User Comments - abelle

Posted on: Skiing, Not Ice Skating

Ni hao!  How do you say "snowboard" in Chinese?  My brother lives in Utah and this is his winter sport instead of skiing.  He used to play ice hockey from when he was 5 to 12 years old, but likes snowboarding now.  --Mystic

Posted on: Executive Plan, Newbie Changes, and More

I would welcome less Newbie lessons.  Sometimes I feel I am making good progress (I try to complete 5 a week), but then I go on vacation and when I return 5 more new lessons are in the Newbie channel set!  So I feel I am making very slow progress and the new lessons often don't have any new words or phrases.  I can't wait to get to the Elementary level, but I feel that I have to finish the 85 Newbie lessons I still haven't completed. 

Posted on: A Startled Friend

I finally got to this lesson, but I see the he4si3 and xia4si3 issue hasn't been fixed.  It's confusing for this poor Newbie to hear a different pronunciation than what's written down. 

Posted on: November Just Gets Better!

Hi, Matt:  My studies have been sidetracked by--I know it's hard to believe--Christmas!  We are going to visit relatives out in the Western US over Veteran's Day week (Nov 11).  We're going to bring Christmas presents with us instead of mailing them next month.  Here Christmas gifts start showing up in the stores around Columbus Day, which is good for me, my mom, and sister who want to shop early, which is what we've been doing for the past couple of weeks.  Crazy, isn't it?  You can be sure that I will be bringing my Ipod so I can listen to CPod at the airports and on the planes.  --Mystic

Posted on: Anybody home?

The scariest thing that came to our door last night were the older teenagers.  I agree with Aaronposehn about the older teenagers still trick-or-treating.  Definitely not cute!  And they don't even bother to really dress up.  Some just throw on a football or hockey jersey.  My parents didn't give them as much candy as the younger kids.  But my own family isn't blameless.  My 15-year-old sister still went out last night (but in her friend's neighborhood a couple of miles away).  She was a "farmer" with a plaid shirt and a straw hat, not much of a costume.  My brother last went trick-or-treating when he was 15 and carried his skateboard around.  He basically went as himself, a skateboarder.  So lame!  But my sister did come back with some good candy, which my dad was looking at with jealousy--especially anything chocolate! 

Posted on: November Just Gets Better!

I got a double post too.  Can someone delete one of them?  Xiexie.

Posted on: November Just Gets Better!

bababardwan,  I clicked on your Donald Bradman link and it brought me to the Wiki page of a dead guy!  He was the Australian cricketer who died in 2001.  Maybe you're just testing us :-)

--Mystic, in rainy Washington DC, where it's a good day to stay home and start studying CPod again

Posted on: To do

I was disappointed there was no pdf document to go with this lesson.  This Newbie was having a hard time following the conversation without seeing the sentences in hardcopy.  I think/hope the more recent Qing Wen lessons have pdf's with them.

Posted on: Chicago

I didn't know this lesson existed until I saw Lanqing's message.  I wish I were past the Newbie stage so I can learn interesting lessons like this one. (I guess it's something for me to have as a goal.)  When I was much younger, we would visit Chicago a lot.  I have relatives in nearby suburbs, Skokie and Kenosha.  And my mom is an alumni of the University of Chicago, but I can barely remember my visits to the campus and Hyde Park.  Then my family got busy doing other things and we don't visit anymore, although my dad goes for a business trip or two and sees the relatives.  One of my cousins there is into all the sports teams big-time, that's all she talks about on Facebook!

Posted on: Being Seated in a Restaurant

Thank you for the explanation, Connie!