Translating a Chinese picture book
A day after I say I enjoy speaking Chinese, I get to relive exactly how difficult it is. My library has a sizable Chinese language section so I grabbed a few picture books to read. Yes, picture books are my level. Actually, it's slightly above my level as translating these picture books has me reaching for the online dictionary for every other character. @_@
I'm working on 我的一天 ("A Day in My Life") which is about an emergency worker and is trying to teach the reader how to tell time on a clock. So now I know how to say firetruck and how the hands on the clock are referred to as 针 (metal) needles which, for some reason, I find absolutely adorable. They also used 丁零零 ("dinglingling") as the onomatopoeia for the alarm clock! XD
My heritage speaker friend is helping me out, even going so far as bravely listening to me try to read her the text. I work on trying to set up a rhythm and hitting the tones properly at the right time. It's tough, but I'm strangely having a lot of fun. And it's the fun I'm concentrating on ever since I got this idea into my head to self-study two languages. Can't let myself get caught up in the idea that this is bad and impossible. XD
I'm working on 我的一天 ("A Day in My Life") which is about an emergency worker and is trying to teach the reader how to tell time on a clock. So now I know how to say firetruck and how the hands on the clock are referred to as 针 (metal) needles which, for some reason, I find absolutely adorable. They also used 丁零零 ("dinglingling") as the onomatopoeia for the alarm clock! XD
My heritage speaker friend is helping me out, even going so far as bravely listening to me try to read her the text. I work on trying to set up a rhythm and hitting the tones properly at the right time. It's tough, but I'm strangely having a lot of fun. And it's the fun I'm concentrating on ever since I got this idea into my head to self-study two languages. Can't let myself get caught up in the idea that this is bad and impossible. XD