User Comments - John

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John

Posted on: Which Finger?
April 3, 2009 at 5:59 AM

We had a lot of fun doing this lesson!  Hopefully you can all stand a little fictional violence in the name of education...

Posted on: How Many Zeroes?
April 1, 2009 at 4:03 AM

I second Pete's advice... I used to be constantly doing mental calculations whenever numbers got big, but forcing myself to memorize 1 million = 一百万 (no zero counting) helped a lot.

Posted on: Does it Have Bones?
March 30, 2009 at 4:43 AM

I don't mind bones so much anymore, but I can't say I like them. I may try, but I'll never be Chinese! :)

Posted on: Gone Fishing
March 27, 2009 at 2:05 AM

jackfrombelgium,

湖边 (húbiān) - lakeside
河边 (hébiān) - riverside

Posted on: Gone Fishing
March 27, 2009 at 2:02 AM

missworldtraveler,

是……的 is used for emphasis.  Sometimes it emphasizes time (usually past), and sometimes it emphasizes other things.

这是干什么用的？ - emphasizes what it's for.

我是昨天来的。  - emphasizes that I came yesterday.

Does that help?

Anyway, 不用谢！ And no, the same pattern is not used for "hillside" in Mandarin.

Posted on: Gone Fishing
March 26, 2009 at 7:50 AM

I feel a bit left out, not having many childhood fishing memories... Growing up in Florida, there was plenty of opportunity for it. Instead, I enjoyed catching little lizards -- 蜥蜴 (xīyì) -- with my bare hands. :)

Posted on: Dog Meat and Animal Rights
March 18, 2009 at 3:27 AM

I agree that the original picture and intro were insensitive, and this is an issue that many westerners are especially sensitive about. Foreigners that have lived in China for a while become desensitized to it. Anyway, we are now changing both. We apologize to those of you that are offended.

My wife's favorite joke to our dog is "tonight we're eating dog meat hot pot."  (He never gets it.)

Posted on: Tech Upgrades and Farming!
March 15, 2009 at 10:23 AM

I've been communicating directly with Mike Love, founder of Pleco, and he's been giving very helpful feedback.  The new export functionality will be done very soon!

Posted on: Zombies!
March 13, 2009 at 2:25 AM

I think Pete was just trying to sneak in a Slayer reference. :P

Anyway, I think the whole zombie thing is a good example of lower frequency vocabulary that you actually will hear at this level. I have had quite a few discussions in Chinese about zombies over the years...

Posted on: Munich
March 6, 2009 at 5:34 AM

Moo-knee-hey! (What a mnemonic!)

That's a city I'd like to visit some October...