User Comments - henning
henning
Posted on: Experiencing Agricultural Life
July 1, 2007 at 7:35 AMThis fruitless digression here buried my lesson related question: Does anybody know whether or not 学农 is still common?
Posted on: Baby Care
July 1, 2007 at 7:32 AMThat was familiar vocab! And high frequency stuff (depending on the throughput of your kids of course...). A premiere for me: First Intermediate lesson without any unknown words... :)
Posted on: Experiencing Agricultural Life
June 30, 2007 at 10:48 AMOr a ranking for the posts?
Posted on: Experiencing Agricultural Life
June 30, 2007 at 8:48 AMIs 学农 still commonly practiced in the performance-oriented middle schools of contemporary China?
Posted on: Saying Sorry
June 29, 2007 at 11:45 AMThe flow of the conversation in the QingWen is really exceptional, the language switches are really smooth, the content is relevant, and it is a pleasure to listen to Connie, Amber and of course Ken. There is only one complaint that I want to put forward here and it is a rather grave one: There are not enough of those! I could devour about 30-50 QingWens. Per day.
Posted on: ChinesePod on the iPhone
June 29, 2007 at 11:45 AMThe flow of the conversation in the QingWen is really exceptional, the language switches are really smooth, the content is relevant, and it is a pleasure to listen to Connie, Amber and of course Ken. There is only one complaint that I want to put forward here and it is a rather grave one: There are not enough of those! I could devour about 30-50 QingWens. Per day.
Posted on: Mild Swearing
June 28, 2007 at 4:04 PMlaodai, we do not need a lesson for this. The community can provide you with more than enough links to online "learning material". I think it is a mere matter of survival that CPod stays neutral, refrains from provocation, and by all means avoids taking sides in any kind of ethical, religous, and political controversy.
Posted on: I forgot your name
June 28, 2007 at 5:48 AMalexzye, let me give a try. I would use 你贵姓 (nǐ guìxìng) in a formal situation (kind of "What is your valuable name?"), whereas 你叫什么名字 (nǐ jiào shénme míngzi) for everyday situations. "怎么称呼" (zěnme chēnghu) I would apply when talking about a third party. I would also expect a title in there ("how do I address him?"), so answers could e.g. be "Ms. Dr. Hu" or "Manager Li". Be aware: Those answers are based on unreliable guts feeling though. As for the Pinyin: Good question. I always cumbersomely copy it from my dictionary (entering the Hanzi and taking out the Pinyin).
Posted on: Resisting Relocation
June 28, 2007 at 5:37 AMclarence, I am also convinced that full fluency requires going to China. But that is the same with learning English or any other language, isn't it? But. It works the other way round also. If you do not have a foundation you will not draw much from a Chinese environment. Active learning is important and it is the very bases for full language acquisition later. The more you have learned the more you can suck in and the faster you acquire. By the way: I increase the amount of Chinese I speak with my wife every day. Thanks to CPod this is not torture anymore for both of us as it used to be (although I am still far from being fluent). And I am really looking forward to my trip to Beijing in September as I am hoping for a real push there.
Posted on: Experiencing Agricultural Life
July 1, 2007 at 7:53 AMI was referring that was not lesson related including all that whining about the distribution of services across levels.