainlinks nourlexpansion"><span><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/55/WMA_button2b.png/17px-WMA_button2b.png" title="Show location on an interactive map" alt="" class="noprint"/><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://toolserver.org/~geohack/geohack.php?pagename=List_of_volcanoes_in_China&params=41.98_N_128.08_E_type:mountain"><span class="geo-default"><span class="geo-dec" title="Maps, aerial photos, and other data for this location">41.98°N 128.08°E</span></span></a></span></span></td>
<td>1903</td>
</tr>
<tr align="right"><td align="left"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Honggeertu&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Honggeertu (page does not exist)">Honggeertu</a></td>
<td>1700</td>
<td>5577</td>
<td><span class="plainlinks nourlexpansion"><span><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/55/WMA_button2b.png/17px-WMA_button2b.png" title="Show location on an interactive map" alt="" class="noprint"/><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://toolserver.org/~geohack/geohack.php?pagename=List_of_volcanoes_in_China&params=41.47_N_113.00_E_type:mountain"><span class="geo-default"><span class="geo-dec" title="Maps, aerial photos, and other data for this location">41.47°N 113.00°E</span></span></a></span></span></td>
<td>Holocene</td>
</tr>
<tr align="right"><td align="left"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jingbo" title="Jingbo" class="mw-redirect">Jingbo</a></td>
<td>500</td>
<td>1640</td>
<td><span class="plainlinks nourlexpansion"><span><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/55/WMA_button2b.png/17px-WMA_button2b.png" title="Show location on an interactive map" alt="" class="noprint"/><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://toolserver.org/~geohack/geohack.php?pagename=List_of_volcanoes_in_China&params=44.08_N_128.83_E_type:mountain"><span class="geo-default"><span class="geo-dec" title="Maps, aerial photos, and other data for this location">44.08°N 128.83°E</span></span></a></span></span></td>
<td>520 BC</td>
</tr>
<tr align="right"><td align="left"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Keluo_Group&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Keluo Group (page does not exist)">Keluo Group</a></td>
<td>670</td>
<td>2198</td>
<td><span class="plainlinks nourlexpansion"><span><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/55/WMA_button2b.png/17px-WMA_button2b.png" title="Show location on an interactive map" alt="" class="noprint"/><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://toolserver.org/~geohack/geohack.php?pagename=List_of_volcanoes_in_China&params=49.37_N_125.92_E_type:mountain"><span class="geo-default"><span class="geo-dec" title="Maps, aerial photos, and other data for this location">49.37°N 125.92°E</span></span></a></span></span></td>
<td>Holocene</td>
</tr>
<tr align="right"><td align="left"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kunlun_Volcanoes&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Kunlun Volcanoes (page does not exist)">Kunlun Volcanoes</a><br/> (See also <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunlun_Mountains" title="Kunlun Mountains">Kunlun Mountains</a>)</td>
<td>5808</td>
<td>19,055</td>
<td><span class="plainlinks nourlexpansion"><span><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/55/WMA_button2b.png/17px-WMA_button2b.png" title="Show location on an interactive map" alt="" class="noprint"/><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://toolserver.org/~geohack/geohack.php?pagename=List_of_volcanoes_in_China&params=35.50_N_80.20_E_type:mountain"><span class="geo-default"><span class="geo-dec" title="Maps, aerial photos, and other data for this location">35.50°N 80.20°E</span></span></a></span></span></td>
<td>1951</td>
</tr>
<tr align="right"><td align="left"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leizhou_Bandao" title="Leizhou Bandao" class="mw-redirect">Leizhou Bandao</a></td>
<td>259</td>
<td>850</td>
<td><span class="plainlinks nourlexpansion"><span><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/55/WMA_button2b.png/17px-WMA_button2b.png" title="Show location on an interactive map" alt="" class="noprint"/><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://toolserver.org/~geohack/geohack.php?pagename=List_of_volcanoes_in_China&params=20.83_N_109.78_E_type:mountain"><span class="geo-default"><span class="geo-dec" title="Maps, aerial photos, and other data for this location">20.83°N 109.78°E</span></span></a></span></span></td>
<td>Holocene</td>
</tr>
<tr align="right"><td align="left"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Longgang_Group&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Longgang Group (page does not exist)">Longgang Group</a></td>
<td>1000</td>
<td>3281</td>
<td><span class="plainlinks nourlexpansion"><span><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/55/WMA_button2b.png/17px-WMA_button2b.png" title="Show location on an interactive map" alt="" class="noprint"/><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://toolserver.org/~geohack/geohack.php?pagename=List_of_volcanoes_in_China&params=42.33_N_126.50_E_type:mountain"><span class="geo-default"><span class="geo-dec" title="Maps, aerial photos, and other data for this location">42.33°N 126.50°E</span></span></a></span></span></td>
<td>350</td>
</tr>
<tr align="right"><td align="left"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tengchong" title="Tengchong" class="mw-redirect">Tengchong</a></td>
<td>2865</td>
<td>9399</td>
<td><span class="plainlinks nourlexpansion"><span><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/55/WMA_button2b.png/17px-WMA_button2b.png" title="Show location on an interactive map" alt="" class="noprint"/><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://toolserver.org/~geohack/geohack.php?pagename=List_of_volcanoes_in_China&params=25.23_N_98.50_E_type:mountain"><span class="geo-default"><span class="geo-dec" title="Maps, aerial photos, and other data for this location">25.23°N 98.50°E</span></span></a></span></span></td>
<td>5050 BC</td>
</tr>
<tr align="right"><td align="left"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tianshan_Volcanic_Group" title="Tianshan Volcanic Group">Tianshan Volcanic Group</a></td>
<td>-</td>
<td>-</td>
<td><span class="plainlinks nourlexpansion"><span><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/55/WMA_button2b.png/17px-WMA_button2b.png" title="Show location on an interactive map" alt="" class="noprint"/><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://toolserver.org/~geohack/geohack.php?pagename=List_of_volcanoes_in_China&params=42.50_N_86.50_E_type:mountain"><span class="geo-default"><span class="geo-dec" title="Maps, aerial photos, and other data for this location">42.50°N 86.50°E</span></span></a></span></span></td>
<td>650</td>
</tr>
<tr align="right"><td align="left"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turpan" title="Turpan">Turpan</a></td>
<td>-</td>
<td>-</td>
<td><span class="plainlinks nourlexpansion"><span><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/55/WMA_button2b.png/17px-WMA_button2b.png" title="Show location on an interactive map" alt="" class="noprint"/><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://toolserver.org/~geohack/geohack.php?pagename=List_of_volcanoes_in_China&params=42.90_N_89.25_E_type:mountain"><span class="geo-default"><span class="geo-dec" title="Maps, aerial photos, and other data for this location">42.90°N 89.25°E</span></span></a></span></span></td>
<td>1120</td>
</tr>
<tr align="right"><td align="left">Unnamed</td>
<td>5400</td>
<td>17716</td>
<td><span class="plainlinks nourlexpansion"><span><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/55/WMA_button2b.png/17px-WMA_button2b.png" title="Show location on an interactive map" alt="" class="noprint"/><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://toolserver.org/~geohack/geohack.php?pagename=List_of_volcanoes_in_China&params=35.85_N_91.70_E_type:mountain"><span class="geo-default"><span class="geo-dec" title="Maps, aerial photos, and other data for this location">35.85°N 91.70°E</span></span></a></span></span></td>
<td>Holocene</td>
</tr>
<tr align="right"><td align="left"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wudalianchi" title="Wudalianchi">Wudalianchi</a></td>
<td>597</td>
<td>1959</td>
<td><span class="plainlinks nourlexpansion"><span><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/55/WMA_button2b.png/17px-WMA_button2b.png" title="Show location on an interactive map" alt="" class="noprint"/><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://toolserver.org/~geohack/geohack.php?pagename=List_of_volcanoes_in_China&params=48.72_N_126.12_E_type:mountain"><span class="geo-default"><span class="geo-dec" title="Maps, aerial photos, and other data for this location">48.72°N 126.12°E</span></span></a></span></span></td>
<td>1776</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p></p>
<p></p>
<p>2.Quotes from Steve</p>
<p></p>
<p>the essence of any movie/novel/music, etc are about three things:</p>
<p></p>
<p>1) man vs man</p>
<p>2) man vs nature</p>
<p>3) man against themselves</p>
<p></p>
<p>3. quotes from Linyutang</p>
<p>A good traveller is one who does not know where he is going to, and a perfect traveller does not know where he came from.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence. </p>
<p></p>
<p>If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live. </p>
<p></p>
<p>No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Our lives are not in the lap of the gods, but in the lap of our cooks.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Society can exist only on the basis that there is some amount of polished lying and that no one says exactly what he thinks.</p>
<p><br/> The wise man reads both books and life itself.</p>
<p><br/> This I conceive to be the chemical function of humor: to change the character of our thought.</p>
<p>Today we are afraid of simple words like goodness and mercy and kindness. We don't believe in the good old words because we don't believe in good old values anymore. And that's why the world is sick.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Where there are too many policemen, there is no liberty. Where there are too many soldiers, there is no peace. Where there are too many lawyers, there is no justice.</p>
<p></p>
<p>4. white nights/midnight sun</p>
<p></p>
<p>5. The Nobel Prize in Literature 1964 was awarded to Jean-Paul Sartre <i>"for his work which, rich in ideas and filled with the spirit of freedom and the quest for truth, has exerted a far-reaching influence on our age"</i>.</p>
<p class="ingress">Jean-Paul Sartre declined the Nobel Prize.</p>
<p></p>
<p>5. the two eyes mascots</p>
<p><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a1/Olympic_mascots.jpg/800px-Olympic_mascots.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a1/Olympic_mascots.jpg/800px-Olympic_mascots.jpg" class="align-full"/></a></p>
<p></p>
<p></p>
<p></p>
<p></p>
<p></p>5.24 wrap-uptag:richardroman.ning.com,2012-05-24:4698766:BlogPost:3220522012-05-24T14:31:17.000ZLaura Zhanghttp://richardroman.ning.com/profile/YueZhang
<p>una citta</p>
<p>un viaggio</p>
<p>un ristorante</p>
<p>un paese</p>
<p></p>
<p>1. visualize</p>
<p>2. make it interactive</p>
<p>3. Context Matters</p>
<p>4. watch videos</p>
<p>5. listen to audio books</p>
<p>una citta</p>
<p>un viaggio</p>
<p>un ristorante</p>
<p>un paese</p>
<p></p>
<p>1. visualize</p>
<p>2. make it interactive</p>
<p>3. Context Matters</p>
<p>4. watch videos</p>
<p>5. listen to audio books</p>