User Comments - light487
light487
Posted on: Good Morning!
May 21, 2008 at 12:12 PM@kos301:
Ken is British.. well Irish actually I think he mentioned in a very early lesson. I think he has been living in Shanghai for 12 years now.. I seem to remember him mentioning that he'd been in Shanghai for 11 years in a lesson about a year or so ago.
@grenouille:
Posted on: Hungry Traveler: Xinjiang
May 21, 2008 at 11:37 AMYeh.. hehe.. while I read my textbooks, I pick out all these errors in the text.. I scratch my head and wonder why they have used a certain word and explained it wrong.. or they overlook an important term in the explanation/translation. Then later on in the book, they explain it better than the first time, and I realise that I was right and just how good my understanding is getting... I can kind of relate to that odd feeling in that sense but I have a low retention level of spoken Chinese at the moment because I don't find myself in many situations where I have to or can use it.
Posted on: I don't want it!
May 21, 2008 at 10:58 AMHere is a little wikipedia article about BPMF (ie. 注音符號 - Zhùyīn fúhào, or just 注音 - Zhùyīn for short.): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuyin
Posted on: More than 50 kuai!
May 21, 2008 at 10:36 AMAlso.. where do I send my Qǐng Wèn requests? I was hoping to get one done for 最 zuì.. it seems like a good topic for a Qing Wen..
Posted on: Hungry Traveler: Xinjiang
May 21, 2008 at 10:33 AMOn the subject of food.. I found out how to say my favourite Chinese dish today! :) It is: 小笼包 (Not sure if the 汉字 is correct) xiǎolóng bāo Steamed Pork Buns They usually have them at "Yum Cha" here in Australia.. they are heavenly! :) I always make a point of asking for them when I go in so that if they are not already on the predetermined yum cha menu, they will be made specially for me.. hehe.. For the sweets.. I can't go past the 蛋挞 dàntà Egg Tarts (Egg Custard that is..).. they are the best when they are served while still hot or warm.. yummy!! :)
Posted on: More than 50 kuai!
May 21, 2008 at 10:20 AM@Amber.. Qǐng wèn: 我的中文像三岁小孩说的。 Wǒ de Zhōngwén xiàng sān suì xiǎohái shuō de. Wouldn't it be easier to say: 我讲中文像三岁小孩 Wǒ jiǎng Zhōngwén xiàng sān suì xiǎohái Why are there all those extra possessives in there? And the "shuō" as well? Is it because what you are really saying is: I speak Chinese like a 3 year old child speaks" rather than "I speak Chinese like a 3 year old" ?
Posted on: Hungry Traveler: Xinjiang
May 21, 2008 at 10:12 AMKen.. I appreciate the accent learning greatly but it would be a little pointless to include accents that are hardly ever heard when dealing with whatever the lesson topic is. Obviously the point here was to have an accent that is relative to the region the food is from but is it a commonly heard accent? I think it would be much more beneficial to concentrate on the "high frequency" accents.. just like the dialogue and everything else at cPOD focuses on the high-frequency things in general. Even if that means more repetition of accents.. that is, in my humble opinion, not a bad thing.. the more exposure to high-frequency things, the better.
Posted on: Hungry Traveler: Xinjiang
May 20, 2008 at 10:23 AMOoops.. I meant: As pointed out in the banter/discussion.
Posted on: Hungry Traveler: Xinjiang
May 20, 2008 at 10:22 AMI've always loved the character for sheep 羊 because it is the first one I saw that actually looked like the meaning to me, a westerner. Why is it not 小羊肉 in the dialogue? As pointed out in the dialogue, 羊肉 is mutton not lamb.. mutton is tough, lamb is tender. Also.. how is chuànr written.. 串 is the first bit.. but the "r" sound in the PDF is written as the symbol similar to 八 (bā) but I can't find the actual symbol in my IME. 大盘鸡 sound like a name of a dish that Chinese people in western countries might call a dish to make a simple dish sound exotic to people who didn't know any better. :) Is this an authentic dish?
Posted on: Good Morning!
May 21, 2008 at 12:13 PMoops.. I meant "Zǎo by itself is enough to say "Good Morning" really." but I put it in between the wrong kind of parentheses so the page thought I was writing an HTML tag and hid it.