User Comments - light487
light487
Posted on: Drinking Game
July 22, 2009 at 8:37 PMWow! Great lesson! Have you guys lowered the level of Intermediate lessons a little so it's easier to transition from Elementary?? It seems I am understanding a lot of things in this lessons without explanation but I appreciate the explanation to confirm that I have "guessed" the meaning correctly :)
Either that or you are just explaining things a little more than you used to 6 months ago. Either way, it seems I now need to start listening to Intermediate lessons a lot more, as long as they are similar in presentation to this one. Can you let me know if something has changed in the format, and when that change went into effect so I can go back over those lessons from the past?
Posted on: Pinyin Sections 5-6
July 22, 2009 at 8:22 PMHee hee.. my favourite mono-syllablic word in Chinese is perfect for this lesson: 饿 è
Hehe.. this great little word means "to be hungry/hungry" :) So much meaning in such a little word and very culturally specific to China. :)
Hahaha.. How can you keep a straight face when doing some of these lessons? :)
Posted on: Hot and Cool 热, 烫 , 凉 , 冷
July 22, 2009 at 8:16 PM"太烫了" as a descriptive word meaning "too hot" can be used as 不太烫 or 不要太烫 and they mean different degrees of heat as well.
With 不太烫 you're negating the "too hot".. so it means "not too hot" but not in the same way as you would use it in English. 不太烫 is another descriptive word, whereas 不要太烫 is more like what we would mean in English if we say "not too hot, please" or "I don't want it too hot".
I find these subtle differences extremely hard to explain well but I like exploring these nuances of the language, especially when I have to use them on a daily basis when I buy my 椰子热的奶茶 in the mornings.
Posted on: Bringing it All Back Home With 回去 and 回来
July 21, 2009 at 7:52 PMMaybe it could be used when describing a bunch of places that you went to, like when I went around China on my trip. Like:
I started in Shanghai, then from Shanghai to Wuhan, from Wuhan to Chengdu, from Chengdu to Xi'an, from Xi'an to Beijing and then I returned to Shanghai.
Not too sure of the sentence structure but maybe that would be an example where 到去 could be used.
Posted on: Ice Cream
July 21, 2009 at 7:57 AMYeh.. I had some ice cream a few times when I was there and you can definitely tell the difference between the real (western) stuff and the Chinese stuff. I do prefer the custard in China over the western stuff though, so all is not lost. :)
Posted on: Bringing it All Back Home With 回去 and 回来
July 20, 2009 at 7:31 AMmisterjess... "you do the hokey pokey and you turn about, that's what it's all about!" :) lol..
Posted on: Bringing it All Back Home With 回去 and 回来
July 19, 2009 at 8:34 PMI always have confusion over using the more general terms of "here" and "there" in these types of sentences. In this lesson it is made clear how to use these with specific places like America, Shanghai etc
Can I simply put '这里' in between '回' and '来'? and conversely, put '那里' in between '回' and '去'?
Posted on: A Family of Teachers
July 19, 2009 at 9:14 AMSome of the Newbie lessons are aimed at the really, really, reeeeaaalllllyy new, new, new Newbies.. :) This is one of them obviously.. :) It's for those people who have never learned any Chinese at all. I remember when I first started that having too much on the plate at once made me feel overwhelmed.. and now I heap my plate so high that I strain under the weight of it.
My point is though that there are always going to be lessons at all levels where you feel beyond the lesson because it's content that is so common that you learned it the first day you were in China or whatever. However, this kinda stuff is essential when you are first starting out so you don't get overwhelmed by the language.
Posted on: Language Exchange
July 19, 2009 at 8:31 AMI really like the coloured-tone-mark approach.. I just wish I had started on the colours when I first start out because if I want to use it now, I will have to retrain my brain to use them.
This site has a good example of what I mean:
http://laowaichinese.net/color-coded-tones-on-mdbg.htm
Basically each tone is assigned a colour (red, blue, green, yellow, and black for neutral) there is a standardized form of course so that all books and programs use the same colours, and then you remember the tones to use by way of remembering the pinyin written in that specific colour. Makes a lot of sense!
Posted on: Measure Word Fundamentals: 个，只，条，张
July 24, 2009 at 9:39 PMA measure word I use EVERYDAY is 杯 bēi, which is the measure word for "cup" and the measure word I used everyday when I was in China is 瓶 píng, which is the measure word for "bottle".
Examples:
一杯咖啡 - yībēi kēfēi - 1 cup of coffee
三杯奶茶 - sānbēi nǎichá - 3 cups of milktea
一瓶水 - yīpíng shuǐ - 1 bottle of water
两瓶可乐 - liǎngpíng kělè - 2 bottles of cola
The way I rationalised measure words to get used to them is by assigning them the generic English term: "unit of". For example, "1 unit of water", "3 units of tickets", "5 units of people". It's not so much that it makes a correct sentence but that it makes linguistic sense.
Something I picked up while ordering milktea is that because there are 3 sizes of cup, you can use the size of the cup before the cup measure word. The three sizes are: 小 xiǎo small, 中 zhōng medium (also referred to as "regular"), 大 dà big. Eg. 中杯奶茶 zhōngbēi nǎichà a regular cup of milktea.