Oddly, I've just had a cluster of Mandarin language stuff hit my inbox, in the form of two useful web resources and one fascinating (and inspirational) bit of research.

Resource #1:

Professional Mandarin tutor and Chinese translator Samuel Chong, from Beijing and Los Angeles, has provided a list of adoption related phrases in Mandarin Chinese. They're mp3s and they're free.

Yes, he works in LA - you're getting the same service used by Chow Yun Fat and Jackie Chan (and, for that matter, Rupert Murdoch... but let us not dwell on such things). Ain't the internet grand?

There are eight sets of phrases, with (apparently) plans to add a few more. Each set is really just one long phrase, broken up into its component parts. (Like: Adopt/Children/China/Want are all components of "I want to adopt a Chinese child.")

Resource #2:
By now, faithful readers will know of the crush I have on ChinesePod for their free audio lessons (which lead into some even better subscription-only stuff).

Well, they keep adding stuff to their resources - including, now, a faster, simpler searchable dictionary using a Firefox search-box plugin.

I'm still a Zhongwen.com partisan, but this does look pretty cool. A little box up in the corner waiting for you to enter any Chinese-related search term.

Fascinating/Inspirational Bit:

Researchers with the Wellcome Trust have come up with reason number umpty-bajillion to learn a little Mandarin -YOU WILL HAVE MORE BRAINS.

Or, well, you'll exercise parts of your brain that language lessons don't usually touch (and art classes usually do). English speakers tend to use only the left side of the brain - the left temporal lobe - when listening to English. Mandarin speakers use the left temporal lobe when listening to English, too. But when they hear Mandarin, the right side of the brain starts lighting up at the same time.

That article is actually a couple of years old, so I wonder about the throwaway phrase near the end - the one about using this finding to develop drugs that can "affect the brain regions" used to understand speech. I mean, who wouldn't want Mandarin in a bottle?



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