What’s the secret to learning a language? MOTIVATION. What’s your motivation to learning Zhongwen?
In 2008, the town of Beichuan was hardest hit by the Sichuan earthquake: ”Chinese authorities decided to stabilize the remaining buildings after the earthquake, preserving the entire town as a memorial to the tremendous loss.”
“Phonemica is a project to record spoken stories in every one of the thousands of varieties of Chinese. We believe that each language and dialect is a priceless cultural treasure embedding history, social customs — the knowledge of a people. The Chinese language today contains thousands of language varieties, with differences as wide as Mandarin and Cantonese, as nuanced as the different words of neighboring villages. [These dialects] will be transcribed and shared on our site for others to hear.”
You can see photos from the recent Sichuan earthquake here. 中文三的学生:You should be able to read the signs in Pictures 38 and 41.