h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've reached 202 Solo Edited Entries with another 5 picked and in the pipeline and 13 more in Peer Review. When all of these are picked, polished and published, I'll still have to write another 30 entries to reach 250 entries, at which point I'll be entitled to a badge.

(I returned my 200 entry badge in protest because I was a bit peeved a few months back. I'm over it now.)

I'll try and think of 30 different topics rather than writing 30 variants on the same entry.

I'm glad to hear that you are back writing Guide entries .

My 208th solo entry on the front page today: A87855907 Syros, A Greek Island

Yay, three of my entries were picked from Peer Review today. There's finally some action in the Editing world.

I'm sure the editing world has ups and downs like anything else.

My Sinan entry is on the front page today along with a couple of older entries of mine about Turkey.

Two more entries picked for inclusion in the Guide! Massy's Wood and the Almagest.

At the moment I'm working on the Man Mo Taoist Temple in Hong Kong and how to pronounce Mandarin Chinese. That will probably be enough entries about China, considering I was only there for two weeks.

Who knows what will come next?

How to pronounce Mandarin Chinese?



As someone who once spent almost a year learning that for a concert tour with a Chinese chorus [it's a long story ], I have to say that you have bitten off a lot. Good luck chewing it.

My best advice is that when you try to pronounce Mandarin Chinese, first shape your mouth into a grin.

(

As far as I can see, Mandarin Chinese is very simple because the sounds are very close to the sounds of English. It's much easier to pronounce than, say, French.

Chaiwallah learned Mandarin once, but says he's forgotten it all now. Never hinted that it was easy.

Oh I don't think it would be easy to learn the language, just that it's not too difficult to pronounce.

From what I've seen of basic Mandarin, it is simple as there are no articles, plurals, tenses, or declensions. But any advanced concept will require complexity no matter what language is used.

There's one word that consists of two consonants: ZS. Yu need to practice it to get it right.

There's a fair amount of repetition:

Wei wei means hello when you pick up a phone that has been ringing.
Che Che means Thank-you.

Speaking Chinese requires a sense of vocal intonation. Singing Chinese is a little easier, because obviously the intonation is carried by the musical notes you are singing. I enjoy hearing people sing Chinese or Japanese. Those languages are mellifluous.

That reminds me of a little chuckle I had when I read in the paper that Lang Lang was giving a concert in Baden Baden.

And from there, did he go to Walla Walla?

No, but he perform a Can-Can.

'Did'



I accidentally a word.

At any rate he wasn't suffering from beriberi

Are they in the can-can at Sing Sing?

If his breath is bad, does he use sen sen?

Galadriel is on the Front Page. They've put a nice picture on the Front Page and I'm hoping the Eds will add it to the Galadriel edited entry.