User Comments - calicartel

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calicartel

Posted on: Lao Wang's Office 6: Up-and-Comer in the Office
January 8, 2009 at 9:32 AM

My grain of salt regarding translations, especially in the PDF transcripts: accurate translation is not ChinesePod's strong point. You can't be good at everything. Most of the time it matters little in terms of learning.

My other grain of salt, regarding the complexity of the expansion section. I have very often found the expansions to be a quantum leap above the main text in terms of difficulty. While this may be good if you're an upper intermediate student doing intermediate lessons, you have a problem if you are the reverse. Time being limited, I have as good as given up on expansions, feeling my time is better spent rehearsing the lessons - and hearing John&Jenny again and again. Maybe ChinesePod could conduct a simple survey to find out if students' use of expansions in their present form is proportional to the resources that go into producing them.  The concept of expansions is a good one, only the wisdom of using them massively to introduce new vocab instead of revising old one is open to debate. Note that the difficulties surrounding expansions are compounded by the fact that, contrary to other parts of the course, they are not downloadable. I'm sure I could better come to terms with the vocab overload if I could rehearse the sentences on my mp3 player.

Posted on: Cold Will Kill You
December 18, 2008 at 12:33 PM

Words I checked (no guarantee):

  • 宝贝 bao3 bei4  darling / baby
  • 夸张 kua1 zhang1 to exaggerate / overstated / 
  • 表现 biao3 xian4 to show / to show off
  • 顺序 shun4 xu4 sequence / order
  • 变化 bian4 hua4 change / variation
  • 癌症 ai2 zheng4 cancer
  • 外婆 wai4 po2 (informal) mother's mother; maternal grandmother
  • 犯人 fan4 ren2 convict / prisoner

 

 

 

 

Posted on: Fighting over the Bill
December 18, 2008 at 12:30 PM

Words I checked, without guarantee:

  • 甚至 shen4 zhi4 even / so much so that 
  • 多于 duo1 yu2 more than / greater than
  • 空间 kong1 jian1 space
  • 对于 dui4 yu2 regarding / as far as sth is concerned
  • 吃亏 chi1 kui1 to suffer losses / to come to grief
  • 距离 ju4 li2 distance / to be apart
  • 干吗 gan4 ma2 to what end? / whatever for? / why on earth?
  • 独立 du2 li4 independent / independence / to stand alone
  • 真实 zhen1 shi2 true / real

 

Posted on: Lost Cell Phone
December 5, 2008 at 3:10 PM

My pickings for this one, from MDBG:

  • diào to lag behind / to lose / to go missing
  • 通常 tōng cháng regular / usual / ordinary / normal
  • 运气 yùn qi luck (good or bad)
  • gǎi biàn to change / to alter / to transform
  • 义词 fǎn yì cí opposite (meaning) / antonym
  • 突出 tū chū prominent / outstanding / to give prominence to
  • 发财 fā cái to get rich

 

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Posted on: Saved by the Gong: Chemistry
December 4, 2008 at 4:57 PM

Words I identified or misidentified and that can help struggling students like myself (from MDBG dictionary):

  1. 无聊 wú liáo nonsense / bored
  2. 观察 guān chá to observe / to watch / to examine
  3. 具体 jù tǐ concrete / definite / specific
  4. 结论 jié lùn (reach a) conclusion / verdict
  5. 发光 fā guāng shine
  6. 抽象 chōu xiàng abstract
  7. gēn classifier for long slender objects, e.g. cigarettes, guitar  
  8. 细长 xì cháng slender
  9. 乱七八糟 luàn qī bā zāo everything in disorder; in a hideous mess  
  10. 视频 shì pín video

Posted on: The Surname Code
December 4, 2008 at 2:38 PM

This lesson in invisible to the search engine, I wonder why. Anyway, these terms can be useful (no guarantee):

 

进门 jìn mén enter a door

lì set up / to stand

zǎo early / morning

chuàng yì creative / creativity

 

Posted on: Counterfeit Money
December 3, 2008 at 2:43 PM

Words I checked in the MDBG dictionary (no guarantee they're right) :

  1. 消息 xiāo xi news / information 
  2. 严重 yán zhòng grave / serious / severe / critical 
  3. 正式 zhèng shì formal / official 
  4. kǎo to check / to verify / to test
  5. 数学 shù xué mathematics / mathematical 
  6. 美金 měi jīn US dollar
  7. 机器 jī qì machine
  8. 便利店 biàn lì diàn convenience store
  9. 态度 tài du manner / bearing / attitude  
  10. 课程 kè chéng course / class

Posted on: Intellectual Property Lawsuits
October 18, 2008 at 3:07 PM

This was a tough lesson. I cannot help thinking indirect speech would be more suitable for this kind of topic. Direct speech (dialogue) can sound very artificial in this context, especially when one of the two conversationalists is the girl who plays "Lili" in the Zhang Liand + Lili series. With her bratty, slightly aggressive tone of voice, she comes into her own in the series but here she over-acts the part. Is is just me finding the expansion sentences in this lesson too hard (vocabulary overload)?

Posted on: Lili and Zhang Liang 7: A Guy's Advice on Women
October 16, 2008 at 12:39 PM

Anybody could tell me what the meaning is of the line "更加了解" in this context? The translation in the pdf transcript is not satisfactory.

Posted on: Lili and Zhang Liang 13: A Dad Gives Advice to a Broken-Hearted Son
October 10, 2008 at 9:09 AM

A few words additional I extracted from the podcast. No guarantee they are right.

   jiàn yì ; to recommend; recommendation

   sú yǔ ; local saying; idiom

严重   yán zhòng ; grave; serious; severe; critical

沉重   chén zhòng  ; heavy; hard; serious; critical

   gǎn jué ;  feeling

时期   shí qī ; a period in time ; period; time

校草 xiao4 ciao3 ; the most gorgeous boy   student