User Comments - chenggwo
chenggwo
Posted on: Does it Have Bones?
March 30, 2009, 02:10 PMThis title is very exciting for me because, as a lover of gourmet French cooking, I know that a big difference between classic French cuisine and Chinese cuisine is that the French will create a stock with the bones, boiling the stock down and discarding the bones, and then add the stock back into the dish, really wasting nothing and the Chinese simply leave the bones in, also gaining a lot of flavor from the bones. Bone-marrow is one of the best flavors on Earth. It is a shame that often the bones are discarded on the basis of them being inedible.
Posted on: How Long?
March 20, 2009, 02:53 PMI just noticed that the explanations between the dialog helps with memorization. Repeating something over and over again consecutively is less effective than pausing and then repeating the bit of dialog later. Pimsleur uses dialog which is much less typical of how the Chinese actually speak with pronunciations which are stilted, but they do use this memorization technique very well, which is to repeat bits of dialog at increasing intervals, giving the listener a chance to begin to forget before refreshing his memory. But I never noticed this about ChinesePod, that the patter between explanations of dialog has perhaps even a triple purpose, one of which is to aid in memorization. Ken has the talk show hosts abillity to think on many levels at once while appearing not to be making any calculations at all.
Posted on: The Broken Chair
March 17, 2009, 06:09 PMA very funny lesson.
Posted on: The Broken Chair
March 17, 2009, 06:09 PMA very funny lesson.
Posted on: Friends for Dinner
March 07, 2009, 06:39 PMIn the States a spring roll is served cold, wrapped in something that does not need cooking. And an egg roll is deep-fried with cabbage inside, wrapped in a shell which becomes crispy. The most inportant difference is fresh versus deep-fried. I agree that Beef with Oyster Sauce is a popular dish in America and is not the same as Pepper Steak.
Posted on: Stuffy Room
March 03, 2009, 02:41 PMIn the dialog, I notice that the woman actually says tai le lung instead of tai lung le. I can't understand why the discrepancy was not noted and expained. Perhaps because it just plain is a mistake and there is no use in pointing it out and explaining it? Perhaps I am mishearing it because the ng ending is so much less emphasized in Chinese.
Posted on: You First
February 13, 2009, 02:56 PMAt the end of the dialog, Jenny says 'hao hao'. Does anybody notice that the man sounds like he is saying 'ha ha'? Or am I hearing it wrong?
Posted on: You First
February 12, 2009, 10:42 PM'ba' apparently has a different conotation depending on whether one is refering to another or to oneself.
'Hao ba' is a noncommittal 'OK'.
'Chi ba' is meant to not commit ones guest to do the suggested action. Or perhaps, in the sense that no one is being 'committed' to do the action, 'ba' means the same in both cases.
Posted on: Wait!
January 22, 2009, 06:14 PMNo, but sometimes I break my thoughts into paragraphs to make it easier to read. Oddly that one came out all at once and didn't seem long at the time.
Posted on: Hot Soup
April 02, 2009, 07:53 PMchris1, boran is right
Except, it is tranlated as "is" or "is very". According to the following website "shì" links nouns, but only "hěn" can link a noun to an adjetive.
http://www.chinese-lessons.com/mandarin/grammarL3Hen.htm
I think clay's explanation missed the point that it is not just usual, but also necessary. But then he makes a very important point since when "hěn" is used constantly, it must lose most of its force.