User Comments - bluealvarez
bluealvarez
Posted on: Saved by the Gong: Cutting Open a Frog
March 4, 2009 at 2:37 AMPete,
我记得Ann Richards 死的时候，NPR ran that clip, and it was great just on the radio. 不过视频比较好！Among her other talents, that woman sure knew a thing or two about delivery.
Posted on: Sorry and Thank You
March 3, 2009 at 9:34 PMThey should just hire Changye to be a remote grammar specialist. Dude is awesome.
I'm half kidding, but seriously, there are also so many poddies here who are amazingly friendly and helpful, so I just wanted to acknowledge that.
Posted on: Stop in the Name of the 法 (fǎ)
March 3, 2009 at 6:01 PM不好意思! In my haste to criticize other recent “请问”，我忘了告诉你们这个podcast非常好！又有用又逗人！ 谢谢你们！
Posted on: Sorry and Thank You
March 2, 2009 at 4:31 AMHenning, thank you for basically writing the response I was about to write. You summed it up perfectly.
Also, Rj is right - most of us offering criticism are doing so as a means of constructive feedback because we don't know what we'd do without Cpod! We want to let the team know why we love it here so much, so we can keep improving our Chinese and keep giving them money. :)
That said, from now on when I hit a grammatical wall I'm just going to post my queries here, as 请问 suggestions. Because lord knows I suffer from no dearth of 语法的问题.
Posted on: Sorry and Thank You
March 1, 2009 at 6:31 AM@reigau:
Holy way to hit the nail on the head. Pete, Connie, and Jenny are all obviously very hard working and talented, but it's not the right team for the show. Because you're right, it's not just the charisma element missing, it's the "I really didn't know how to say this so I had to look it up and now I'm teaching you!" part that made it so effective - and that was often because the grammar points were not super-basic, but in fact elementary to intermediate.
Also, as soon as I read the title of this QW I said "Hey, didn't QW cover this quite recently?" And in fact it was not that recent, but it felt recent to me because I had just listened to it. So I suppose they were due for a reprise, but at any rate, they did the "sorry" thing about 18 months ago, and quite well:
http://chinesepod.com/lessons/saying-sorry/discussion
And this will be the last QW criticism I put up because now I am just repeating myself. But if it perks up I will not hesitate to chime in with enthusiastic praise. :)
Posted on: Eating Dead Flesh 猪吃死人肉
February 28, 2009 at 3:32 AMPete, 你嬴with that Donald Rumsfeld reference. Nicely done.
I finally got around to listening to this podcast tonight and it totally took my by surprise. 我觉得这个我的新最喜欢的podcast, just barely edging out “请问”。
I also don't claim to know whether it's okay to say "新最喜欢的podcast", 因为我的语法不太好。Oh well, 那是为什么我练习！ So much of my grammar is still being borrowed from English.
Anyway, 谢谢！
Posted on: Personal Ad
February 28, 2009 at 2:59 AMCasielin FTW! 那个视频又意思又搞笑！ 谢谢！
Posted on: The Attitude Pattern (yǒu shénme... 有什么...)
February 27, 2009 at 6:14 PM@Clay
Nice! I was just saying in another QW thread about how you and Amber really convinced me to join Cpod by being so damn entertaining.
Thanks for the laughs, and hope everything is working out for you!
Posted on: Personal Ad
February 27, 2009 at 5:46 PM@matt_c
Right, speaking of horrifying to outsiders, I would say that's "cool" the way that giving Anne Frank a place to hide is cool - it works for a little while, but it's hardly a solution.
However, I do understand why they're doing it, and it's got to be better than being labeled as a 老姑娘, or other less nice alternatives, with all the attendant problems.
But to echo what was said in that article, this is why gay marriage is so important - it's too early to ask people to lose the concept of marriage entirely, so the only way to show 传统的中国人that being an LGBorT isn't a threat to the world order is to allow them to marry and prove that they can (and do) form just as stable families and unions as heteronormative couples.
And seeing as how the US divorce rate is still something like 百分之五十, whereas as of 2007 the divorce rate in mainland China was only about 百分之十五，it stands to reason that China might be poised to set the example. ;) Though whether or not this is attributable to healthy, stable marriages or just pressure not to get divorced is another matter entirely.
Posted on: Sorry and Thank You
March 4, 2009 at 2:50 AM@pchenery,
Maybe some people are resisting change, but I think the crux of it is about maintenance of a standard, not stagnation. The bottom line is that Cpod is amazing. There is literally nothing else like it, anywhere. No one I have found comes even close to offering the depth of material with the kind of entertainment value that Praxis does. (I'm also on Italianpod and while it hasn't had the time to be as fleshed out as Cpod, the hosts are just as incredible.)
So, I think the point is that if users don't speak up and tell the staff when they see something endangering that level of quality, everyone suffers. I will grant you, however, that there are better ways to couch these things than others, so motivations and word choice are important.
And with that, I am going to go upgrade my account, because I am due to renew this week and because I just realized how much it pisses me off that it would have taken me a half hour to write those last two paragraphs all in Mandarin. Oh well, 一天比一天好。