language

Celebrate Chinese Language Week

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Ni Hao! Experience Chinese culture and language at Wellington City Libraries. There are lots of fun things to do such as Tai Chi, a Chinese film night, Nihao Stories & Rhymes for children, and much more. All for free. Read on to find out more…

 

Nihao Stories and Rhymes:

The popular Nihao Stories & Rhymes sessions in Chinese will take place at Central and three branch libraries during Chinese Language Week.

– Central library: 10:00-10:30am, Every Thursday

– Karori library: 10:30-11:00am, Tuesday 8 September

– Johnsonville library: 10:30-11:00am, Monday 7 September

– Kilbirnie library: 11:00-11:30am, Friday 11 September.

 

Basic Chinese (Mandarin) Lessons:

Come to the library for a 30 minute session to learn Chinese. The session will be based on the bi-lingual books at the Chinese Corner and will focus on basic communication words and phrases include greetings, travel and much more.

– Central library: 1:00-1:30pm, Tuesday 8 September

– Karori library: 3:30-4:00pm, Friday 11 September

 

Chinese Painting Class:

Famous painter Deyu Zheng is visiting our libraries to teach Chinese painting. Come along and enjoy an artistic experience.

– Central library: 11:00-12:00am,  Monday 7 September

 

Chinese Calligraphy Class:

Famous calligrapher and painter Qianxiang Liu is coming to Johnsonville library to teach calligraphy.

– Johnsonville library: 11:00-12:00am, Friday 11 September

 

 

World’s toughest tongue twister

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Forget ‘she sells sea shells on the sea shore’, a new tongue twister has been named as the worlds toughest.

Here it is (try to say is 10 times without making a mistake):

‘pad kid poured curd pulled cold’

A tongue-twister is a phrase that is purposefully designed to be difficult to say properly. Did you know that there is a sign-language equivalent of a tongue-twister? It’s called a finger-fumbler and is a series of signs that are difficult for hands to manage in sequence.  The phrase ‘good blood, bad blood’ is an example of a finger-fumbler and a tongue twister.

This new tough tongue twister was designed as a research experiment by psychologists who were trying to find out about the brain’s speech-planning process. Most participants in the study couldn’t say it 10 times, some even clammed up and stopped speaking altogether, and others just lost control of their mouths.

Looking for some more phrases to twist your tongue around? Try these:

Niue Language Week 6-13th October

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Falaalofa lahi atu!

 

The theme for Niue Language Week is ‘fakamau, fakamanatu mo e fakaaoga tumau e vagahau Niue‘ which means ‘maintain, retain and develop the Niue language’.

The Pacific Island of Niue is very small and has a population of 1’400 people. It’s known as The Rock of the pacific, and is located about 2’400kms northeast of New Zealand. Niueans are automatically New Zealand citizens and have the same queen as New Zealand – Queen Elizabeth II.

90-96 % of Niueans live in New Zealand (22,473 people in 2006) and is our 4th largest Pacific Island population group. This also means that 70% of those that can speak Niuean live in New Zealand.

This week is Niuean Language week . Because the population is small and most of the Niueans live in New Zealand (where English is mostly spoken), it’s really important that the language is learnt and used by Niueans so that it survives.

Here’s a useful language guide for everyday words. You can also visit the official Niuean language website too, and the Wikipedia page is good for language experts. Why not give some words and sentences a go?

 

Here’s some cool facts about Niue:

  • It’s the largest coral island in the world
  • It was settled by Polynesians from Samoa in 900AD. The first European to see Niue was Captain James Cook in 1774AD
  • Captain Cook called the island Savage Island because he thought the islanders had blood smeared all over them. ‘Niue’ means ‘behold the coconut’.
  • Niue has free wireless internet for everyone who lives there. The first country to do so.
  • Every primary and secondary student has a lap top provided for them to do their school work on.
  • There is only 1 TV channel, 1 newspaper and 1 radio station.
  • Air New Zealand is the only airline that flies to Niue.
  • February is the hottest month, and March is the wettest (most rain falls over summer). Temperatures as high as 38 degrees have been recorded in Niue! That’s hot!
  • Niue is home to the Coconut Crab, that largest living crab in the word! It can grow up to 91cms wide. Scary!
  • Niue is on the other side of the International Date Line, which means that is is 23 hours behind New Zealand. Which means that at the moment it is yesterday in Niue.

Tongan Language Week 1-8 September

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Mālō e lelei! This week is Tongan Language Week – Uike Kātoanga’i ‘o e Lea Faka-Tonga

Did you know…

  • At the time of the last census (which was in 2006), there were 50,000 Tongans in New Zealand
  • They were the third largest Pacific group, after Samoans (131,000) and Cook Islanders (58,000), and the fastest growing group
  • Tongans born in New Zealand account for 56% of the total world-wide Tongan population. this means there are more Tongans born in NZ then there are in Tonga.
  • Just over 60% of Tongans speak the Tongan language, but only 40% of those born in New Zealand speak it.
Why not give the Tongan language a go this week? Here’s some great books to get you started:
 
And here’s a great website with some useful phrases. See if you can you figure out what this means: Hoku vakapuna tētē ‘i ‘olunga fono ‘i he toke

Toki sio!