User Comments - bodawei

Posted on: Back to Basics: Making People Plural with 们 (men)

你们好。。

'You' was originally the plural in English (not y'all, thank you very much.)  The singular was 'thou'. Eventually 'thou' was dropped; we now have 'you' being both singular and plural.  

Except in Australia, where the plural is 'youse'.  ;-) 

Strangely enough, in Austrlalia we also say 'youse all' (well, some of us do), which is close to the 'y'all' used by our American cousins.

Clearly there is a need for the plural of you in English. Even if the dictionary makers don't agree. Youse will find a way.   

Posted on: Tomb Sweeping Day

It's only one day off work in this part of China. And no make up because it is a national holiday.

Posted on: Getting Nationalities Straight

When I pronounce them they are the same in Chinese too!

So - I know NOTHING about Japanese - is this why we have the Anglicised word Nippon? NI PON?? Actually ni-hon (Japan)?? Sorry for the basic question - I have never 'seen' this before.

Posted on: Monopoly, Uno, or Twister?

有三词都意思相同（'fall, tumble, topple, drop'）:

倒 dǎo

跌 diē

掉 diào

这是三词都声音相同，都一样差不多，对吗，我觉得很有意思。

另一件事，'哎呀'是翻译为‘good gracious',对吧。 ’Good gracious'和'Geez'不一样。 'Good gracious', 'good gracious me'是'surprise'的意思。 'Geez'是'despair'的意思，当然不一样。

Posted on: Getting Nationalities Straight

日本人 rìběn rén Japanese (Jason - a slip of the pen?)

Posted on: April Fool's Day Car

关于‘Related Lessons', 'Related Conversations'我们都是愚人节中受愚弄者，对吗？ 

Posted on: Regional Accents Part I

I did this lesson spurred on by Barba's new 'Archive' group idea.  A great idea I should add, for reviving some of these old lessons.   

Some observations:  

- this is a useful lesson but on the criteria used these days this should be classified as no higher than Elementary (the exercises in particular are not at Intermediate level) 

- The main conclusion I come to is that the accent variations given as examples will not interfere with your understanding (I am afraid that real-life accent variations are much more challenging). I think the examples are a little too 'mild', certainly for Intermediate level. 

- Another thing, it is often the expressions used rather than the accent that prevents full understanding (combination of the two can really throw you).  

- I wonder to what extent we can rely on this for an authoritative statement on accents (I notice that a poddie takes issue with the han/he matter). I think that these lessons should be 'peer reviewed' by native speakers from the relevant region    

- there is a minor English translation error in one of the expansion sentences - from memory it should be 'liked' not 'like'.  (I would go back and check but the Chinesepod system does not allow you to flip back to another tab without losing the lot. Could a 'save' function be considered?)    

I look forward to doing Regional Accents II, and the new regional accent series.   

Posted on: Love Tangle 6: The Pregnant Wife

Thanks for getting back to us John. I guess most people would expect the 'relatedness' to be a reference to subject matter (rather than for example 'grammar pattern' or 'level'), so lesson tags, if they are tagged meaningfully, would not be a bad way of driving it. But it isn't working well - taking this lesson as an example the tags could have picked up a hundred other lessons more meaningfully related than the ones it did jag. And I am wondering why it did not pick up any of the other Love Tangle podcasts. You need a new algorithm. :-)

What about:

1. other lessons in a series (if relevant)

2. Other lessons with the same first tag only (when you are confident that your first tag is the most relevant tag)

3. One lesson with an obscure reference to the new lesson ... for fun... but this would have to be manual as machines are not good at obscure references [optional]

Posted on: Love Tangle 6: The Pregnant Wife

I have asked this question before without getting an answer, any answer.  What is going on with the 'Related Lessons'?  There is no rhyme nor reason to the list for this lesson.  Is it something that is really difficult to fix?  Is it on the 'To Do' list?  

Posted on: Beards Are for Old Men

I grew a beard once in China because I thought that it would make me look older, and Chinese people respect the older person, right?  Then someone told me that it just looked 'scruffy'!  Which it didn't of course, but I now go for the clean shaven look.