Internship in 4 months

4 months left before my departure. I start to be nervous about it. Don't know what it is waiting for me in London. How will be my host family and how will be the college. But in the same time I can't wait to do my immersion because afterward I will have my college degree and I will go to university :) Also I will finally quit the CECM! It is a great College but after two years and a half I start to be sick to be there. I saw everything changing there throughout those years and I was like: Why am I still here? I should be in university this year. And here I am, a 19 years student in a langues program who doesn't really know  what to do in the future and has two goals for now: Do my internship and never come back to the CECM, (well as a student).

I hope everything will going well before my departure. Any course that I would fail won't allow me to go to London so I have to push my Spanish cause no hablo espanol ^^ and I will have an intensive course of  Spanish during my winter semester. 

Travelpod

For those who wants to follow me through out my adventures in the world. Here is my travelpod blog. In March 2013 I will post a lot of articles about my travel in England. http://blog.travelpod.com/members/cbergeron1

Poem

Like the pond's water
I am what you see
But you can't see deep inside the water
I'm like a myth, you heard about me
But you can't know what is reaaly the truth
I'm like the ying and the yang
I am the combination of your perception of me and mine

Some information on Jackie Chan that some people do not know.

心的龙 means heart of dragon and in piyin is ''long de xin''

Jackie Chan was born in Hong Kong.

His name is 陳港生/ 陈港生 (Chén Gǎng Shēng in Mandarin and Can4 Gong5 Sang1 in Cantonese) His name mean born in Hong Kong

Known on the name of 成龍/成龙 (Chéng Lóng in Mandarin and Sing4 Lung4 in Cantonese.) In Asia. 成龍 means become the dragon

He's a stuntman, actor, producer,director,martial artist and singer.

His first language is Cantonese because he comes from Hong Kong.

Other languages spoken by Jackie Chan: Mandarin(of course), Taiwanese,English, Japanese, Korean and Thai.

Combat sports played by Jackie Chan: Kung Fu's North and South, Aikido, Judo and Boxing.

Favorite coulour: White.

Traditional and Simplified Chinese Characters

Traditional Simplified
謝 /谢 (xiè /Thank You)
說 /说 (shuō/Say)
訁 /讠
開/ 开 (Kāi/open)
愛 /爱 (ài/love)
門/ 门 (men/door)
風 /凤 fēng/wind)
見 /见 (jiàn/see)
歡 /欢 (huan/happiness)



In Chinese there are over 3000 traditional characters and then 2 / 3 have been simplified.
Traditional characters.

Traditional Chinese characters are used in China, Hong Kong, Singapore, in Japan (Kanji), Vietnam, and in Chinatown (New York, Montreal ...)

I think I know the reason why the Chinese characters were simplified, but I'll check if I am right then I continue my article.

New Activity in Physical Education Classes

At school, we have Physical Education classes. We play basketball, soccer, kin ball and more. I would like to integrate a martial art in this class like in schools in Asia.

Martial arts are excellent sports because the goal is to surpass yourself. You are supposed to fight to become better, not only in martial arts but in every aspect of your life. ¸

Martial arts help people to be concentrated. It can help students with bad behaviors because it teaches you to respect yourself and other people. It also helps you to be confident because you have more self-control and you think before acting. Knowing yourself helps you to understand others better like martial arts masters who make a move and can predict how the opponent will react.

To conclude martial arts should be integrated at school because they contribute to develop a lot of physical and mental aspects of a human being.

Mandarin Lesson

In mandarin, they are 5 tones.


The 1st tone is one that is high.The tone must be strong from the beginning to the end of the word. Emphasis on the vowel is used to show what the tone is: ā like xīn/心 (heart) kāi xīn/开心 (Happy)

The 2nd tone is a tone that starts low and rises. The sign at the top of the vowel is á like tóng/同 (same) tóng xué/同学( Student)

The 3rd tone is the most difficult tone.This tone starts low and then back to the neutral tone. The sign placed on the vowel: ǎ like hǎo/好 in the sentence nǐ hǎo/你好(hello)

The 4th tone is the tone that goes low . Starting from the neutral tone and then it lowers. The sign is:à . example: love (ài/爱) like in this sentence wǒ ài nǐ/我爱你 (I love you)

The 5th tone is the neutral tone. It's like to speak normally without emotion. There isn't any accent on the vowel to indicate the tone.

The tones are the first thing to understand if you want to speak Mandarin.

How To prounouce consonants:

b,d,f,g,,k,l.m,n,p,s,t,w,y as in english.
c: s like say
j:between j and t
q: ch like cheese
r: like love
x: like see
z: like english ch in kids
sh: like she
zh: between z and j
h: r

How to prounouce vowels:
a: same a in french
e:
ou: o
u: ou


Pronoun:
我/wǒ(ouo): I
你/nǐ(ni/nii):You
他/tā(ta): He
她/tā(ta):She
它/tā(ta): It
我们/wǒ mén(ouomen): We
你们/nǐ mén(ni men):You
他们/tā mén(ta men):They
她们/tā mén(ta men)They

Verbs:
是/shì:be
有/yǒu: have
看/看见/kàn jiàn: see/look
爱/ài:love(like: I love...)(may also be a noun)
喜欢/xǐ huan: Like
吃/chī:eat
相/xiāng: think
去/qù: go
哭/kū:cry
笑/xiào:smile (may also be a noun)
学/xué: study
忘记/wàn jì:forget
记得/jì de:remember
要/想/yào/xiǎng :want
说/shuō: speak/say

In Chinese to conjugate verbs we need a character that you put before or after the verb like:

我是: I'm . (I'm) in the future tense you put 会(huì) before the verb. 我会是:I will be.
我是:I'm. In the past tense you put 了(le) after the verb. 我是了:I was

Negative sentence.
To make a negative sentence we put 不 before the verb.

Example: I' m Chinese (我是中国人) so I'm not Chinese is :我不是中国人
We can make a negative sentence with 没(méi)

Interrogative sentence: We put the verb before and after this character 不 like: 你是不是中国人 (Are you Chinese?)

Another method: The character 吗(ma). We put this character at the end of a sentence like 你喜欢他吗/你喜欢她吗 (Do you like him?/Do you like her?)

Few sentences:

你好/nǐ hǎo (Hi)
你好吗?/nǐ hǎo ma (How are you?)
很好,您?/hěn hǎo, nǐn? (Fine and you?)
你什么名字?/ nǐ shénme míngzi? (What is your name?)
我的名字是叫/wǒ de míngzi shì jiào (My name is...)
我叫/wǒ jiào (I'm call)
对不起/dui bù qǐ: Sorry.
你是谁/nǐ shì shéi: Who are you?
我想有/ wǒ xiǎng yǒu (I want to have...)
我想吃/wǒ xiǎng chī: I want to eat.

(The chinese characters are simplified ones and not traditional ones)