Welcome to Chris Learns Languages
Hi! I’m Chris and I’ve been learning languages since I was just a boy. I was born in a multilingual family so I was exposed to different languages from birth. My mom spoke Cantonese and my father spoke French. As I was growing up I put off or just flat out refused to learn my parents’ native tongues. Later in life (around high school) I started learning French and I loved it. I found that being able to speak another language, even a little bit, opens up your mind to so many different things and ways of thinking. In college I started taking classes in Mandarin. I also regularly attended Japanese and Korean language clubs and tried my best to speak to natives. I feel my learning is incomplete though.
My French is strictly colloquial. My Chinese is focused on reading and writing (not much speaking/conversational practice). My Korean is also colloquial (though I can read and write in Korean, just at a beginner level) and my Japanese is all-around beginner level. So I figured, in order to practice all 4 (5 with English), I would start a blog comprised of short stories, articles, and other fun and interesting things where I translate and explain how the languages work. This way, I could help other people understand other languages and enhance their learning as well as further my own.
Without further ado, Welcome to Learning with Chris.
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Korean Story-time! A look into an Authentic Korean Meat-house (All You Can Eat Meat). You have to go here if you’re in Seoul
Welcome to Korean Story-time. This is a time where we look at stories, real-life articles, or just anything we can find that’s interesting and not a textbook. Today we’re going to look at a restaurant that’s special to me and its reviews. When I was a college student, I studied abroad in Seoul, South Korea… Read more
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Let’s Translate “Bravo Monsieur le Monde” – Part 3 of 3
On to round 3! These 2 verses have a good amount of repetition so there won’t be much to explain :). The Song Bravo Monsieur le MondeChapeau, monsieur le MondeNous vous demandons pardonPour tous ceux qui vous abîmeront Bravo Monsieur le MondeBravo pour la colombeSi vous lui laissez la vieNous vous dirons simplement merci Translation… Read more
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Let’s Translate “Bravo Monsieur le Monde” – Part 2 of 3
Onto round 2! This round will contain the chorus and the first post-chorus verse. The Song Bravo la mer,On n’a jamais trouvé un vert plus bleuUn bleu plus vertAucune symphonie n’est richeD’autant d’harmoniesQu’un merveilleux tonnerreQui fait l’amour avec la pluie Bravo le ventQui fait danser les blésQui fait trembler les océansBravo pour le soleil et… Read more
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Let’s Translate “Bravo Monsieur le Monde” – Part 1 of 3
My dad used to play this song all the time during our long 26 hour car rides to Canada so it has a special place for me. I never really knew it was a huge song until I heard it in a french cafe last week. I never really knew what it meant besides the… Read more
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Chinese Story-time – Here’s what the Three Little Bears looks like in Chinese – Part 5 – The Conclusion
Welcome back to Chinese Story-time! We have the conclusion to our story today. Will the mother be happy overall? What will she do next? Find out this time on… Learning with Chris!I found this story here if you’d like to find other’s like it. Once again we won’t be doing vocab for this story as… Read more
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Chinese Story-time – Here’s what the Three Little Bears looks like in Chinese – Part 4 – The Youngest Pretty Girl
Welcome back to Chinese Story-time! We have the fourthparagraph of “The 3 Little Bears” today. Today’s story will tell of how the youngest bear was able to make her mother proud by being… business savvy?I found this story here if you’d like to find other’s like it. Once again we won’t be doing vocab for… Read more
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Chinese Story-time – Here’s what the Three Little Bears looks like in Chinese – Part 3
Welcome back to Chinese Story-time! We have the third paragraph of “The 3 Little Bears” today. Today’s story will tell of how the second oldest bear was able to make her mother proud by being smart.I found this story here if you’d like to find other’s like it. Once again we won’t be doing vocab… Read more
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Chinese Story-time – Here’s what the Three Little Bears looks like in Chinese – Part 2
Welcome back to Chinese Story-time! We have the second paragraph of “The 3 Little Bears” today. Today’s story will tell of how the oldest bear was able to make her mother proud by being diligent.I found this story here if you’d like to find other’s like it. Once again we won’t be doing vocab for… Read more
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Chinese Story-time – Here’s what the Three Little Bears looks like in Chinese
Welcome to our first Chinese Story-time! Here we will read a Chinese story and translate it. The story is broken up into 5 paragraphs so we are going to split this up into 5 parts to avoid making the post too long. I found this story here if you’d like to find other’s like it.… Read more
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Introduction – Japanese
こんにちは! Last on our introductory series, we have Japanese!I am very much a beginner in Japanese (still learning Hiragana and Katakana) so I’ll be learning as we go. Today we’ll be learning:How to say hello!Basic sentence structure.How to introduce yourself. Basic Sentence Structure Japanese is similar in sentence structure to Korean. They both use SOV.… Read more
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Introduction – Chinese
Today we are going to have a short introduction. We will learn: How to say hello!Basic sentence structure.How to introduce yourself.And more! Basic Sentence Structure Chinese basic sentence structure is fairly simple (compared to French at least). It follows a similar pattern to English, Subject->Verb->Object. E.g. I love you (我爱你 ).Following this logic, we can… Read more
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Introduction – Korean
Continuing the introductory theme, we have Korean today! How to say hello!Basic sentence structure.How to introduce yourself.And more! Basic Sentence Structure Korean is the first language we’ll be practicing here that doesn’t normally follow the SVO pattern. Korean uses SOV as well as some subject and object markers. This means that “I love dogs” becomes… Read more
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Bravo Monsieur Le Monde – English Translation
The Song Bravo, Monsieur le mondeChapeau, Monsieur le mondeMême quand les gens dirontQue vous ne tournez pas toujours très rond Bravo, pour vos montagnesC’est beau, c’est formidableCompliment pour vos saisonsQui nous donnent des idées de chansons Bravo, la merOn n’a jamais trouvé un vert plus bleuUn bleu plus vert aucune symphonieN’est riche d’autant d’harmonieQu’un merveilleux… Read more
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Language Learning With Chris 