User Comments - go_manly

Posted on: Pinyin Sections 3-4

John,

Thanks for the reply. Yes, I understood you were just making it simple for beginners, and when you are starting out you don't need perfection.

However, there are some long-terms poddies who also seem to be confused about the sounds, and I was trying to correct their misconceptions.

Posted on: Pinyin Sections 3-4

Firstly, John said that the 's' is pronounced exactly the same as in English. Not so. In English the hiss of 's' is pronounced right in the front of the mouth - the upper and lower teeth are more or less contributing equally. For the Mandarin 's', the hiss is higher up - more or less where the upper teeth join their gums. In order to achieve this effect, your tongue needs to be arched into this area to create a small gap for the air to hiss through. The tip of the tongue rests on the top of the lower teeth, to provide support as it arches up.

Everyone is saying the the 'c' is like a 'ts'. This is true, but is only a rough similarity. The 'ts' in 'cats' can be heard as two distinct sounds, whereas the Mandarin 'c' really sounds like one consonant. I know I will get disagreement, but there is similarity between the way in which 'c' and 'ch' is produced.

'ch' can be thought of at 't' + 'sh', but most people think of it as a single consonant sound, so there is the first similarity. When saying 'ch', we move our tongue to exactly the same place as we would for saying 'sh'. However, instead of leaving a small gap, we suck in air, then close the gap completely at that point. We force out the air and open the gap with the right timing to create our 'sh' sound. God knows what the timing is - it happens so quickly.

With the 'c', you put your tongue in the same position as for Mandarin 's', and repeat the above procedure. It really doesn't work if you use the tongue position for English 's'.

It was a Mandarin speaking lady who told me that 'c' is like 'ch'. At the time, I didn't understand what she meant, because 'ch' was certainly not what I was hearing when she said 'c'. Now that I can produce the sound, I realise she was describing the way the sound is produced, not the sound itself.

Posted on: What Would You Like to Eat?

I hope no-one minds me posting the link to my dictionary again. I know some people have a problem with double-posting. There may be Newbies out there who don't access Qingwen. I will also post it after the next Elementary lesson.

If you want a character-based dictionary in PDF form containing all the Newbie and Elementary vocabulary from Cpod, click here.

When you get there, click the blue 'Download Now' button. After you get redirected, wait for the countdown to finish, then  "Click here to download this file".

And thanks everyone for the positive feedback.

Posted on: Hate is a Very Strong Word

Manly 19   Bulldogs 12

We're on our way back!

Posted on: Hate is a Very Strong Word

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Posted on: Hate is a Very Strong Word

Could someone please tell me what cilantro is. I have never heard that word here in Australia.

Posted on: Hate is a Very Strong Word

raygo

The 'different way' you linked to:  Is that a way for you in China to access it, or a way for me to allow you access to it? I didn't really understand what I was seeing.

Posted on: Hate is a Very Strong Word

raygo

I tried the link, and its working for me.

When you get there, you click the blue 'Download Now' button.

You are redirected to another page, and after enduring a 10 second countdown (because you and I are not premium members), a link appears where the countdown was previously taking place titled "Click here to download this file".

When you do click, the usual window pops up, asking whether you want to Save or Open.

Posted on: Hate is a Very Strong Word

I've tried another site. Let's see if this works.

My Newbie and Elementary Character dictionary is hopefully here

Yes! It works - you have to click 'Download Now' when you get there.

Posted on: Hate is a Very Strong Word

Pete

I tried Google Docs. I've uploaded my PDF. But I can't figure out how to share it without inviting people. It seems that PDFs can only be viewed by invitation. And my Word version is too big. It is 630M, and Google Docs only allows 500M for Word files. I don't really understand the internet/web pages/etc., and how they work. So could you give me a bit more direction?