User Comments - Purrfecdizzo

Posted on: Formatting a Word Document

Maybe it was just a copying error, and it was supposed to be zhāntiē, not niāntiē?

Posted on: More or less? 多 (duō) and 少 (shǎo)

Oh? do they have a new color now? I think that would be wonderful! I think it would be easier to accept impending computer hardware meltdown and software crash and data loss if the screen was in a different color... Perhaps lime green or olive.... Actually, I am thinking that maybe coral would be a nice color...

Posted on: Discussing Loan Repayment

Oh. Sorry, guess I should have looked at the date before posting my questions.

Posted on: More or less? 多 (duō) and 少 (shǎo)

You know, right after I hit the 'post' button, a fear swept over me that my computer was going to flash 'the blue screen of death' and I was going to lose everything I typed.

Posted on: More or less? 多 (duō) and 少 (shǎo)

Dear fellow Podcast listeners (AKA Poddies) and instructors,

Well, I reviewed this lesson today, and I enjoyed the way that the hosts took the explanation of a simple idea, and used it to convey content, in this case, suggestions for studying Chinese. What I want to do is share some of my experience in the hope that it is helpful to someone.

• In the lesson, it was mentioned that people should spend less time 玩 and more time studying. Obviously, I agree, but I would perhaps go elaborate a bit further on this point. My experience suggests that it is important to have a routine, and to have confidence that the routine is going to help. For me, this is very important. I am much better at maintaining discipline if I believe in the approach that I am using. If I do not believe that my method is flawed, I know that I will fail in my discipline, and definately spend more time 玩 and less time studying.
• It is important for me to find Chinese friends, but I have some words of caution about this. When I first moved to China, I found friends, but quickly found that they were not speaking clear putonghua. The dialect here is pretty close to putonghua, but not too close for a true beginner. Sometimes, the locals will not be too helpful, especially at the beginning. As my level improved, I found that I could speak to those with accents.
• Ken mentioned about fighting to speak Chinese, and I can certainly relate to this when I first arrived. Today, I simply speak Chinese. Part of it is the fear on the Chinese person that I cannot speak Chinese. I need to convince them that I can get my meaning across, this means that I need to be assertive, and maybe even a bit bold. Once they are convinced, then they are willing to put more effort into speaking. As far as other Chinese, I simply adhere to a guideline that we should either entirely speak English or entirely speak Chinese, and I let them choose. Being that I am not in a large place, they will normally Choose Chinese, and almost never try to speak English. There are few things more irritating to me than the person who will speak a Chinese sentence, then throw an English word in occasionally. I hate that. The all english/chinese rule usually snuffs this out. I remember reading about the language war, but I have found that, as a foreigner, I quickly improve my Chinese faster than they improve their English, so today, I don't have too many language wars to fight. This becomes less and less of an issue.
• Finding a Chinese person to help is a wonderful thing. My suggestion (based on my experience) is to find someone who is willing to help for a small amount of money. If you live near a university, chances are you will find such people. I have hired a handful of students to help me, but I try to keep it simple and stick mostly to conversation. Because I am only paying a small amount, I want to keep the lessons enjoyable to them, plus I can study the other aspects better using other resources. The students can help with pronounciation and conversation. Here is one method I use; I went to a book store in town and purchased a photography book. It has many really good and complex photographs across a variety of themes. These photos make good topics, and help work on describing. When selecting such a student, it is good to make sure that their pronounciation is somewhat standard. Don't look for perfection, but decent putonghua is OK. Bring a trusted Chinese friend for the initial meeting, so they can give some feedback on the potential teacher.
• Language exchange can be effective, but I have never had much success with this personally. I have a few Chinese friends who can speak good English, and we talk about more complex topics. There are good people and there are douches. Find the good people. The good people will never want to take advantage of you for language practice. I live in a smaller city, so I can find many people who have no interest at all in English. These are the friends to find, but my suggestion is to watch that they don't become your teachers. I would not pepper them with questions about Chinese, you can answer these questions at home by consulting a dictionary, using a website, or asking the student you hired to help you. They can quickly get burned out. One more thing while I am on the subject of talking to Chinese people.... If you don't understand something they said, it is not always a good idea to tell them, unless the topic is urgent and absolute understanding is necessary. I can think of an example when I was in Suzhou talking to a lawyer, and he was telling me about his girlfriend. The first time he was mentioning her, I didnt get everything, but he repeated the things he thought were important, and I got it the second time. My rule is, if it isn't important, don't ask, unless you are talking to your teacher. Again, don't pepper the chinese people with Chinese questions, they can get burned out quickly.
• It may seem tempting to go to restuarants or shops to talk to people in Chinese. If you are new to the language, this is OK. My experience is that after a while, I stop hearing original things, and keep hearing the same questions and comments I always hear from every person I meet. Sometimes, it is difficult to get meaningful conversation from the shopkeepers and restaurant owners.
• It was mentioned to go to bars to meet Chinese people. It will work, but sometimes, depending on location, bars can be very shady. Please exercise caution.
• From my point of view, I see no relationship between eating Western food and learning Chinese, but that is just me.
• I think that limiting contact to English speaking friends is a good one, but the English speaking friends can be a good resource for Chinese learning. They may be able to explain a grammatical aspect in a way that is intuitive for an English speaker that may not be so easy to explain for a Chinese person. My view is that Connie is right about this, but lets not be stupid about this. The English friends can be helpful, especially if they are also studying Chinese. You guys can feed off each other, and support each other in your respective efforts to learn the language.
• In this dialogue, there was talk about Chinese "frame-of-mind", but there wasn't much elaboration on this, beside stating that people should make effort to think in Chinese. I am interestind in this idea, and hope someone may be able to elaborate more on this, as to enrich my understanding.
• Connie ended with the idea that we should focus on the process and not the result, and I cannot agree with her more!  The only drawback is that some people have to face results evaluation because of their situation (i.e., university exams, HSK, etc).
• My current method of study involves 1) Character writing (about 2-3hrs per day practice) 2)Vocab review at the sentence and word level (maybe 2+ hours per day) 3)pronunciation practice (about 5-10 minutes per day, but I do this everyday, and this is getting scaled back. About a year ago, I started a process to review all 16270 Chinese sounds, and I have only about 1100 left to do. After I have studied them all, I plan to review on a daily basis for probably the next 2-4 years) 4)Longer passage reading/listening practice (Chinesepod lessons) 5)grammar practice (Qingwen and I also use a grammer textbook. I found a really good one). 6) one-on-one conversation practice (not currently doing this everyday, but I will resume when the semester starts back up).

OK, that is all I have to say right now on this topic. Hope that it is helpful. I also hope to find more lessons of this type where content is weaved into the instructional material, and I am sure I will as I continue to work my way through these Qingwen lessons.

Sincerely,

George, From Amesbury Massachusetts

Posted on: I'm gonna be Late

Oh I see now... I just read those posts and I can now see that it is obvious you were just poking fun, and I was reading too much into your posts. Perhaps I was overtired when I read them, I don't know, but no worries =).

I think I am going to keep the new av though...

Posted on: I'm gonna be Late

Well, I changed it. I certainly didn't want to create such an impression by selecting the previous avatar. I will be careful not to let that type of mistake happen.

George

Posted on: Internet Slang (Part One)

Just when I just start to get the hang of the English stuff....

Posted on: I'm gonna be Late

I guess I better change my avatar then.

Posted on: Discussing Loan Repayment

so I guess from your description, 确定 seems to be more of a business word in the sense of buying and selling things, or signing contracts, and 肯定 is more general, and the meanings are not as close to each other as I thought.