User Comments - John

Posted on: You've been everywhere!

gaojian,

Unfortunately, many of the 儿 endings are optional, and are usually not written. A northerner is likely to add them (whether written or not), while a southerner is unlikely to. 玩儿/玩 is a good example of this. Currently, this issue creates problems for our dictation exercises, but we hope to solve it programmatically in the future. In the meantime, it's good for you to know that you don't have to write the 儿.

As for the sentence re-ordering, we added the destinations into the responses because otherwise too many of the responses are exactly the same, and it would be impossible to get them correct without a lot of luck.

Posted on: All About the Lesson Content

At one time, "pb" stood for public, and "pr" stood for private. But we've changed how the system works, so now they don't really have any meaning.

Posted on: Making people do things with 让，令，and 使

Also, in the Chinese cultural context, the first one is more likely to be understood as, "Don't make me drink so much next time."

Posted on: Making people do things with 让，令，and 使

The sentence is still grammatical without the 了.

This is actually a special usage of 了 which comes immediately after the verb and essentially means "completely," like 掉 (diào). It's only used after certain verbs which can be "done completely", like 杀 (shā) and 吃 (chī).

Posted on: Pinyin The Final R Sound

It's really just convention... You learn which words can take the final R, one by one. One hint, though: they're almost all nouns.

Posted on: Weighing Yourself on the Street

It's basically a matter of convention. 量身高 sounds natural, as does 称体重.

Posted on: Ordering Food for the Group

Thanks!

We do plan what to talk about, but not every detail, and we certainly never script our conversations. That way the conversations really are natural.

Posted on: Revisiting Before and After

Yeah, strictly speaking, your second translation would be more accurate, but for naturalness you might go with the "a few days ago" translation, since it's not really a key point in the story, I'm guessing.

Posted on: Learning about Levels

You're welcome!

Your question is a bit difficult to answer, because what is required for "optimal results" will vary from learner to learner. The simple answer, of course, is: "the more you listen, the better."

I recommend listening to an entire podcast once, then listening to the dialogue-only version times many times after to review and internalize the language, almost to the point of total internalization, if you can stand it. You can listen to maybe one new podcast a day (depending on your schedule), but then review a bunch of previously-studied ones by listening to the dialogue-only files.

We're going to be talking about using different parts of the site in future episodes of this series, so stay tuned...

Posted on: Learning about Levels

Thanks, quasifrog, that's really good to hear. I am looking forward to a dinner in Shanghai at some point. :)