User Comments - light487

Posted on: Let's Just Be Friends

Maybe if you are a guy you hear the male perspective but if you were a girl, you would hear the female perspective. :)

Posted on: Let's Just Be Friends

I think the term is more along the lines of "good relations".. ie. "we are not together, we just have good relations" :) hehe

Posted on: Let's Just Be Friends

大家好啊!!! :) 我很久不来! :)

Even though it's a little odd to be poking our noses into someone's most vulnerable moments of love (even though it's fictional), it's some great content to explore for a lesson. I'm glad I could understand most of this dialogue without assistance, as it means that despite my absence from ChinesePOD my own learning has grown. There's this Chinese song I heard a while ago and it's called (I think) "我喜欢你有一点" or something like that.. I think this is a cute song.. :)

This 是 emphasis thing is something I have come across before in the context of emphasising your feelings or opinion that something is expensive. You could say:

这本书太贵了 - "This book is too expensive." But you could also say:

这本书是太贵了 - Basically emphasising that the book "really is" too expensive.

Have I understood that concept correctly?

Posted on: Giving 给 Another Look

This is a great lesson, really pushing the boundaries of the simple "give" word. I also wanted to compliment Connie on her performance on this QingWen. Her language in this lesson was very clear and precise.. I've noticed this clarity for reason, not sure why but Connie.. 加油!

Isn't gǔn 滚 a swear word? I thought it was.. maybe I am confusing it with another similar sounding word?

And one last question about using er-hua with the following sentence, as I like to practise with random sentences:

快点给我回来
kuài diǎn gěi wǒ huílai

Would it be:
块儿点儿给我儿回儿来

When I try to say it like that, it does sound almost right.. maybe I am putting in too many 儿's ?

Posted on: Looking for Someone Else

Learned a new word last night.. it is 应该 yīnggāi meaning "ought to" or "should be"..

现在他应该在这里 xiànzài tā yīnggāi zài zhèlǐ

Can it be used in this way to say "He should be here by now"..?

Posted on: It's Stopped Raining

I always remember the word for rain 雨 yǔ because of the character from one of my favourite Chinese movies.. :) She's a very beautiful actress so her character's name sticks in my head very easily. :) The character's name is 路小雨 Lù Xiǎoyǔ... and is played by 桂纶镁 Guì Lúnměi. The main actor is probably the most famous of all of course, 周杰伦 Zhou Jiélún (Jay Chou).. and of course the movie's title is 不能说的秘密 bùnéng shuō de mìmì.

Interestingly.. the English title is simply written as "Secret" but it's more than that of course.. It's a great little phrase that helped me understand this particular usage of the 的 character. Essentially you have the word 秘密 mìmì, which means Secret, but then you have the attributive words proceeding the 的 to describe what kind of secret it is. 不能 bùnéng means "cannot", "must not", "should not" and 说 shuō means "to say". So of course.. the English is actually correct in that it is simply "Secret" but it's the kind of Secret that can not or should not be told. :) I think it's a great example of Chinese and very linguistically exciting.

Posted on: Looking for Someone Else

Yeh.. hehe.. I actually knew that.. but of course my English brain is more dominant when I am typing so I make many simple mistakes like that. It did take me a long time to understand 是 and I still have trouble with it.. but essentially.. I could have said 她是一个美丽的女人 I think..

Anyway, I understand it's usage in theory :) hehe.. using it in practice is the hard part :)

Posted on: Getting Off the Metro

Yes, a gentle nudge and a 对不起 (duìbuqǐ) is also sometimes enough.. though in a panic to get off because the bus or train is extremely crowded, sometimes you really need to 让一下 ràngyīxià :)

Posted on: Do you like China?

Hi Mepple:

"unless you’re happy eating chicken’s feet for breakfast"

This is to say that, "If you are happy to continue eating strange foods"

That's not really a meaningful sentence by itself though, there would need to be some conversation before or after that. I find that many people, when asking about specific sentences or parts of sentences, do not give the full context of the sentence that they are enquiring about. When you ask about these kind of things, be sure to use a full example and separate it on a different line. The context of the conversation is very important in understanding what you are asking.

If your main focus is to be learning English, I would suggest that you try EnglishPOD because it has been designed in the same way as ChinesePOD but instead for the learning of English rather than Chinese.

Posted on: 会 (Huì) and 能 (Néng) Face-off

Wanted to get some clarification on this 会 / 能 phenomenon so I had to listen to this episode again and I realised how good these shows were back when Amber and JP/Clay were doing them. That's not to say that the current QW's aren't educational but I really enjoy this radio-style lesson format. I think that it's a lot more fun and holds my attention and interest longer when there is a bit of play and fooling around involved in the lesson. Comparing this format, and the format of the older lessons, to the current formats I can see that there is some of the magic lost over time, as things grew more refined and precise. Precision and formality is all well and good.. but learning needs to be fun as well.