User Comments - alwingate

Posted on: Hiking

野餐 ye3can1 - 'wild meal'

Great post!  This is what attracts me to the Chinese language and you don't get much better consideration from the community than including pinyin for the ELEMENTARY section.

You who are pin heads: perhaps you can find your way to the advanced section, because you are pretty useless to me.

Posted on: Hiking

John, in the case we were talking about (re: patterns) Boran's examples are an excellent way of getting the point across to Ele's.  Using a character in an equation: well may be linguistic, but it isn't teaching.

Posted on: Hiking

Boran, some of your examples have sound buttons, but they do not work.  I appreciate your efforts - very useful.  This kind of pattern recognition exercise should be included in every C-Pod lesson.  Thanks.

Posted on: Hiking

Mmoldovan, I have caught your drift and you have indeed drifted into triviality, which shows in a sense the principle of smallness of which I am expert. Leave the pettiness to the experts like myself and for you; well perhaps you can find a more useful place in cyberspace.

Posted on: Hiking

Posted on: Hiking

John PASDEN, what you say makes sense, but Boran's link was not available and what you said could have been useful to the ENTIRE community by adding the link which contains patterns using your particular example.  

However, in an elementary lesson which uses characters in a formula(and do you know how many people hate math and for reason?) makes the meaning of your formula difficult to understand. Characters are not emphasized here; hence spoken mandarin.  

Also, I have difficulty with the speed of the Expansion section for one very simple reason.  I cannot either repeat or understand some of the segments of speech within those sentences.  This makes for a very frustrating experience.  It is my contention that if you are presented with an audible sentence at an elementary level; then you THE ELEMENTARY STUDENT should be able to reproduce it yourself after listening to it.

For awhile, the rate of speed was so down a bit and the expansion section became useful to me - not the frustration it is today.  Why do you keep changing the rate of speed?  Is this a decision or does it just happen?

  I am an early elementary.   but the rate of speech in the dialogue discussed by Ken and Jenny was useful to me.  It is my wonderment about why you insist on increasing the speed of the expansion sentences.  Slowing them down a bit would not hurt the advanced students. And certainly there are some students who are elementary that would benefit from this action. I want to learn to speak some Chinese.  That is all. But now the speed of the presentation makes for difficult learning.

 I am stuck with this problem which can be solved by asking the reader to slow the pace slightly.  That way the sound units can be heard and the grouping of the phrases becomes meaningful.

Another solution is to have my friend re-read the sentences and record them for me.  This is something that is tedious as I have then background work to do and have a day job which requires much of my attention.  Therefore, less time is available to me in my "off" hours.

Please consider this option of presentation of the Expansion sentences.  Of all the services ChinesePod offers; this is the one I use the most to learn Chinese.  It is vital.

Boran's links are very useful.  Are they available for each lesson?  I was thinking of doing something similar, because these are true patterns unlike the Expansion sentences which are applications of vocabulary in different contexts (also useful).

I have been feeling rather nasty lately because of realizing progress and then having it snatched away from me.  It is a great irritation along with trying to adjust to the Chinese culture I find myself in where it takes five times the amount of energy and effort to get anything done when you don't know the language.

I don't mean for this to be a rant.  I am just so bleepin' frustrated.  Sorry, if I have mispoken on some occasions.

Posted on: Hiking

You want to put that into English John?  Something + adjective plus le.  What?  I did not think a pattern could occur from a single instance?

Posted on: Hiking

Wow, you did.

Like the lesson. The reverb gave me the needed repetition.  The picture looks a bit like mountain climbing to me, as opposed to hiking, but then I am sixty two and that could be the difference.

Great lesson.  Really, as is my reaction to the free lessons most of the time.  Your efforts are appreciated enough that I actually pay for a subscription and re-uped for another year (okay, I wanted the DVD)

Anyway, best to you and CPod.  Keep an eye on them.

Posted on: Working Hours

Every time I get a bit discouraged with the progress I'm making in learning the Chinese language I listened to the podcast again with Ken and Jenny and my interest is awakened as from the dead.

Ken,  you are work crazy. What a great set of problems you have. You love your work so much that it is very difficult for you to stop. It is the same for me even though at 62 the energy level is not what it used to be.

Jenny, What chemistry you have with Ken.   to say in a very brittle sense you -- for all -- are a well oiled machine. The back-and-forth is seamless and the two of you make that happen.

I cannot think of a better advertisement than listening to one of your podcasts. If only...

This is team teaching at its best. And I believe that this model for teaching is proof positive that team teaching with the right  colleague is the most effective way to teach a foreign language.

As I am a teacher and work with a Chinese colleague I have stolen some of your techniques and implemented them in my classroom. I am now going on the third year of instruction at a public school in Taiwan. I love teaching here in Taiwan. I look forward every morning.  I love going to work. Creating. Imagining. Doing. For me, it is what life is all about -- it is the giving back of what you have.

Looking forward to some great lessons from you Jenny,  since it is I believe that the best lessons come from your heart and mind. I hope you don't ever change too much to the brittle dry secular side of the approach that is taken by some. I loved the cat in the hat, the story about the old man that moved a mountain, and the story about the old man who was hard of hearing. These are all joyful stories. I must say I do not care for the bar scenes  settings that do occur. These are best left for other people. But I am more interested in what comes from your heart and mind which is truly creative in my opinion. Sorry to go on and on I drank one too many cups of coffee this morning.

Posted on: Working Hours

Baillies.  Thank you very much.  The omission of these are a bit frustrating for a Newbie.