User Comments - light487

Posted on: New Opportunities

Oooh.. exchanging insults with rude people! This is the kind of stuff I like to learn :)

Posted on: Getting Off the Metro

@calkins: Oh yes I totally agree with you there. I started "shouldering" them right back in the end.. I didn't know what else to do.. maybe I will try that phrase next time.

Posted on: Getting Off the Metro

I never had any problems getting off the subway in Shanghai or Beijing. The transport I had trouble with getting off were the buses. :) I remember in Xi'an and Beijing, the bus was so crowded that I had to use some Chinese in order to get off at my stop. I used these two phrases:

我走了
wǒ zǒu le
I'm leaving (the "le" indicates a change of state)

让一下
ràng yīxià
Let me through

I didn't have the "xiache" vocab.. but the above two things worked well. They may not have been totally correct but they worked..

There was an interesting lesson, from 2005 where Jenny explains her fear of the subway, I wish I could find that now.. :) Also here is one that is related to this lesson, and is also a newbie lesson:

http://chinesepod.com/lessons/what-stop-is-this

Posted on: 小太监进宫五

oh.. hehehe.. I get it now.. thanks Juzi :)

Posted on: 小太监进宫五

Hehe.. I don't understand any of this.. way beyond me.. but I listen to these advanced lessons simply for the input of all the sounds. Can someone explain to me why the guy is talking like that? It's almost sing-song like.. is it a Beijing Opera or something similar?

Posted on: Farewell, Sweet Pete

Ohhh.. so much disappointment in one episode!!

Pete is leaving already? I barely got to know you.. met you when I was there but I didn't have time to go out with you for gelato.. I love gelato!.. *sniffle*.. When I come to live in China, should be hopefully in the next 6 months, we'll definitely have to go for gelato! :)

And the school... *sigh*.. starts without me! Noooo! :) I won't be there in time to start the lessons with you guys! That makes me sad.. then again, I don't really have any idea how much time I am going to have spare with all my English teaching when I get there..

This episode makes me sad because I am seeing things happening in Shanghai that I am missing out on because I am stuck here in boring old Sydney..

P.S. Oh and I just remembered, there is this great Vietnamese/French shop (don't ask me where it is because I had to take a taxi to find it) in Shanghai somewhere that has this awesome kind of gelato-kindof stuff.. I had the peanut one and it was extremely tasty! 非常好吃! :)

Posted on: Looking for Someone Else

Well that first case Wǒ mǎi de shū -- "the book I bought," is really what the 别的 is about.. ie. "the book" was "bought".. where "bought" is the describer..

Posted on: Looking for Someone Else

I've also noticed that 的 de can be used to separate nouns from their descriptive words (not only adjectives but anything that is used to change describe the "thing"). Like:

美丽的女人 (měilì de nǚrén) meaning "beautiful woman" as compared to 她是漂亮 (tā shì piàoliang) meaning "she is beautiful". So in this context, and that of the red ball:

红色的球 (hóngsè de qiú) red ball.

别 bié by itself could be translated as distinguish/classify/other/another/separate/etc

地方 dìfang means (keeping things simple) "place".

So... 别的地方 (bié de dìfang) is essentially describing the "place" with the word "another" or "other".

Posted on: Looking for Someone Else

The phrase nǐhǎo is a not only a common greeting but a great way to start a conversation in Chinese. One of the things I found when I was in China, is that the first reaction people had of me (a tall, western looking person) is that I would only be able to speak English. This put them immediately on edge and they were almost always ready to use the phrase tīngbùdǒng (meaning to "not understand").. in some cases people got scared that they would need to speak English. Anyway, by starting off with "ni hao" before the interaction gets too far, it puts them at ease and lets them know that you have some level of Chinese and wish to interact with them in that language. If you just start blabbering in Chinese, they don't often realise that you are speaking in Chinese and are still trying to hear English sounds and words. Very useful phrase.

Hehe.. I remember meeting Ken out on the street on my 2nd day in China, in the Pudong district near where a fire was burning down a construction site's worker's shelters. He had a similar reaction, like he was talking about at the end of this lesson, until he realised who I was.. :)

Posted on: The Pen and Paper Mystery

Hrmm.. I've previously seen 包 bāo used for 'bag' but whenever people ask me if I want a bag to carry the things I have bought, they never use this word. They always use the word 袋子 dàizi. Is there a difference in the usage of these two different words for bag.. or are they simply interchangeable and the one I am hearing just happens to be used more often by the people I am dealing with?