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Category Archives: Blogroll

Sinoglot: more about China and language

In language, as in every other aspect of human activity, China sometimes gets presented as monolithic when it is anything but. Just consider the term “Chinese” which includes, by some definitions, multiple language families.
Chinese “not being a monolith” goes much further than saying it’s made of distinct chunks, of course. A bit of the catalyst [...]

Posted 11 February 2010 † syz § meta ‡ Comments (0) °

Sound off: Mandarin literacy, Chinese style

On a new blog with a different view of Mandarin literacy acquisition
No matter how fervently you sometimes wish it weren’t the case, Mandarin literacy requires learning hànzì (汉字 = Chinese characters). And literacy is an absolutely essential component of full language acquisition for modern Mandarin. Ergo about two years ago I embarked on a self-paced [...]

Posted 22 November 2009 † syz § ‡ Comments (2) °

Sound off: Silk Road International Blog

On another great post from SRI

Beijing Sounds serves up detail by the bucketful not just out of sheer geekdom (which there’s plenty of) but also based on the belief that the web has raised the bar on analysis of all sorts, that unlimited storage and linking capacity should allow the armchair enthusiast to click through [...]

Posted 31 July 2009 † syz § ‡ Comments (0) °

Sound off: links Feb 2009

This week’s links may not all be Beijing or Sounds, but they are achievements of some of the aspirations here at the studios

Posted 19 February 2009 † syz § ‡ Comments (2) °

Wu — sounds from way outside Beijing

On living vicariously through a new blog by Kellen Parker

What is Chinese? You know it’s not just Mandarin, of course, maybe because you’ve read John DeFrancis, or maybe because your one-time Minnesota neighbor, a spry Hong Kongese gentleman of 139 who spent 13 hours a day caring for his voluptuous jade carpet of a lawn, [...]

Posted 08 February 2009 † syz § DeFrancis § non-Mandarin Chinese ‡ Comments (20) °

Sound off — links 12/16/08

“Other approaches don’t have to be bad in order for your approach to be good” — natural language processing blog
“In my experience few papers are worthless. But I’ve heard lots of papers called worthless.” from the blog of Seth Roberts
“Last week, journalism lost its most incisive, stubbornly accurate, and unfailing hilarious chronicler of the failings [...]

Posted 16 December 2008 † syz § ‡ Comments (0) °

Blogroll II

Click here to skip the blah-blah and go straight to the blogroll

Syz is not known for his obsession with clean cars. He has tested to the breaking point the folk theory that a little dirt doesn’t affect how the car runs, by allowing the accumulation of enough winter road sludge to make a business in [...]

Posted 14 September 2008 † syz § ‡ Comments (4) °

Blogroll — China-related blogs

UPDATE: Newer, sexier blogroll can be found here
Q: Why have a blogroll?

A1: Cuz “news” is just so much digging a hole to fill it in anyway. A blogroll helps you ignore the events of the world.
“…journalism largely consists in saying ‘Lord Jones Dead’ to people who never knew that Lord Jones was alive.” — [...]

Posted 06 January 2008 † syz § ‡ Comments (4) °