User Comments - Mingmao

Posted on: Sorting Out the Situation

Wonderfully useful lesson. Thank you. (:

Posted on: 学术抄袭

Ah, thank you. (:

Posted on: Adjusting the Screen

Hi Mikeinewshot,

I worry about this a lot because my principal goal in taking up the study of Mandarin was to produce the sounds as accurately as possible. And I have gotten corrected by Chinese people on much more subtle points than just a missing 后鼻音, which, believe me, a northerner will immediately jump on, at least with me. More subtle still, my vowels have been slipping since listening disproportionately to Chinesepod, but at least there there is not a loss of information; conflating the 后鼻音 with the 前鼻音 is like pronouncing everything with a lisp. You are reducing the number of differentiating sounds. But northerners will still jump all over my vowels, and often I have to go back to my original tapes from school to try to mould my mouth back in shape, even though the content is not new.

There are plenty of resources available for learning to understand non-standard Chinese accents. The difficulty is in finding high-quality learning material that is in the accent I want to emulate.

Posted on: Adjusting the Screen

Yes, Jenny, 平舌音 and 翘舌音 are more of a problem for understanding, at least for me. Thankfully, Chinesepod voice actors seem to have no trouble clearly enunciating the 翘舌音; perhaps it is natural to the dialects of Shanghai and the surrounding area.

You mentioned that northerners seem to have an innate ability to "know" which words are 后鼻音 and which are 前鼻音. I had always assumed that people who tend to drop the 后鼻音 know the official pronunciation but are just in the habit of dropping it. Are you saying that people who habitually do not pronounce the 后鼻音 would have to look at the pinyin to ascertain when it should be used?

Posted on: Talking about Figure Skating

What is the difference between 得了 and 想得美?

Posted on: Documents, Documents, Documents

Very useful lesson, thank you.

Posted on: 学术抄袭

At 3:30 Connie says something that sounds like 就是 wéilín or wéilíng. 
What is she saying? 

Posted on: Adjusting the Screen

Jenny, it is so heartening to hear you finally directly address the longstanding issue of 后鼻音 and even attempt to correct for it. Thank you so much. I myself have developed the very demoralizing habit of pronouncing certain of the most common \"eng\"-ending words with a 前鼻音 as a result of hearing them so many times on Chinesepod. This is my own fault, of course, for not working harder to broaden my horizons and listen to more sources of standard pronunciation, but your programming at Chinesepod is so good, it is difficult not to devote the majority of my Chinese practice time to listening to your fantastic lessons.

I would like to point out that the most intense of the 后鼻音 to 前鼻音 changes happen on \"eng\"-ending words, and that, later in this lesson, you do slip in to pronouncing \"eng\"-ending words with a 前鼻音. If in future Chinesepod makes an effort to have the voice actors correct for the natural Shanghainese inclination to convert the 后鼻音 into 前鼻音, I'm sure a great many of your listeners will be very, very appreciative.

When John was around he did a very good job during the discussions of repeating the 后鼻音 words that a host pronounced with a 前鼻音, strongly emphasizing the 后鼻音 ending so that it was clear for listeners. Some of the other English-speaking hosts are not as diligent about this, but it is a very helpful practice. Of course, that is not a solution for the content of the dialogues themselves, or for the Advanced lessons, where two Shanghainese (or from the same accent region, it would seem) native speakers repeat each other in pronouncing a 后鼻音 word with a 前鼻音. It makes the most difficult lessons even more difficult to follow.

Posted on: 日本恐怖片

Hi. No, it's not fixed.

没问题。≠ Hearing you talk about them, I'm half tempted to go and see what exactly it is that sets Japanese horror films ahead of the rest. If you get a chance, recommend a few for me, ok?

Many other translations look obviously wrong.

Posted on: 日本恐怖片

I know this is an old lesson. But if you are still dealing with it, you may wish to fix the transcript, which is incorrect. Advanced lessons are a little beyond me so I haven't gone through the  whole thing, but at the very least, some paragraph translations are transposed. There may be other errors.