Duolingo Mandarin

I have gone as far as I can in ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi on Duolingo & reached Level 25 out of a potential 160 levels (about 15% of the way to fluency). I've been here for about 2 months now.

Since I have reached that point in my ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi, I have decide to learn Mandarin since I am watching Chinese TV series from Mainland China where the official language is Mandarin. After about 6 months of watching, I have already picked up 4 words that I am using as commands with Moʻo; I guess I can now say she is somewhat bilingual! (I know several other words that are repeated a lot like "Thank you", "Iʻm sorry", & "I must be punished, kill me!" Actually, I don't really know that last one, but they say it a lot in the historical dramas so I will eventually learn it.)

Apparently you get to Level 5 just by clicking on start button!

I am still going to continue the refresher lessons in ʻOlelo Hawaiʻi on Duolingo because I do not want to lose what I have learned while I wait for Duolingo to release the next set of lessons in Hawaiian. (According to Duolingo I know 930 words in ʻOlelo Hawaiʻi. I find that hard to believe because I can't really have a conversation with what I "know".) I would like to find an online source where I can find a bunch of movies or TV series in ʻOlelo Hawaiʻi so I can hear the language & try to interpret in my head & understand what they are saying. But I have been unable to find anything like Rakuten Viki for ʻOlelo Hawaiʻi; I guess that's part of why it is considered an endangered language.  

These are all related to surfing.

So I am turning towards Mandarin. It may never come in handy for having conversations but it will help exercise my brain! A lot... The Mandarin section of Duolingo has 2 different writing systems, Pinyin & Hanzi. Pinyin uses English letters with diacritical marks over the vowels. Apparently there are 5 different tones for each vowel! I listened to the Pinyin pronunciations & realized perhaps when I talk to visitors at Lapakahi & try to explain the difference between a Hawaiian vowel with a macron & one without that they are feeling the same sense of, "It all sounds the same to me!" that I am feeling when listening to the Pinyin! Auē! 

The Hanzi system are the ideographic characters that are like what is called Kanji in Japanese. It is those beautiful calligraphy words with multiple brushstrokes. I'm not sure what I will need to do to begin to remember the Hanzi characters. My only hope is that the Kanji characters that I know from Japanese are used in Hanzi with similar brushstrokes; at least then I will recognize the numbers for counting & my last name! Life must be really tough when you need to remember all the Hanzi & you are starting down the road to dementia!

Made a little progress with Mandarin!

The window for the next eruption episode for Kīlauea has now been narrowed to between the 22nd & the 25th. 

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Gary & Jessica! 

Chinese TV Series Rabbit Hole

Last October, when I was returning from the Hawaiian Council annual meeting in Washington state, I was sitting on the plane near a woman who was watching a show on her tablet. It turned out to be the Chinese TV series, The Imperial Coroner; & even though I could not hear any dialogue it piqued my interest. I like crime & mystery type stories & the historical & cultural aspects also interest me. So when I got home, I Googled it. And thus started my journey down the rabbit hole.  

I think I like watching these type of things because of trying to figure out who the culprit is & whether the clues that they find or give are really based on science. (I do that with ones in English, too.) And in the historical genre ones, because of the swordplay, horses, & martial arts. This one had a little bit of everything plus a blossoming romance.

Screenshot from Rakuten Viki.

Since then I have also branched out in to watching some wuxia swordplay & some xianxia fantasy-oriented series. Most of the things I have been watching are from mainland China so they are in Mandarin with English & Simplified Chinese subtitles. I have watched a handful of Korean shows & a couple each from Hong Kong, Shanghai, & Taiwan. Nearly all of them are on Rakuten Viki. Here's what pops up when I click on the link on my desktop.

Maiden Holmes is the only one out of those above that I have watched.

Since starting the journey down that rabbit hole, I have also made a document to help me keep track of what I saw & whether I liked it & would watch it again. There are 4 categories on the list: Watch Again OK, Once Is Enough, Nope, & Viki Pass - Watch When Free. The Watch Again category is self-explanatory; but I have hyperlinked the actual 1st episode to the ones I really enjoyed (which is about 90% of them) to make rewatching easier. The Once Is Enough category is shows I enjoyed the 1st time around but don't have an overwhelming urge to see it again. However, if you come for a visit & want to see it, I will sit there & watch it with you. For the Nope category, if you want to watch those, I will let you watch it on your own; they were so painfully boring I could not even get through 2 or so episodes. For all of the ones I have watched, in the document I list the description of the series as indicated by the hosting site, the genres it covers, the main actors, when I watched it, & my very short description of it that is more meaningful to me. Like "phoenix sold as chicken" or "detective with anger management issues". These short phrases probably won't help you remember the series but they trigger a lot of memories for me; my brain seems to be wired a little differently.

It rained really hard for about 15 minutes at around 7:45 this evening. It was coming down so hard the rain was visible on all the security cameras. Usually it can only be seen on the North & East cameras because water is directed down in those areas. Rain coming down by the West & South cameras flows away from where the cameras are pointing; but the wind was blowing the large raindrops in all directions so they could be seen going by horizontally. The rain in the Front Yard camera just comes down through the leaves of the puakenikeni.

The next episode of the eruption at Kilauea is predicted to start some time between the 22nd & the 27th.

Well, gotta go! Need to watch the next episode of Love of Nirvana. [shameless cat vs Marquis] 

IASA #4-14

For EMFV final demo, Danie (R) shows Marielle how to roll out purple sweet potato gnocchi dough. 

 

IASA #4-13

Childrens' Day koinobori for sale at Kohala Jodo Mission.

 

IASA #4-12

Fireknife dancers at Kūpuna Dinner at Old Makapala School.

 

IASA #4-11

New coffee stop on road to Hilo in Ninole; used to be old white Corvette in garage at right.

 

IASA #4-10

Had lunch with friend Malia from WA (R) & her mom Harriett (L); photo by her brother Phil.