aesmael: (Electric Waves)
Plain enough. Music library of choice on shuffle, list the first ten songs (I would say tracks, but mean to skip any podcasts which come up).

  1. Grainger - Country Gardens
  2. Luciana Souza/Romero Lubambo - Muita Bobeira - I think this track came with Vista *shrug*
  3. Queen - Killer Queen
  4. Akira Yamaoka - April Fool's Song
  5. Yuki Kajiura - Sweet Memories - (would have been: Jason Rennie - The Sci Phi Show Outcast #53 - Sci Fi and Politics with Dr Courtney Brown)
  6. Starsailor - Don't Stop Moving
  7. Yuki Kajiura - Sweet Memories #2
  8. See-Saw - interlude
  9. The Beatles - Love Me Do
  10. Delerium - Forgotten Worlds


I desire to include some substance of my own deliberate composition so I will say that over the past few months I have been working to abandon the rich text interface as much as possible, using it only long enough to learn how to input something I did not know before. So I am proud at knowing how to format this list without having to consult any outside source.

I have not been learning much, have not been making a deliberate study as I have felt always more pressing things to do and then sleep, yet what I have been learning is very satisfying. It reminds me of the latter half of last year, when I had to learn some LaTeX formatting for the wiki on which I was keeping my Electromagnetism notes.

It is not something I know yet how to describe yet learning such things, seeing something of how they work and fit together, is a very... clean pleasure for me. Similar to how I have felt in my brief studies of Mandarin too, and now I am thinking if I could find this in mathematics too that would be rather wonderful. Perhaps my perspective has been mistaken? Focus on the operators rather than the individual problems maybe. Might help with astronomy/physics too.

... I was supposed to be writing.
aesmael: (haircut)
I believe I mentioned at least once before that I am trying to learn Mandarin? Well, one of my closest friends is Chinese and today I managed to have a (very) short conversation with her on QQ. So I feel proud.

It is entirely possible the rest of this post is riddled with errors.

Me: 你好。
[(Now) Fetches dictionary to make sure I am getting it right] 你 is pronounced ni3, meaning 'you'. The number three indicates it is pronounced with a falling then rising tone (I have been told by friend and by my teacher when I studied mandarin very briefly at university that my pronunciation is very good but I have not practised at all in a year so I am sure it is terrible now). 好 is pronounced hao3 and means 'good', at least in this context. Together the two are used to say hello. In a formal situation 您好 (nin2hao3, 2 means a rising tone)would be said instead. I think there is a rule for two characters in a row using the third tone but I forget what it is.

Her: 你好。
^Pointy cap says look up! Whatever could it mean?

Me (feeling emboldened): 你好吗?
吗 (ma, neutral tone) is a question particle and turns it into 'how are you' (I think it exactly becomes 'You good?')

Her: 我很好。谢谢。
我 is wo3, for 'I'. 很 is hen3 for 'very'. 好 still means 'good'. So, 'I [am] very good'. Mandarin speakers tend to leave out unnecessary words where possible. I don't think there even are extra words to put in that one. 谢谢 is xie4xie (falling tone and neutral), an informal way of saying 'thanks'. I should have known that one too but I forgot.

That is all for now, but I hope I can learn more soon. I would dearly love to be able to carry a conversation in mandarin.

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aesmael

May 2022

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