This photograph was taken at the Uniquely Chengdu Chinese restaurant in downtown Eugene. This particular example is of a sign that is printed in both English and Chinese. This script was written more like handwriting, different from most of the other fonts that went for more of either a computer font or a calligraphy feel. This sign, given it is in both Chinese and English, makes it feel as if the establishment is open both to native Chinese and to English speakers, as well as the type of script and its presentation representing its modernity.

The second image is outside of a hair studio. The shop has the name of the studio as well as some other text is in Chinese, showing that there is both advertising to non-Chinese speakers, but also obvious that it is welcome to Chinese speakers as well. There is also the fact that it is written in simplified characters, meaning that the target audience is also mainland Chinese speakers of Mandarin.

For this class, the learning strategy that has been most successful is doing the readings and taking detailed notes, then using the lectures to reinforce/answer any questions I might have had from the readings. I also feel the way the class is presented, with it mainly being a lecture to take notes is, is very helpful for my learning style, as it is easier for me to absorb the information faster. I feel I am learning the most this way. And due to this setup, it makes it easy for clarifying questions to be asked, since I am already familiar with what I know and do not know when I come into class for that day. When it comes to some of the more linguistic elements of the class however, spending a bit of extra time or maybe offering basic additional reading could be helpful as I found some of it confusing at times.

This picture is taken in front of an Asian market named “亞洲龍,” a Chinese grocery store nearby campus. I always go there to buy some snakes, instant noodles, and quick-frozen food. There are some Chinese characters in the picture written in traditional characters; they can be simplified as“亚洲龙.”“亚洲”/ “亞洲” means Asian, and “龙”/ “龍” means dragon. Dragon is a god-like animal in the ancient myths and legends of East Asia, especially in China, and is often used to symbolize auspiciousness. It is significantly different from the western dragon, which represents greed and destruction. Therefore, the meaning of this grocery market’s name is to make a wish, to be a lucky Asian market.

The connection between this picture and our class is that the character “洲” is a compound character. “氵” is the radical part to represent meaning, which means water, and “州” is a phonetic element that represents intended pronunciation. What’s more, “亞洲龍”/ “亚洲龙” is written from left to right, which is same as the writing order of simplified characters.

I’ve learned a lot about language history and language uses about Chinese, Japanese, and Korean as well as their writing system. I’m struggling with honorifics in Japanese. The speech style seems complicated for me and hard to understand. And for the reading materials, I thought I understand the article well, but sometimes I still cannot get a full point for the online quizzes. Iclicker quizzes work well for me, and the points make me confuse can easily stand out. I’m looking forward to taking the rest of the class, and I am interested in the topic “English in East Asia” and the guest lecture “Chinese medicine” so much.

This is an example of East Asian writing I found while at the theaters. This was found at the Century 17 theater in Springfield/Eugene. As you can see there is some Japanese writing under the Speak Yourself The Final. This writing was on this billboard because the movie was also shown in Japan. It’s a way to connect the people who were watching this showing together.

I feel like I learn the most when we review the readings we did with the iclicker questions and lecture in general. Getting the questions right lets me know that I know the material. If I get them wrong, I know I am still confused on the part I got wrong. Also seeing how our lectures are applied in real life helps a lot to see the bigger picture. Everything else has been going well for me. The class material and teachings are pretty clear.

This is a Chinese express company of Eugene. I found this Chinese express company when I went to GOODWELL to donate the clothes which I didn’t need. This company has many Chinese people to send the package back to China. This Chinese courier is close to the DMV of Springfield and GOODWELL, when I go to drop off my packages, I can just donate some shoes and clothes that I don’t need. These Chinese characters use simplified Chinese characters, and the writing order is from left to right. The Chinese character “递” is the most obvious way of simplification. The word “递” before simplified is “遞”. This word is a phonogram and the radical is “辶” that means “run”,  phonetic element is “弟” this word gives clue to the intended pronunciation. “递四方” means: we can ship to everywhere. These words also obey the rule of writing. If you want to understand the meaning, you should read from left to right. The word “格” also is a phonogram word, the radical is “木” which means wood and the phonetic element is “各”. Ancient China made a lot of plaids from wood to classify items.

So far I feel good about our class, but some unfamiliar professional words need to spend time to remember, and I am also worried about the midterm exam. But I think it is good to press Iclkcker every time in class and Quiz before class. Whenever I answer the question, it gives me a great sense of accomplishment. When I learned the Chinese writing system, I felt that I had learned a lot. I knew which year China began to simplify the role of fonts and radicals. I prefer the Chinese tea section because I like Chinese tea. The class also allowed me to taste different kinds of tea. I think this kind of actual feeling is great. Sometimes I am not very clear about the Japanese writing system. I am more inclined to solve my problem by searching for answers from Google.

This picture is a Asian market that can be found on 503 E 11th Ave in Eugene Oregon and is the first one I’ve found after coming to Oregon. The Chinese characters found to the side of the building read blank. Just looking at the characters, I can see the phonetic element and also the radical element found in Chinese writing. The phonetic gives a clue about its intended pronunciation and the radical gives us a clue to its meaning. It is written in Traditional Chinese writing and in pinyin it says Ya Zhou Long. In Mandarin, the word Ya Zhou combined together mean Asian country and the last word is Long which just means dragon. I also notice from this example that the Chinese writing system is indeed a logo-graphic writing system meaning that each symbol stands for a meaningful unit and that combining some sometimes gives a different meaning. Since it is in traditional Chinese, I think it could be opened by people not from mainland China and is thus advertised to people mainly from places like Tai Wan or any place that still uses traditional Chinese. Since it is also in English, it also attracts people not from the Chinese culture to try out different Asian foods and snacks. The end goal of the business to include both English and Traditional Chinese is to broaden their market of people to make more money. 

Some questions i had when taking this class is that I don’t quite have a concrete definition of what is a logo-gram and phono-gram that makes sense to me. I’ve found ways to solve this problem by reviewing notes and paying more attention during the power-points in class. In the class, I learn the most during the power points because it simplifies or rather extracts the most important information from the text in the reading. I feel most engaged in the class when I am talking with classmates in the discussion about the topic and then the teacher explains the topic more thoroughly after we engaged in conversation with each other about the topic. 

     These pictures are of a Korean Church sign over on River Road. I used to pass by this sign every day when I took the bus after class. Based on the signs, the English service is at 10 am and the Korean service is at 11:30 am. While I’m not religious, I did volunteer at a Seventh Day Adventist Church for nine years. I’ve always been curious about this church because I’ve been learning Korean off and on by myself for a while and now I’m taking Korean 101. I think this connects to our class because it incorporates languages, religious aspects and that even though they don’t speak the same languages they can respect each other. 

     In class, I’m learning a lot of the history and background of how Korean, Japanese and Chinese have become what they are today. I’m mainly focusing on Korean, but it’s interesting learning about Japanese and Chinese linguistic backgrounds. I grew up learning Spanish and English at the same time, while I’m not fluent in Spanish, it does have similar grammatical structures as the languages we’re learning about. That being said, I’m struggling with Chinese the most, it has the most variations and the complexity confuses me at times. I seem to understand the in-class material, but have a hard time with the readings we do for the quizzes.

Hello again!

As I was walking around Eugene, I found a number of small businesses and restaurants with East Asian writing. This Asian market, for one, is located on 503 East 11th Ave. The pinyin for the traditional Chinese characters are ” Yà zhōu lóng” which stands for “Asian dragon.” If you separate the words, in order, they are: “Asian,” “continent,” and “dragon.” The first two words make a compound word and stand as “Asian continent.” Its translation is pretty straightforward, but it is interesting to see a small market like this one use the word for dragon in its name. It makes me think they are using it as a metaphor to say their market is great and auspicious.

This restaurant “Izakaya Jinsei” is located on 1249 Alder St in Eugene. In this photo, you can see the Japanese words “いざかや 人生” (which uses both hiragana and kanji characters in its name) on the storefront of the restaurant. Separated, the words “いざかや” mean “tavern or small bar”, and the words “人生” mean “life”. In class, we discussed how the Japanese language uses three writing systems: kanji, hiragana, and katakana. While hiragana is often used to write verb endings and grammatical particles, in this example it rather phonetically sounds out the kanji rendition of “izakaya”, or 居酒屋, and provides an informal tone.

So far, I’ve been able to follow along with the history and social nuances of the three East Asian languages. However, I’ve been more challenged since we started our lessons discussing basic structures of East Asian languages. Thankfully, I’ve been able to keep up by reviewing past lessons through lectures and iClicker quizzes. I wonder how different languages came to use different structures (SOV vs. SVO). I know that it’s largely due to their parent language, but I’m curious about the specifics of it!

Until next time,

Claudia

This picture was taken in the 3rd floor of Oregon hall. It was quite awkward taking this picture, I don’t believe the people at the desk understood what I was doing. However, you gotta do what you gotta do, and I did.

This is Japanese text, and I believe it is talking about a job fair for bilingual people. I would assume this is referring to specifically Japanese ESL students, so that’s pretty cool. The kanji all the way on the right also says “the biggest in the world!” or something to that effect. I think it is interesting how these posters are written, often just kind of throwing words at you like “job fair” and “bilingual” without trying to make a complete sentence. Because it’s not really a complete sentence, there’s not a lot of room to be polite in the traditional sense that we are learning about in class. It kind of gets me wondering, is this poster being rude? I wonder how this poster would hit a Japanese person’s eyes, I doubt it would be considered rude, but there’s nothing that would make it polite, and I would think that the absence of politeness can be considered rude in some ways.

Then again, as someone who is a native speaker of English, I see a similar format in flyers like this, and I don’t even think twice about it. I guess it’s just trying to give you as much information as it can, and not really caring about politeness or good grammar. Pretty interesting.

Anyways I like this class, it’s pretty interesting. I find it pretty cool to see the comparisons between these 3 big languages and how they are similar and at the same time very different. The class is pretty interesting to me too because I am in Japanese at the same time. Sometimes I’ll even learn about something in this class (like keigo) before even hearing about it in Japanese class. Pretty neat.

I think I’m doing fine in this class, everything makes sense, but I guess I’ll know for sure after the midterm.

This is a photograph of the sign on the Eugene Chinese Christian Church, on the corner of Patterson and 19th by South Eugene High School. The presence of both Chinese and English show how this church is aimed at ethnic Chinese people, whether they speak a sinitic language or English. Within China under Mao Zedong many traces of organised religion got stamped out, and as a result many religious people would have fled the country so that they could continue to practise their faith. These people would be able to get together again and worship, and the sign shows how they are all welcome.

In this class I learn best by using the readings as an introduction and then cementing this knowledge with the lecture. I feel like I learn the most when I am forced to apply the knowledge gained in lecture. This usually occurs as a result of a paper, though these blog posts also require me to reflect on what I have learned and how I learned it. There have been very few times where material in the lecture was confusing, and in those times I was able to rely on the readings and outside sources. Overall I am looking forward to the second half of this class!