User Comments - chenggwo
chenggwo
Posted on: Not on purpose
May 11, 2008 at 4:04 AMAccording to tone rules: gu2yi4 No?
Posted on: Thirsty for Water
May 11, 2008 at 2:31 AMI mean I thought yao4 could not take a verb as an object. So that you can say I want water. Wo yao4 shui. I want to drink water. Wo xiang he shui.
Posted on: Do I look good in this?
May 10, 2008 at 3:11 PMBasically, I thought you can match the measure word to what is being referred to specifically in sentences like. I want one. This looks good on you.
Posted on: Massage Therapy
May 9, 2008 at 6:41 PMI see two LaoWise ChinesePods. Are there any more?
Posted on: Do I look good in this?
May 9, 2008 at 4:07 PMShould not 'je jien' be used throughout the lesson and not just at the beginning when referring to 'ifu'? As in 'Je jien bu hao can'. Instead of 'Je ge bu hao can'. I hope you understand my romanization.
Posted on: Hungry Traveler: Hunan
May 8, 2008 at 3:32 PMSugar is the thing to put out the fire. Adding three packs of sugar to your tea should do the trick. Otherwise, a cola does nicely.
Posted on: Diet Coke
May 7, 2008 at 5:07 PMRegarding measure words: I am new to this, but I would think the easiest way to handle measure words is to treat them as an optional part of the noun. Don't just learn the word for beer, learn the word for one bottle of beer, etc.
Posted on: Diet Coke
May 4, 2008 at 3:20 AMMeasure words are not always completely untranslatable in English. We have measure words in English too. But we only use them for things 'uncountable". You know, the things you can't put numbers in front of in English? 'I want two milks, please'. In Chinese one is not allowed to put numbers directly in front of any noun, so 'I want two apples.' would be translated into Chinese with a measure word not found in the English sentence. When we use a measure word in English, it still is not the same grammatically, because the word 'of' in the sentence 'I want a cup of milk, please.' is not translatable into Chinese. Instead, words like cup, bottle, can, and pint (even 'bunch', think about how you order grapes) are regular Chinese measure words. Grammatically the same as other Chinese measure words. They don't imply possession the way they do in English. English only uses measure words for non-integral nouns like milk, water, and flour. Things that can't be counted without first measuring them. The other parallel between English and Chinese is when a measure word is not needed in either language. 'I want milk' is grammatically parallel in both languages. In both languages a specific quantity is not implied or given. Because a measure word is only needed in Chinese between the number and the noun when a specific quantity is given.
Posted on: Thirsty for Water
April 13, 2008 at 3:14 AMWhy the two ways to say 'want to'? I thought yeo meant 'want' and xiang meant 'want to'. What is the significance of using both in almost the same context?
Posted on: Where Do You Live?
May 11, 2008 at 4:16 AMIf a newbie wants to learn Chinese, he must learn the characters. Also, one must skip over any part of the discussion he does not understand. It is true that even the Newbie level offers good, short examples of realistic Chinese. It is a benefit of ChinesePod that we learn the natural language, not stilted, artificial examples.