User Comments - bababardwan

Posted on: Bachelor's Day

wo shi diyige ren zai zheli er zhan zai gāoqiāo [cong shafa zhanqilai], qing lai liang ge pengyou yiyang zhan hao ba

Posted on: Dining and Dropping

buyong xie [no need for thanks]....but if you are going to thank, you could just say the shorter ta ta3

Posted on: Pregnancy Series 10: Postnatal Recuperation

"No wonder she's so keen to get up and about:)"

hahadaxiao. Bushi yige yuezi, shi ge sannianqizi

Posted on: Dining and Dropping

otter,

fork is 叉子【cha1zi]

spoon is 勺子[shao2zi]

Posted on: Chinese Dialects (Part 1)

I would have thought recording something orthographically in a way that reflected pronunciation as the Roman alphabet does would have had a concreting, slowing down effect in terms of change in the language [as long as a significant number are literate and had access to it I guess] so Zoollah's argument makes more sense to me. But that's just my two fen. I guess you could be right, but I think you'd need to explain in a little more detail how that would work to be more convincing.

Posted on: Making Plans for the Day

great pic, but it looks more like 11:12am

Posted on: Video Contest, ChinesePod Korea and the Store

"if such people are fluent in English they'll come here I'm sure. And if they aren't they likely won't be very active in the Community. So I'm sure it's all good"

...I guess [or at least hope] you're probably right.

Anyhow, I do think it's great for both CPod and for the folk who otherwise could not access what CPod has to offer but now can [or that is, soon will]. So I do wish all the best.

Posted on: Video Contest, ChinesePod Korea and the Store

hey Zhen,

"mm kind of sounds like you're saying goodbye to me ...?"

..well I just signed up for another year so I'm not going anywhere but I guess you mean I'm suggesting you're going.....heck I hope not. Sorry for giving you that impression. I don't think I'm expressing myself very well. I think I was thinking in past tense on a hypothetical if there had been a Japanese CPod from the outset.

"You didn't mean us actually"

...actually initially I did specifically mean you and Changye. I was wondering whether you guys would have joined if there had been a Japanese CPod from the outset and what an unknown loss that would have been to the community here. But then on further reflection I thought you probably would have always come [which you have confirmed] because of your high level English but it's always nice to get that confirmation [thanks]. While changye handled himself fine here in English I wasn't as certain with him as he had expressed at times that he found it hard [which was surprising to me]. But then my thoughts became more generalised and wondered whether it may drag other potential Japanese contributors away from the community [who maybe could handle it here in English with a bit of effort but may not be inclined to do so if there was a Japanese CPod] and also was thinking even more generally to any other future plans that may be afoot and for example whether we'd start to lose some of our European friends.

"Changye isn't a good typical Japanese at all of course, he's the exception"

...I've no doubt Changye is one of a kind. His knowledge and scholarly approach was amazing as was his willingness to help. Is this what you also meant by him being the exception, or were you referring to something else [was it for example a reference to his English level?] ?

"But I have this need to address in English the little things I discover as I study and some of the questions that come up, because English is one of my foundation languages and the language of a great part of my cultural background. Some of those things wouldn't ever come up if I operated only in Japanese"

..thanks for sharing that Zhen,...very interesting.

"I am interested to see what the Japanese ChinesePod is going to be like though, to see how the content and presentation will differ from the other resources we're familiar with in Japan"

...naturally. I can't imagine you not doing so.

"But then they actually try and just find it completely unrealistic and can't stick with it"

I suspect you're right Zhen. My concern is that while there may be some highly proficient in English at one end who may come anyway for such reasons as trevorb suggests [ I just don't know how common such a level of English is amongst Japanese] and there are some that would never come because their English isn't upto it [so perfect for a Japanese CPod and good luck to 'em], are there some in the middle who might have made it here having no other option, but now would go to a Japanese CPod? Dunno, but as I said at the outset, it would be a shame to lose the multicultural global flavour here.

Posted on: Video Contest, ChinesePod Korea and the Store

trevorb,

yeah, I thought of that mate. But the crux of the matter I think is at just what level someone would be prepared to do that. Ask yourself this....would you be ready to polish your Chinese while learning Japanese [ie study Japanese via a podcast that explains in Chinese] if instead you could study Japanese via an English site? I'm sure some [like Zhen above] would do it, but my guess is in greatly reduced numbers. Would it even just be a rare exception?

Posted on: Video Contest, ChinesePod Korea and the Store

Thanks Zhen. I can't say I'm overly reassured though because you are both the best example and the worst example. What do I mean by that? You are the best example of my concern from the aspect of how richly you've contributed here. You are the worst example though because you're English is at such an excellent level so the site here being in English would in no way make you shy like it might someone less confident with their English. But still, it's very nice to know we'd have been lucky enough to have you here anyway.