User Comments - AuntySue
AuntySue
Posted on: What's up?
March 6, 2008 at 10:42 AMAw shucks guys ::blush:: Sigh... it's nice to know I got one thing right this week. It's been one of those rubber brain weeks for Mandarin study. We all have them. Next week can only be better.
Posted on: I miss you!
March 6, 2008 at 7:07 AMOh dear, are you working through the dusty old newbie lessons? That's not the recommended way to do it. There is not supposed to be any order, but if you really want a sequence to start you off, after working through Intro1-Intro6, you can start with the most RECENT newbie lesson and work BACKWARDS, then you'll be working on the best lessons to begin your studies with. Or just do a search on topics that interest you, because all lessons are stand-alone and the newbie difficulty levels are mixed up randomly. There is NO sequence. Words in English can have many meanings and usages. Just consider for example all the things that "set" can mean! It's the same in Chinese. The word xiang can be used in a few different ways, and Chinese people rely heavily on the context to get the exact meaning, instead of making everything precise like we do. I hope that makes it a bit easier to see why you're getting different information, and how they can all be true at the same time. It sounds really strange at first but it's surprising how quickly you get used to it. Feel free to comment on any lesson you like. You can also visit the Forum which is run by the students ourselves. There's a link down the bottom here.
Posted on: MSN and QQ
March 5, 2008 at 4:45 PMNonsense. Lots of people in China use Skype. At any time during Chinese daytime or evening, you will always find a big list of Chinese people who not only have their Skype turned on, but also they are in the very open to all "Skype-me" mode. If you look at their personal details, you will often find people pleading for language exchange. At any moment there are more Chinese people on Skype than you'll ever have time to meet.
Posted on: What's up?
March 5, 2008 at 5:00 AMThe word "bloody" is an essential part of the Australian culture, and when that word is criticised, we feel that criticism itself as an insulting act beyond redemption. I had to check what some of the USA-local terms mean, but eventually worked out their equivalents in normal Aussie speech. We have accepted people from all parts of Earth to come and live here, and we try hard not to flinch when they say our most foul and disgusting dirty words which they think sound as mild as they do in their home country. Among the worst are some common American words which cause us to cover children's ears and explain later. We have a special Aussie Strine word for this. We call it "tolerance". I will admit, though, we do have a funny way of typing. We make sure that sentences begin with a capital letter and end with a full stop, and in between we'll only use capitals for names and acronyms. If an Aussie varies from that we usually regard it as an indicator of substandard literacy, but if a foreigner does it, well, who knows if that's what's correct in their country, so we'll apply the "T" word and move on. I have no idea whether any other countries have similar expectations. Let me add the disclaimer that I am not learning Chinese in order to feign social or educational superiority, I'm learning it in order to sound like myself when I speak to Chinese people who I hope will speak as relaxed and naturally to me. Of course that objective, if in the minority, may invalidate my opinions.
Posted on: 河莉秀
March 5, 2008 at 3:39 AMOver my dead body.
Posted on: 河莉秀
March 3, 2008 at 4:09 AMAny kind of information can be turned into a debate, with at least two sides. I could raise a debate every time someone mentions meat eating, for example, but I find there is so much more to be gained by simply observing what the other kind of people think about it. By refraining from creating a debate out of information, I am not giving up any of my integrity as a vegetarian. On the contrary, being able to warmly receive and consider points of view that I don't hold myself, makes my own life choices more robust, and better informed.
Posted on: Chinese Green Eggs and Ham
March 2, 2008 at 6:56 PMMore Doctor Zhu's stories please!
Posted on: Chinese Green Eggs and Ham
March 2, 2008 at 9:02 AMAha, smart spotting! The character huan1 on its own would be first tone, but in the word xi3huan it loses its tone. People in Taiwan might still pronounce the tone. Also it helps to know what tone it was if you want to look that character up in a dictionary. So consider the picture as being the "wrong" one, but supplying a bit of extra info to see but not say.
Posted on: Chinese Green Eggs and Ham
March 2, 2008 at 4:12 AMI think there's a typo on the Expansion section. One of the sentences starts with 她 (she) and it should be 我.
Posted on: MSN and QQ
March 6, 2008 at 1:28 PMHi sh... sha... shagrat. I'm just wondering, does your name mean the same thing in the UK as it does in Oz? ;-) I don't think the spaces are important at all, especially to Chinese people, since they tend to write English without spaces andwonderwhywefinditsohardtoread. But if that person was not very used to using pinyin, perhaps they needed the additional help of separating it into the character lengths so that they could parse an unfamiliar form into chunks more easily recognised. That's my guess.