URLLesson Introduction
If you wouldn't let your 10 year old sit court side of an actual pickup basketball game, then you may want to have them sit this one out as well. Grown men can sometimes act like children on the b-ball court, but the talk is of the adult variety. So lace up your Chucks and dust off that skyhook... your Chinese basketball jargon is about to improve.
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clay says
May 28, 2008
Ha, yes... moms and kids beware.
Here are a couple things to help clarify the situation:
Generally speaking, most pickup basketball games are played to 5 points, unlike in the states where its usally to 11 or 15. So this is why he declares victory after "just" five points. [Also, full court games are few and far between, as the courts are just loaded with players ready to play, so they are nearly always half court games of 3-on-3.]
This game was a game of make-it-take-it. You make the shot, you keep the ball. Therefore, the guy who ended up winning was down 2-3, and made 3 consecutive shots. One to get to 3-3 三平 （sānpíng) where our dialogue begins, and then continued to make shots until he won.
chineserice says
May 28, 2008
So this is a 1 vs. 1 game? 我 很 喜 欢 篮 球!
guolanusa says
May 28, 2008
虽然我从来都没有玩过一对一篮球 (上高中的体育课不算什么,对不对?), 我还是觉得这家课是挺有意思的.
guolanusa says
May 28, 2008
Question for Chinese.pod folk:
Because I am not so familiar with the characters, typing them in the extremely small font that appears before posting is kind of tricky, especially when using characters with many strokes, like "算" or "蓝". To my untrained eyes, it is impossible to make out the individual strokes, and sometimes even the character, in such a small font. After posting, the font is enlarged, and the characters become legible, but typing them before posting is pretty tricky.
Is it possible to make the before-posting font size the same as the after-posting font size? If we can't do so, I'm afraid that this pre-posting font size will discourage intermediate students from posting in characters.
clarsen says
May 28, 2008
Love the smack talk and interesting cultural stuff in the vulgar talk. YOU WOULD NEVER LEARN THIS STUFF IN A NORMAL CHINESE TEXTBOOK! That's why Chinesepod is so cool.
When I taught at a university the boy students playing basketball would always say "WO KAO" or something like that... but the girls all said that it was bad too...
guolanusa says
May 28, 2008
老师们,谢谢你们的努力,今天的课特别好玩儿!
johns says
May 28, 2008
This is useful stuff. Basketball seems to be more and more popular in China. Teaching us real vocab is just great.
man2toe says
May 28, 2008
狗屎
我以聽到走了狗屎運, 就想到我家的鄰居又我四歲的孩子. 我們鄰居有一隻大黑狗. 問題是那隻狗的主人是很懶惰的 - 不會常清狗常放得髒兮兮大堆. 所以我和孩子要出門散步時,我一直須要給她們警告, "請別踩到狗屎". 因此四歲的女兒偶爾會提醒我"爸爸小心狗屎!"
請問老師們:我是不是教壞了女兒?
foleadu says
May 28, 2008
很喜欢今天的非常口语的课！还有学到篮球常用的词汇很有用，因为在中国篮球很红。
I agree with guolanusa - need to increase the font size in the 'posting box', especially for Chinese characters. Really difficult to distinguish characters.
Also, there seems to be a mistake in the English translation for one of the expansion sentences. "姚明投进了吗？" should be "Did Yao Ming make the shot?'
sophie20461 says
May 28, 2008
"一对一篮球“ 是不是就是平常所说的”斗牛“啊？
yohosuff says
May 28, 2008
今天的课很有意思. 我希望这儿会有更多这种的课.
jennyzhu says
May 28, 2008
I should keep my mom away from this lesson. She used to ground me for using mild foul language. But I love the transporting power of today and yesterday;s dilliards lesson. We are experimenting 'ation and scenario' dialogues that put you right in the action, and let the language and action speak for themselves. I think it makes learning a lot more cognitive. Hope Poddies like it too.
yohosuff says
May 28, 2008
练习三的最后一道题(第七题)出了个问题.答案应该是"you3zhong3"不过按了电钮之后,它说答案是错的.
shi3ma3ke4 says
May 28, 2008
姚明投进了吗？
(How many shots did Yao Ming get in?)
Seems like translation should be "Did Yao Ming score his shot?"
changye says
May 28, 2008
Basketball is not my thing, though my sister was the captain of 篮球队 at high school. It seems that my parents gave all their 运动天赋 genes to my sister. Btw, 面对面 (face-to-face) is also a very convenient phrase, as well as 一对一.
amber says
May 28, 2008
shi3ma3ke4,
Fixed that up! thanks!
perle says
May 28, 2008
Please Make the Characters BIGGER
xie xie
john says
May 28, 2008
This lesson was a lot of fun!
As I've said elsewhere, bigger font sizes are coming. In the meantime, try CTRL + to increase the font size in your browser.
artkho says
May 29, 2008
How do you say the following in Chinese?
1. crossover
2. spin move
3. behind-the-back pass
artkho says
May 29, 2008
In the spirit of trash-talking, how does one say choke in Mandarin?
guolanusa says
May 29, 2008
Thanks for the link, John, I went and caught up on everything you have explained there...Thank you for your overtime and hard work! C-Pod is fantastic.
quasifrog says
May 29, 2008
John! How can I access all of the lessons at one level? I am too old to learn new tricks. I was enjoying a simple daily regiment of elementary lessons. How do I do that? I really just wanna access elementary lessons , then move to intermediate when I feel I am ready. Don't want "random lessons". HELP!!!!!!!!
sanp says
May 29, 2008
我喜欢看NBA。但我不打篮球. o(∩_∩)o
dldshanghai says
May 29, 2008
artkho,
crossover 突破过人 tu1 po4 guo4 ren2
spin move 带球转身过人 dai4 qiu2 zhuan3 shen1 guo4 ren2
behind-the-back pass 背后传球 bei4 hou4 chuan2 qiu2
choke, we don't have any special words for this one in sport games. But we always say a phrase, 后劲不足 hou4 jin4 bu4 zu2, I think they are same meaning.
mei9 says
May 29, 2008
hello!
i just want to know baskball rules in chinese:)))))))
mei9 says
May 29, 2008
忘了告诉你们，今天的课真不错：）
pinkjeans says
May 29, 2008
我刚一星期多开始听 Chinesepod， 觉得非常好！This was a great lesson! You guys are doing a great job teaching us the current stuff, not just traditional classroom stuff.
mattinchongqing says
May 29, 2008
Responding to Jenny above, I really agree. Maybe this is too crass or not in line with proper teaching protocol, but I think teaching mild foul language is important. Here in Chongqing I hear curses all the time, not to mention the mild language (。。个屁，很牛！，我妈！等等）. Now this is probably a factor of being in Chongqing, but still, this language is common. I've noticed that recently the dialogues have been, how to say, more real, more authentic. Less 最近怎么样? (the most useless phrase textbooks teach) and more 什么风把你给吹来啦. This is real Chinese like I hear everyday. You guys are doing great work.
kuriqoo says
May 29, 2008
Enjoy.
user28880 says
May 29, 2008
Has anyone ever noticed how many of the first consonants in Chinese correspond to the first consonant of its English equivalent? For example: fan4 gui1 and foul, shi3 and shit, fang4 pi4 and fart, piao4liang and pretty, e4lie4 and evil, ke4 and class, pi2jiu3 and pee (same color, and if you have ever seen Red Sorgum, you understand the reference), etc… Can anyone help add to the list? Fun vocabulary builder? oh well.
johns says
May 29, 2008
Jenny,
I think you have to teach what is used in real situations or we will sound like simpletons in the real world. Teaching about basketball, pool, KTV's, restaurants in different cities are all dynamic lessons. I will use up my week "freebee" and then, join. You have good ideas and good people to support them. This is a big improvement over beauty pagents and movie reviews in my opinion.
changye says
May 29, 2008
Hi user28880,
How did you come up with such an interesting topic? You might someday be able to prove that both Chinese and Egnlish actually belong to the same language family. Joking aside, now let me give you several examples I've just thought of.
飞 (fei1) = fly, 妈妈 (ma1ma), 母亲 (mu3 qin) = mother. 领导 （ling3 dao3） = leader, 包 (bao1)= bag, 酷 (ku4)= cool, ........sorry, the last one is a borrowed word from English! FYI, 啤酒 is the transliteration of "beer", but its consonat is not the same as that of "beer".
kuriqoo says
May 29, 2008
And for those not familiar with the NBA, the above video is about Patrick Ewing (New York Knicks) getting posterized by Michael Jordan (Chicago Bulls). Legendary play.
bill says
May 29, 2008
What about these expressions in Mandarin:
Dribble, free throw, jump shot, pick and roll, slam dunk, time out, charging foul, technical foul.
Bill
hitokiri6993 says
May 29, 2008
Follow-up question of Bill's question: How do you say "alley-oop" and "flagrant foul"?
jennyzhu says
May 29, 2008
I notice that in Shanghai basketball is quite popualr among girls not as a spectator sport, but actually playing. A few of my friends play regularly and with men. Maybe it has to do with the fact that PE class is hugely important in China. Games like basketball are compulsory for a student to learn to play.
A few basketball terms inspired by Bill's comment:
Dribble运球/yun4 qiu2
free throw/任意球/ren4 yi4 qiu2
jump shot/跳投/tiao4 tou2
pick and roll/档拆/dang3 chai1
slam dunk/灌蓝/guan4 lan2
time out/暂停/zan4 ting2
charging foul/带球撞人/dai4 qiu2 zhuang4 ren2
technical foul/技术犯规/ji4 shi4 fan4 gui
jiajie says
May 29, 2008
Nice stuff,
要你说！can I say 要我说 ？ as in "duh, or like I need to mention it!"
I like basketball but don't know too much about the terminology, does "pickup basketballl" simply mean one on one basketball?
More sports lessons would be cool, 我最喜欢的是航行和橄榄球可是我认为你们另外的学生大概都对这两个运动不太感兴趣了。
谢谢
perle says
May 29, 2008
OK John,
我是一个耐心的人。
Did I just say I am a patient person or did I say I am a bearable person?
Posting in characters is hard to do. How does everyone else do it? I just used a program called MDBG.net and I have used InputKing, but what is the norm? Is there a feature in C-pod that allows choosing characters to post? After almost a year I keep finding out new stuff that C-pod does or is affiliated with. I am interested in what other more experienced poddies do to post in characters.
standuke says
May 29, 2008
<big>John, thanks for the parental advisory :>) In our home CPod lessons are often played in the background at breakfast time so I guess that makes me one of the cranky old farts who cares about that stuff now. For a few years at least. Although, come to think of it, teaching my 4 y/o to trash talk in Chinese would be kind of cute... as long as I don't have to explain to her what she's saying.</big>
penben says
May 29, 2008
Perle, you can use the Microsoft Pinyin IME to write chinese characters. It is part of the language bar.
henning says
May 29, 2008
Pele, penben,
Google for "Google Pinyin". Afterwards you will never touch MS Pinyin again.
:)
penben says
May 29, 2008
I am having trouble posting in non-lesson conversation threads. It keeps giving me a Comment Is Empty! message.
henning,
I'll have to give it a try at some point, although last I looked all the instructions were in Chinese... above my level sadly.
azerdocmom says
May 29, 2008
我儿子会打篮球。。。
http://www.flickr.com/photos/azerdocmom/2534721050/
Hmmm....how come the link won't automatically work?
bill says
May 29, 2008
jiajie,
Pickup basketball means simply hanging out at the basketball courts and joining a game there. It can be one-on-one , two-on-two，..., five-on-five。It can be half court or full court.
Jenny, thanks for your defintions. What about "zone defense?"
Bill
calkins says
May 29, 2008
Great action shot! Love that you caught him mid-air, and the netting in the background makes for a nice graphic.
Regarding the link, if you wanted the image to show within your comment, do the following:
1. Within flickr, right-click the photo of Josh.
2. Click "Copy Image Location" (which is http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2086/2534721050_65a170dabb.jpg?v=0)
3. Use the "Insert/edit Image" tool in the comment box (it's the second from the right).
4. Enter the image URL (from step 2) and any other info...
azerdocmom says
May 29, 2008
Thanks, BC! I will try posting a photo another time.
Though I'd love to take credit, I didn't take this shot. There was a sports photographer on site, and I (of course) couldn't resist buying the image: ) 你太好了！谢谢你！
dldshanghai says
May 29, 2008
Bill,
free throw 罚球 fa2 qiu2
pick and roll 挡切 dang3 qie1, used more often.
slam dunk 大灌篮 da4 guan4 lan2, or 强力灌篮 qiang2 li4 guan4 lan2
charging foul 带球撞人, or 进攻犯规 jin4 gong1 fan4 gui1
clay says
May 29, 2008
Bill and rest who want more sports vocab,
We will be rolling out an Olympic site before too long that will have vocab for all the participating sports, and obviously basketball will be among them. It will be similiar to Vocabulary section, where all the words will be clickable to hear it prounounced.
hancock says
May 29, 2008
That looks like a traveling violation. Lol Great lesson. I love playing b ball on the streets of Harlem (RUCKER PARK) HELLO to any Chinese Pod New Yorkers!!!! Yes that really is my last name.
sophie20461 says
May 29, 2008
呵呵，我也很喜欢看街头篮球秀，可是仅限于看，我没那方面的天分，也没运动细胞呵呵
alwingate says
May 29, 2008
There are several curiosities here. One is about the origin of the word. Is this word coming from a literal translation of one on one as from the states US-where I first heard it. If so, what is the convention for this to appear in a Mainland Chinese Dictionary? Would I find it there?
How do words ie characters get created? is there an official board in existence which does look at new words, then ratify the adoption of them.
Many English words are derivatives. They are. Look at the word microbe. It comes from a latin derivation and many of our terms are derived from France, Greece, Germany etc. Ever look up zeitgeist? So, it is a curiosity but I am wondering how they-you know who they are- are keeping the language pure.
I remember in Gaulist France a drive began to keep their language pure and people who spoke other languages were snubbed by some. Now, the French language is on a list as short as Bonaparte of important world languages. Certainly Chinese and English dominate the planet in terms of number of people who speak the language. Of course Chinese + Anything would be dominant also.
alwingate says
May 29, 2008
Standuke. Please don't apologize for your values. Cultures are being corrupted daily with crude language as well as other societal maladies.
It got so bad- the language- I could not take my children to a baseball game because of the extremely crude language. You think second hand smoke is bad? Try some of this air pollution on for size.
And in this the Jihadist extremists are correct. The culture of the west is a corrupting influence. It is what happens when there are no rules.
a1pi2 says
May 30, 2008
@Henning: I agree that Windows XP's pinyin IME is pretty bad, but I think Vista's is nicer than Google's. I use Google's pinyin IME on my Mac because Mac (even Leopard) has *awful* input support.
One frightening thing about Google's IME: it secretly installs a network daemon running on your box. I realize Google claims they will do no evil but I have a feeling that they're trying to take over for Microsoft in the "scary big brother" category.
bazza says
May 30, 2008
The QQ one is slightly better than the Google one.
chillosk says
May 30, 2008
My language partner in Shanghai before was a basketball player! And she played for the Chinese National Team, that's until she decided to take up business in JiaoDa!
Boy was I surprised when she walked through the door and she was like 6'4! (And i'm just 5'3!)
这个课真不错！！！
memmifer says
May 31, 2008
@Jenny, I'm glad to hear that women play BB. During 2 semesters at Shanghai JiaoDa, I never saw a single woman on the bb courts. I was wondering if girls/women in China exercise at all!
I also thought it was sad - the courts were locked up until sometime mid-afternoon every day! And the guys would play into the night, by the lights coming out the dorm windows.
memmifer says
May 31, 2008
Just wanting to get things really clear here, enough with the inuendo... The phrase 有种, are you guys softening it by translating it as "you have guts" -- something which could be said to a woman, or is it strictly something a guy would say to another guy? (I.e., more explicitly anatomical...).
Can it be used in polite society? Mixed society? Could a man use this phrase to complement a female colleague who just did something really impressive/bold in an office situation?
pchenery says
May 31, 2008
In the expansion and exercises, 有种 (you3zhong3) has the pinyin written as you3zhong4.
I know that 种 can be either the 3rd or 4th tone.
But I think the PDF transcript is correct (you3zhong3) ?
perle says
May 31, 2008
Henning - I installed Google Pinyin and will give that a try- thanks. 谢谢
amber says
June 1, 2008
hi memmifer,
有种 (yǒuzhǒng) can be used to describe women, but it has a more negative connotation. Not like a compliment at all.
vdragon says
June 1, 2008
Yeah, folks trash-talk everywhere, but I think it would have been better to have chosen a phrase other than doggie doo stuff. Not the graphic image I want when I'm assiduously studying the dialogue over and over.
theblindseer says
June 4, 2008
timely lesson. Just managed to pick up tickets to see the US v Turkey game in Macau at the end of July. Now I can yell out fan4gui1, fan4gui1 like everyone else (I may also have to learn some Cantonese and Portugese to fit right in but this is a good start).
peni says
June 5, 2008
Vdragon: So dont study this particular lesson. A lot of other people want to learn the language spoken by real Chinese people, in real life. If you want to live in a hermetically sealed Oriental-themed Disney movie world thats up to you. Im up for every aspect of the language and resent any push for censorship.
chenggwo says
June 7, 2008
Normally, I have found John much stiffer than Ken, but in the last three Intermediate lessons (Taipei, Regional Accents II, One-on-One Basketball) he gave just the right amount of information and explanation, and seemed very relaxed. These episodes are very humorous too; it was fun listening to them. I am not an Intermediate student yet and cannot absorb all the information, but I do think I am aborbing it at an Elementary level. So perhaps the perfect amount of information for me is more than enough for an Intermediate student, but I do not think it works that way; an Intermediate student would simply get more out of it I think.
jinpusa108 says
July 6, 2008
How to say:
You made a basket!
You missed!
Nice try!
clay says
July 6, 2008
jinpusa108
You made a basket! 进球 jìnqiú [lit: enter ball]
You missed! 没进 méijìn [lit: no enter]
Nice try! 下一次 xiàyīcì [lit: next time]
Go to the new Olympic site for more basketball and other sport related words.
auntie68 says
July 6, 2008
Clay, at the risk of sounding like a negative Grumpy Auntie, will somebody PLEASE go and fix that ridiculous error in your "wonderful" Olympics page which has been pointed out at least three times over the past month?
The country with a green and red flag, which is called 孟加拉国 in Chinese, is BANGLADESH. Not Bengal. As I've pointed out before, it's actually pretty incredible that CPOD/ Praxis can ignore that. To persist in calling Bangladesh "Bengal" is to ignore a history that includes a painful civil war of independence. Why why why?
clay says
July 7, 2008
The errors should all be uploaded this week. I can assure you these were not intentional mistakes. I personally went through every country to verify current recognized name and flags, and made the appropriate changes. Ill make a posting when the upload is completed.
auntie68 says
July 7, 2008
Clay, thanks for being patient with this Grumpy Auntie. I feel bad now because I do appreciate and admire very much what you guys manage to pull off week after week, podcast after podcast. Thanks for fixing this error, I forget how much much you have on your plates these days... Sincerely, thanks. Please feel free to delete my grumpy post since it's served it's purpose.