User Comments - RJ

Posted on: Lili and Zhang Liang 1: A Fated Meeting

@shenyajin

Perfect. Thanks for the help.

Posted on: Lili and Zhang Liang 1: A Fated Meeting

@shenyajin

Many thanks. So it seems that in oral chinese there is no distinction between "oneself" and "myself"?

Posted on: Lili and Zhang Liang 1: A Fated Meeting

Thank you lujiaojie. This is very helpful. Can you say 我教本人了? If not,  how would you say "I taught myself" or "I teach myself?"

Posted on: Why are You Studying Chinese?

@Vinilla_guerrilla

There is one other......I believe he is "a Chinese student who is taking an engineering course in France"

:-)

Posted on: Podcast Language 2

@miantiao

I would love to have a chance to learn some by immersion. Yours and the comments of others have not fallen on deaf ears, I need only to figure out whether or not people really do learn differently, as in analytical vs contextual, or am I missing the boat. Maybe its just an early learner distinction and as we progress we become more and more alike, or maybe I just need to change my methods. Obviously you are doing well, so I dont dismiss your opinions lightly and I will figure it out. My guess is its a mixture and even you are an analytical learner at times.

Posted on: Why are You Studying Chinese?

Why? Work took me to China, and my first trip opened my eyes to a whole new world. I found China to be a fascinating surreal collision of Old and new, rich and poor, east and west, tradition and modernity, capitalism and communism, ancient wisdom and modern foolishness etc etc. The language is beautiful, clever, compressed and elegant like a good math problem. The characters are not only a challenge but also elegant and beautiful, an art form in their own right, but also just systematic enough to appeal to the analyst in me. I found myself wanting to travel China and learn more and more. The people are wonderfully friendly, selfless and caring, generous to a fault, and just great hosts with hospitality second to none. As I sit at dinner with these folks, I want to "hear" what they are saying, feel what they are feeling" I want to participate in the conversation, I want to gather as well as share new ideas. I want to read, write, listen, and speak. I want to be a part of it. I want to be a part of China. I want to be a part of the Chinese family. I want to be able to separate the old lies and prejudices from the modern truth. This is why I am learning Chinese, which has now become a wonderful and fascinating hobby. A bottomless pit from which I pluck new information, ideas, and unexpected "joys" on a daily basis. No end in site, and for that I am grateful. And then there is Cpod and the community that comes with. Priceless.   

RJ.

Posted on: Podcast Language 2

Mike

thanks. Very interesting. Glad to know analytical types can indeed learn new languages.

Bob

Many interesting ideas have been discussed and I hope cpod will take note and perhaps make changes where practical. Providing transcripts for the lesson chatter would be tough. A nice compromise would be a discussion vocab list for each lesson, intermediate and above. There may be shortcomings for us analytical learners, but I do not find any of these things to be debilitating. I do look forward to improvements however.

Posted on: Podcast Language 2

btw- the fact that I no longer listen to the elementary banter has nothing to do with the quality of those lessons, and everything to do with my current level and the needs thereof.  I did listen to Ken and Jenny for many months and found those shows to be very well done, and useful at the time.

Also, as our sometimes colorful translator might say, Cpod is the "bomb"  (meaning "very obviously the best").

Posted on: Why are You Studying Chinese?

Pete does indeed have a delightful lady in his life. I recently had the pleasure of meeting both of them. Cecilia is not only easy on the eyes, but quite bright and accomplished. Pete, I hope you two are together for a long long time. She is the brains of the outfit after all :-). Good luck to both of you.

Posted on: Podcast Language 2

Pete,

well, it seems that maybe we dont disagree as much as we thought. In that case cpod should be more sensitive to our needs, such as the need for english in the "transcript" of QW sentences as Bob has pointed out. We are still left hanging and need to look up at least some of them. It is as if you (cpod) are constantly reminding us that we should be "smart enough" to understand these without the english. A compact, complete list of definitions would include english and I think many would find it much more helpful this way. Again, a small thing, but not hard to do either.

Tim

your side note is something I have noticed as well.