User Comments - John

Posted on: Winter Wonderland

a1pi2,

Ha! We love the openness of the Android development platform compared to the iPhone's. When we finish an Android app, we can get it in the Android Market right away. iPhone apps, however, take weeks to be approved.

Posted on: Winter Wonderland

chris,

The new Android app is a dedicated app, so you don't need to use a browser.  When you create a dedicated mobile app, you can design it to solve mobile-specific problems much more easily.

Posted on: Warm Winter Clothes

dropped_chopstick,

Just in case you have trouble reading Connie's comment, let me sum up.

If the act of 脱ing is completed, and you're making a statement, both 了 and 掉 are fine, and you can even use them together (脱掉了).

But if the act is not completed, or if it's a command, you need to just use one or the other.

My comments:

掉 is normally added onto verbs to emphasize that an action is done totally (to full completion). So you'll see it with some verbs and not others.  Common examples include 扔掉 (rēngdiào) "throw away", 死掉 (sǐdiào) "die", and 去掉 (qùdiào) "get rid of".

Posted on: Warm Winter Clothes

Connie,

Heh, no wonder I didn't know the separate terms... So I guess if you really want to get specific, you need to specify the type of material.

Posted on: Warm Winter Clothes

Wow... "trackie dacks"??

There are the cotton kind, which we call sweatpants, sweatshirts, or a sweatsuit (together), but then there are also those lightweight synthetic ones, called "track suits" (?).  I'm not entirely sure how to refer to these myself! I'll let the teachers take it away...

sweatsuit中文怎么说？

track suit中文怎么说？

Posted on: Being Seated in a Restaurant

romanticon,

You do need the "shì".  You can take or leave the "ge", but the "shì" is important.  In most cases, however, if you forget the "shì" it's not going to cause communication problems, so try to work on it, but you don't need to obsess over it too much.

We do consciously avoid focusing on grammar at the Newbie level, and start talking about it more in the Elementary lessons (especially the most basic particles and measure words). If you study the sentences in the Newbie lessons as patterns, you'll find that you're better prepared to accept the grammar when it comes, because you already have a working frame of reference.

Still, if you're hungering for more grammar, then follow your interests!  You could try some Elementary lessons, or Qing Wen lessons (many of which cover grammar topics, at various levels, but most commonly Elementary).

Posted on: Hang Up and Ride!

waiguoren,

Thanks for the kinds words.

As someone who's been there, let me assure you that if you keep at it, you'll get better.

When I first arrived in China, I had already studied Chinese in my university classes, and I had some degree of confidence in my ability to communicate. But no one could understand me.  Some hard work and a little humility is all it took, though.

Posted on: Jason and Sarah

chas33735,

Ah, I see...  It looks like there's a discrepancy between how we designed auto to work and how you think it should work. (This is a design problem.)

Actually, "auto" is designed to be "hands free" practice.  You let it go, and you review with your eyes only as your eat corn on the cob (or whatever you're doing).

So we never designed it to work together with marking words as right/wrong (which also auto-advances to the next word).

We'll have to look at this more carefully. If "auto" mode disabled the marking right/wrong also advancing to the next card, would that solve your problem?

Posted on: Hot Pot Chitchat

kang_jie,

Sorry I'm so late in adding this comment, but I wanted to talk the matter over with Jiaojie first.

To clarify what Jenny said, there are times when the double 了 indicates that something is ongoing. Examples:

我学中文学了两年。(I studied Chinese for 2 years.)

我学中文学了两年了。(I have been studying Chinese for 2 years.)

The sentence you're referring to, 我已经喝了一口了！ isn't quite the same. Here, he second 了 is part of the pattern, "已经......了", whereas the first one indicates completed action.  Together, the sentence emphasizes, "[when you told me,]  I had already drunk some". It doesn't mean the action is going to continue.

Posted on: Hot Pot Chitchat

Changye,

Isn't shabu-shabu always just boiling water, as well?  (And if you want sauces, you add them after you boil the food?) Hot pot, on the other hand, has a very flavorful broth.

Shabu-shabu is really expensive in Japan; I've only had it once there.