User Comments - Purrfecdizzo

Posted on: Beyond Or: Another Use of 还是 (háishi)

One day, when I first started studying Chinese, I was walking down the street in a small town in the United States, wearing a pair of headphones and practicing vocabulary. I pronounced the word 'haishi' and a man walking my me said 'hi'... ha ha...

Anyway. Actually not much to say about this, but to say that maybe in this lesson, 还是 can be used to mean 'you might be better off doing' or 'you might be better off to' or whatever the key verb happens to be. Hope this is helpful.

Thats all I got.

George From Amesbury Mass.

Posted on: Finding the Office Building

For those who do not know this, the building in the lesson photo is the building that formally housed the Chinesepod office before they moved to their current office.

Posted on: Finding the Office Building

This may be a good topic for Qingwen perhaps?

Posted on: Finding the Office Building

Yeah, I understand what you mean, it is just that sometimes, it is difficult to achieve that balance between too much detail (then listeners can lose track of the main content), and not enough detail perhaps resulting in a listener going away with something unclear. IMNSHO, I think that Chinesepod does a great job with this balance, and they continue to improve over time.

Thats all I have on the matter.

Peace,

George

Posted on: The Double 了 (le) phenomenon

Hi there,

I am a bit puzzled. In the podcast, both Amber and Ken both talk about how the 了 comes after the first verb. In this way, each of the examples used in the podcast are consistent and help drive home the point about the usage of the double 了. In these example, the position is different, but they are still acceptable (I do see how you explained this), but they are both correct.

Can I understand it this way; the 了 should come immediately after the verb for the double 了 situation, but in other situations, it can come immediately after the verb, and also later in the sentence?

George

Posted on: Do You Live Alone?

The people in my neighborhood do not seem to care that I live alone. One of my former colleagues told me that people had offered to let her move in with them because they didn't like seeing her live alone, with no one to take care of her.

Posted on: You Can and Will Use 会 (huì)!

Now is this something that Chinese people actually say? When they do, do they use it in the same way we would in English? I sometimes run into trouble when speaking Chinese when I try to express an idea using English thinking. An example from the other day comes to mind. I found a new restaurant on my street, and I wanted to know when it opened. I asked the boss, and they told me that it opened at 10Am. It took me a few moments to find a way to get them to understand that I meant 'open for the first time', and they finally gave me an answer that was appropriate. My mistake then was assuming that I could express this idea the same way I could in English. I also made the mistake one day of asking a clerk "who sells umbrellas", and that idea was so difficult for them to understand. Don't get me wrong, I am not dogging their intelligence, my main point is that we think of these things differently and express them differently in the respective languages. When I ask about whether Chinese speaking people will express this the same way, I am referring to this line of thought.

Thanks,

George

Posted on: You Can and Will Use 会 (huì)!

If I understand the rule correctly, 不会吧 is used in a situation where someone has an answer but they are not sure of the accuracy. I don't think I have ever heard 不会的, but if I were to find such a sentence, it would probably be in a case where the speaker is certain of the accuracy, or wants to emphasize the answer.

i.e.,

1）

明天Connie打算跟我一起租看电影... 不会吧。她在上海，你在保定。太远了.

2)

Ken 会说20种语言...

不会的。他会说4种，不是20.

In 1, we know that Connie and I are far apart, but the reply is less certain because we don't know if other circumstances apply..

I.e., I am in Shanghai, or Connie is in Baoding, or we both happen to be in Paris etc.

In 2, we know that he can speak 4 languages, not 20, so we may more emphatically state '不会的'.

Can anyone add to this? I hope my examples are good and my analysis is correct. I am not 100% confident, particularly about 不会的.

Posted on: You Can and Will Use 会 (huì)!

Hey guys,

Sometimes, it is good to look at a word in relation to similar meaning words. As was pointed out, one of the purposes of 会 is to indicate ability. There are other words that have a similar function, and becareful not to mix them up. For example, 能 is one such word. Like 会， 能 is also used to indicate ability, but it does so in a different way. 会 is used to refer to skills that are acquired, such as language and singing (as pointed out in the lesson). 能 on the other hand, refers to inborn ability. It would mean that because a person has a voice they have the ability to speak a language, whereas 会 would refer to the skill of speaking a language. Another difference is that 能 can be used to describe the extent of someones ability. It would be used if someone wanted to talk about duration or extent of ability, i.e., he can act, last year, he acted in over 20 movies. A 会 sentence would be used to express something like, he can act, last year, his performance was so compelling that his audiance was moved to tears.

I hope this is clear and helpful. 

George 

Posted on: What does she usually do?

Just want to share a minor point;

The mentioned the word for 'High School Campus' in this dialogue, and I want to take a moment to point out that sometimes, the Chinese idea of high school can be different from what may be considered high school in other places, particularly in terms of students ages. Please be careful of this. Sometimes, people will tell me that they are in middle school, whereas if I were describing their school, I might say high school.

Thats all.

George