User Comments - John
John
Posted on: Light and Dark Colors of Clothing
October 13, 2009 at 3:05 AMorangina,
That's one of them!
Posted on: Where is the Supermarket?
October 12, 2009 at 2:42 PMmiami_meiguoren,
Thanks, it's sweet of you to say so!
Posted on: A Trip to the Dry Cleaner's
October 12, 2009 at 3:58 AMpretzellogic,
We certainly want to improve our search, as our lesson archive isn't getting any smaller!
I think perhaps the most useful change would be to change what is included in the default search. Do you agree?
Posted on: Dare to Use 敢
October 10, 2009 at 6:15 PMcwillfor,
Ha ha, I was thinking the same thing the whole time we were recording, but didn't say anything because (1) I didn't want to misquote the movie (it's been a while since I've seen it) and (2) I was pretty sure neither Connie nor Liliana would have any idea what I was talking about...
Posted on: A Business Dinner with a Supplier
October 10, 2009 at 9:42 AMgo_manly,
Sorry for the delay. We are still getting caught up after the long holiday. In answer to your first two questions:
1. Yes, the student which has covered all Newbie/Elementary lessons can enter Intermediate at any lesson, although clearly the transition may be made easier by starting with simpler lessons. This lesson is definitely pushing the upper limits of the Intermediate difficulty level. Still, much of the vocabulary presented at the Intermediate level, while not necessarily explicitly covered in the lower levels, should be relatively easily comprehendend in context and made clear by the popup translation on the dialogue page. (不停, as you point out, is a good example of this.) The ones that need more explanation and/or are central to the dialogue are made key vocabulary.
So key vocabulary is not, as you propose, a list of all vocabulary items not covered in earlier levels, although whether or not a word is selected as key vocabulary is in part determined by its relative frequency (and perceived difficulty) and whether or not it has appeared in lower levels.
2. No, other resources are not necessary, although many of our students make use of a wide range of tools for learning Chinese.
It seems like you're doing an awful lot of offline analysis of the lessons, which leads me to suspect that you aren't aware of the popup translations on the site. Is this the case?
In answer to your newer questions:
1. The supplementary vocabulary are words which might come in handy when discussing the topic in the lesson. They typically consist of rather simple nouns and verbs, which don't require a lot of extra treatment for their use (although in this lesson, the first two supplementary vocabulary words, 赏光 and 招待, are not very good examles of this).
2. Mouseover for definitions, and click to save to your personal vocabulary list.
Your questions are good ones. We'll consider making these questions and answers more widely available to other users, as I imagine other serious students of Chinese that want to make the most out of the studies on ChinesePod might have some of the same questions.
P.S. Thanks for the help, Changye!
Posted on: Jewish Holiday
October 10, 2009 at 9:16 AMsalvador,
Teaching, yes, but the character 教 (jiào) also has the extended meaning of "religion," like 犹太教 (Yóutài-jiào), literally "Jewish religion," in this lesson.
One other quick note: the verb 教 (jiāo), meaning "to teach," is first tone, whereas the 教 in 教堂 (jiàotáng) and 犹太教 (Yóutài-jiào), meaning "religion," is fourth tone.
Posted on: Two Tough Ladies
October 10, 2009 at 8:16 AMxiaophil,
There are multiple theories as to the origin, and the one we gave is one of them. You can see others on Baidu (all in Chinese). (I also once gave a short explanation on my own blog.)
Posted on: Love Tangle 4: Baby Plans
October 10, 2009 at 4:12 AMtal,
Yes, the updated version is correct.
Posted on: Jewish Holiday
October 9, 2009 at 7:42 AMsalvador,
The word for (Christian) "church" is 教堂 (jiàotáng).
Posted on: Light and Dark Colors of Clothing
October 13, 2009 at 3:47 AMorangina,
That is correct!