User Comments - auntie68
auntie68
Posted on: Global Warming
June 19, 2007 at 1:50 PMWith respect to my young student, she isn't only very good at handling the idea of being corrected gently (in a respectful and casual way), she now literally demands the respect implied by being treated as a person who wants to get it right, and CAN. The fact that she is half-Japanese made me a bit ginger at first about correcting her, but to my surprise, it was about ten minutes before she started to demand that kind of respect from me. Just my personal viewpoint... not meant to insult anybody.
Posted on: Global Warming
June 19, 2007 at 1:33 PMDear AZERDocMom, thanks for the kind post. The kind of "correction" I meant -- and you got it -- has nothing to do with "I am right, you are wrong", or scoring points, or putting anybody down. Right now I am giving remedial English lessons to a 12-year-old who really needs the help, and my priority (and my instinct) is to boost her confidence and encourage her in every way. But nothing seems to boost her confidence as much as learning how to be on really firm ground as she learns. Well, thanks.
Posted on: Global Warming
June 19, 2007 at 1:23 PMBtw, Robertk, are you somehow under the impression that I have been insulting towards Ken on account of his tones, or towards Maria on account of her (perfectly good and beautiful, but very strong) accent? Tell you what, I'll pull that sandpaper out when the more extreme (and sensitive) Praxis loyalists pull their heads out of Ken and Hank's asses and stop blowing smoke. Take care, S
Posted on: Global Warming
June 19, 2007 at 1:14 PMRobertk, I don't give a !*$*%*£ if you (plural) love me or not! Too bad if you don't like what I say. Ciao, Auntie
Posted on: Global Warming
June 19, 2007 at 1:13 PMJust to avoid unnecessary friction: If it turns out that I am totally, embarassingly, wrong about Maria's accent, and it turns out that she is actually from somewhere like Mexico City or Paraguay, rather than Argentina or (possibly?) Peru, then I offer her my complete, humble, apology. She IS a very gifted teacher, very sympathetic.
Posted on: Global Warming
June 19, 2007 at 12:50 PM[QUOTE] This goes for you too Ken. I tire of the perfectionism that is out there expecting all of your tones to be on target. It is you that is modeling to all of us learners out here, as to what is takes to learn. Despite harsh criticism, you stand in the face of it with strong confidence and continue to fight, teach, and produce a marvelous tool for all willing, disgruntled or otherwise, learners of Mandarin in the world. [/QUOTE] Dear Man2Toe, being honest about Ken's uneven (if intrepidly wielded) grasp of tones is "perfectionism"? Chinese is a tonal language. Ken, as a teacher and host, is purporting to TEACH the language. In many cases, to students who don't have ready access to good spoken Mandarin. I've often thought that it would be really useful if Jenny could correct his tones -- in a nice, polite way -- when necessary. But she rarely does so, perhaps out of politeness. Surely it must be in the spirit of learning for students to be encouraged to get used to being corrected (where it counts), as a perfectly normal part of the process of learning Mandarin? It strikes me that the "tone mistakes" which Ken makes are actually quite typical of native English speakers -- ie they are not unique to him --, and just a little bit of attention to them would benefit a lot of Elementary and Newbie students. I want to say that John Pasden and Jenny Zhu, as the principal "anchors", are pretty amazing because their Mandarin is so remarkably free of distracting accents, yet so expressive, fluent, and pungent. Thank you so much for that! I felt sad when I rushed to listen to the Spanish podcasts because Maria -- who is a WONDERFUL, GIFTED, AND EFFECTIVE teacher -- has a very strong Argentine accent, which she does her best to tone down. But the Argentine and Peruvian accents are pretty "sing-song" compared with other natural Spanish accents, and that shows through in the podcasts. It's disappointing that Praxis made this mistake in its first non-Mandarin project. Now I am going to be flamed by outraged Praxis loyalists, but frankly, I'm beyond caring. I was sincerely expecting Praxis to get native Spanish speakers who didn't necessary speak with a Madrid accent, but would at least be as fluently neutral as John P and Jenny Zhu.
Posted on: Global Warming
June 17, 2007 at 5:31 AMOops, what on EARTH am I talking about? Help, Mark! Admins! I misread the Chinese character (and Mark's post) and thought I was writing about the word "jiang4", which is the complete opposite of zhang4. Aarghghh! Sorry!
Posted on: Global Warming
June 17, 2007 at 5:22 AMHi Mark. I think the word used by CPOD (涨) was correct, it conveys a sense of some kind of level, which is sinking (like a water level, for example). The word die1 (跌), on the other hand, conveys falling in the sense of slipping or maybe of something thudding on to a surface. That's the fun thing about Chinese! Just think of how you say that rain or snow is falling, the verb there is "xia4". Ciao and thanks everyone who made kind comments.
Posted on: 周公解梦
June 16, 2007 at 11:06 PM[QUOTE] The biggest problem has probably been the chipmunk hunt: something which turned out to have been caused by ID3 tagging in iTunes. [/QUOTE] Hi Trevalyan. I think John Pasden mentioned something like that before. And my response to that was -- and still is --, "Yeah sure. Blame it on iTunes." Coming from a company that uses an image of a swanky iPod Nano so prominently on it's home page, it's a bit shocking that you still don't have a grip on iTunes as an interface for your RSS feed feature. It's been MONTHS and you are still tweaking this and trying that and blaming iTunes?
Posted on: Global Warming
June 19, 2007 at 11:16 PMDear All, it's a new day here, and I'm glad to start it in the spirit of peace. Really appreciated Ken's comment, which squares with what I imagine him to be, as a person. I find it interesting that people get so worked up by the idea of respectfully correcting anybody's tones (or even merely questioning them). To my mind, "correcting" is not automatically "criticism", in no way a personal attack of any kind. And even where I am, in fact, criticizing Praxis/ V3, it is a completely different matter from making a personal attack on anybody. Regards, Auntie