New Translation: Magu
Mar. 13th, 2025 10:45 amI posted another translation from Classical Chinese. This one has dragons, and a traveling kitchen and other cool stuff!
Fanish Wishlist
Jan. 13th, 2025 03:36 pm![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
snowflake_challenge challenge number 7 is to create a fanish wishlist, people have been very generous to me in the past when I've made list like this. So even though I haven't managed to keep with the rest of the challenge (well I did update my profile but I never posted about it)( Read more... )
New Translation Blog
Sep. 19th, 2024 10:27 amAs some of you will remember I've been studying classical Chinese for a couple of years now, first on my own and now with a tutor. I've started ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
foreststudio to post some of the things we've been translating, and I just posted the first translation Wei Furen a "biography" of the Daoist Transcendent Wei Huacun. I worked hard on this and also learned a lot in the process!
foreststudio to post some of the things we've been translating, and I just posted the first translation Wei Furen a "biography" of the Daoist Transcendent Wei Huacun. I worked hard on this and also learned a lot in the process!Media Round Up: Unexpected Gap
Jun. 14th, 2024 04:14 pmI finished a book today and went to write my thoughts in the running file I keep for these round ups, and aprently I haven't updated the file in a while, oops? Anyways I checked good reads and I have finished a couple of other books -- but they were things I read with the kid, and one very short graphic novel. And I don't remember any of those enought to write about them. (I haven't stopped reading but I've been reading a bunch of fic and academic papers as background for my translation, and I don't write note on either fic or academic papers)
So I'm just going to post all the reviews I found. But umm its been a while so I'm just going to hope past me knew what she was talking about.
The Kamogawa Food Detectives by Hisashi Kashiwai, trans Jesse Kirkwood— This is the book I just finished! It was sweet and relaxing. It’s about a father and daughter who run a restaurant and a food detective agency together. They use detective work to recreate dishes their clients remember. Each story is centered around one client. This definitely one of those stories where running a small business is unrealistically low stress, but there’s lots of descriptions of delicious sounding food, and it's very charming. Also I want to shout out to the translator because this reads very smoothly!
( the rest )
So I'm just going to post all the reviews I found. But umm its been a while so I'm just going to hope past me knew what she was talking about.
The Kamogawa Food Detectives by Hisashi Kashiwai, trans Jesse Kirkwood— This is the book I just finished! It was sweet and relaxing. It’s about a father and daughter who run a restaurant and a food detective agency together. They use detective work to recreate dishes their clients remember. Each story is centered around one client. This definitely one of those stories where running a small business is unrealistically low stress, but there’s lots of descriptions of delicious sounding food, and it's very charming. Also I want to shout out to the translator because this reads very smoothly!
( the rest )
Classical Chinese Textbooks I've Used
Apr. 17th, 2024 09:48 amI thought it would be fun and possibly helpful to talk about the various Classical Chinese textbooks that I have some experience with. These are all books for English speakers that don't assume any familiarity with any Chinese languages. I know there are also textbooks for Mandarin speakers but because I don't speak Mandarin, I'm not familiar with them. All of these textbooks use traditional character and pinyin transliterations.
( Read more... )
( Read more... )
Media Round Up: Death and Stories
Apr. 5th, 2024 10:32 amI read several short things, so I have more media to talk about sooner than expected!
Disrupting D.C.: The Rise of Uber and the Fall of the City by Katie J Wells, Kafui Ablode Attoh, and Declan Cullen—For my urban planning book club! This gave me lots to think about in terms of urban governance and the gig economy. It was fun to talk about with the rest of the book club, most of whom live in or have lived in DC, about this book!
Tales from Tang Dynasty China: Selections from the Taiping Guangji ed Alexei Ditter, Jessey Choo, and Sarah Allen—I’ve been working on translating a story from Taiping Guangji with my tutor. It’s really interesting and also difficult. One of the things that makes it difficult is that neither of us has much context, so I thought it might be helpful to read some translations of other stories from the same collection. This seemed like a good place to start given that I’ve recently enjoyed books by Jessey Choo and Sarah Allen
This is pretty short, only 22 stories, many of which are less than a page long, but it's a fun selection and I appreciate all the notes giving context. It’s very handy that the explain which characters are historical figures and what’s known about them other than the story.
Imperial Coroner eps 1-8—This is the latest show my group watched picked! It’s another show featuring an extraordinary young woman succeeding in a traditionally masculine job, a favorite troupe of mine! This had been on my radar but I was hesitant because of the law enforcement angle, but that feels pretty minimal. It’s a fun show! Someone made tea using a sword!
( Inscribing Death, Ancient Detective, The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water,Into the Riverlands )
Disrupting D.C.: The Rise of Uber and the Fall of the City by Katie J Wells, Kafui Ablode Attoh, and Declan Cullen—For my urban planning book club! This gave me lots to think about in terms of urban governance and the gig economy. It was fun to talk about with the rest of the book club, most of whom live in or have lived in DC, about this book!
Tales from Tang Dynasty China: Selections from the Taiping Guangji ed Alexei Ditter, Jessey Choo, and Sarah Allen—I’ve been working on translating a story from Taiping Guangji with my tutor. It’s really interesting and also difficult. One of the things that makes it difficult is that neither of us has much context, so I thought it might be helpful to read some translations of other stories from the same collection. This seemed like a good place to start given that I’ve recently enjoyed books by Jessey Choo and Sarah Allen
This is pretty short, only 22 stories, many of which are less than a page long, but it's a fun selection and I appreciate all the notes giving context. It’s very handy that the explain which characters are historical figures and what’s known about them other than the story.
Imperial Coroner eps 1-8—This is the latest show my group watched picked! It’s another show featuring an extraordinary young woman succeeding in a traditionally masculine job, a favorite troupe of mine! This had been on my radar but I was hesitant because of the law enforcement angle, but that feels pretty minimal. It’s a fun show! Someone made tea using a sword!
( Inscribing Death, Ancient Detective, The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water,Into the Riverlands )
DecRecs 8-16
Dec. 16th, 2023 10:07 amThis week I decided to focus on reccing academic-ish things, so there are several books and papers, a lecture and some language learning resources (And then two not academic things too)
( Read more... )
( Read more... )
Classical Chinese Update
Feb. 16th, 2023 09:24 amSo as many of you will remember I'm attempting to teach myself Classical Chinese. I wrote last week that I hadn't made a lot of progress recently and I was feeling stuck.
However I remembered that my parents gave me a copy ofChinese Through Poetry by Archie Barnes, so I decided to check that out. So far I have only read some of the introductory material, and not started the first lesson. But I do feel like I'm making a bit of progress instead of being stuck. And the amount of vocabulary to learn in this book is a lot less than for A New Practical Primer of Literary Chinese.
I feel like it might not be the best idea to start a new textbook every time I feel stuck. (And at some point I'll run out of textbooks) but right now it seems to be helpful.
I have also gone back to Hello Chinese a Mandarin learning app that I've used before but not in a while. I think it's helping me context characters and sounds a little bit better. (That's something I really struggle with due to my auditory processing disorder, I struggled with it learning to read English too)
Overall I'm feeling like I'm making progress again even if it's slow!
However I remembered that my parents gave me a copy ofChinese Through Poetry by Archie Barnes, so I decided to check that out. So far I have only read some of the introductory material, and not started the first lesson. But I do feel like I'm making a bit of progress instead of being stuck. And the amount of vocabulary to learn in this book is a lot less than for A New Practical Primer of Literary Chinese.
I feel like it might not be the best idea to start a new textbook every time I feel stuck. (And at some point I'll run out of textbooks) but right now it seems to be helpful.
I have also gone back to Hello Chinese a Mandarin learning app that I've used before but not in a while. I think it's helping me context characters and sounds a little bit better. (That's something I really struggle with due to my auditory processing disorder, I struggled with it learning to read English too)
Overall I'm feeling like I'm making progress again even if it's slow!
Goal-less Update
Feb. 8th, 2023 11:10 amSo in the beginning of January I decided not to post a set of monthly goals here, something that I'd been doing for years but was feeling overwhelming. I've been meaning to write a bit about how that's going.
I generally have goals about writing, sewing, classical Chinese, and holidays and events.
I did a fair amount of writing in January. I'm still tracking how many days I write (A day counts if I write at least three sentences) and I wrote on 18 days last month and posted a 2.5k nonfiction rec list. February isn't off to a good start writing wise as I've been sick a lot but am slowly working on another post of Lady Business
Sewing has also been up and down due to hand pain. I finished another kid shirt (picture) and played around with two new quilt tops. Also I did a craft exchange with a friend where I traded a quilt top for having a quilt quilted! It looks so good! Currently I am very slowly working on a short sleeved top for the kid. I've been having a lot of wrist pain the last couple of weeks so I can't go very fast.
Classical Chinese has not been going very well. I've been doing my electronic flash cards everyday but not making progress in my textbooks. I'm running into the difficulties of studying a dead language, where I really want things to read that aren't my text book. Also I still need to learn so much vocabulary!
So I think that not having monthly goals hasn't made a big difference in how much I'm getting done. And I am really liking the freedom to just sew things with less concern about finishing on time. So I don't plan to go back to posting monthly goals. But maybe I'll try to post a bit more about my various projects in other contexts. I do like talking about them
I generally have goals about writing, sewing, classical Chinese, and holidays and events.
I did a fair amount of writing in January. I'm still tracking how many days I write (A day counts if I write at least three sentences) and I wrote on 18 days last month and posted a 2.5k nonfiction rec list. February isn't off to a good start writing wise as I've been sick a lot but am slowly working on another post of Lady Business
Sewing has also been up and down due to hand pain. I finished another kid shirt (picture) and played around with two new quilt tops. Also I did a craft exchange with a friend where I traded a quilt top for having a quilt quilted! It looks so good! Currently I am very slowly working on a short sleeved top for the kid. I've been having a lot of wrist pain the last couple of weeks so I can't go very fast.
Classical Chinese has not been going very well. I've been doing my electronic flash cards everyday but not making progress in my textbooks. I'm running into the difficulties of studying a dead language, where I really want things to read that aren't my text book. Also I still need to learn so much vocabulary!
So I think that not having monthly goals hasn't made a big difference in how much I'm getting done. And I am really liking the freedom to just sew things with less concern about finishing on time. So I don't plan to go back to posting monthly goals. But maybe I'll try to post a bit more about my various projects in other contexts. I do like talking about them
