User Comments - light487
light487
Posted on: Cat in the Hat
May 5, 2008 at 9:44 AMSo cats are considered to be part of a pair? Like a pair of gloves.. how is that?
Posted on: Cat in the Hat
May 5, 2008 at 9:29 AMHehe.. funny lesson.. may be there is something in the air at the new offices. :) This is actually a good lesson for the discussion and dissection of tones. 我是猫 (wǒ shì māo) - I am cat/feline. So if you actually wanted to say "I am a cat" wouldn't you actually say: 我是一个猫 (wǒ shì yīgè māo)?
Posted on: Do you have a menu?
May 5, 2008 at 8:48 AMListen to ChinesePOD!
Posted on: Diet Coke
May 5, 2008 at 8:47 AMSince this discussion is supposed to be about Diet Soda and all things associated, I will create a new discussion thread with my dog's pictures. And yes, it was my birthday yesterday. 我是三十二 wǒ shì sānshíèr
Posted on: Singapore
May 5, 2008 at 1:16 AMYeh Intermediate is tough.. a big leap up from Elementary.. may be it is the format itself that makes it so difficult.. I enjoy the challenge but perhaps there needs to be something in between Elementary and Intermediate.. or some transitional lessons to go from one to the other. I'm not sure what the solution to the problem is but I'm sure there is one to be found. May be a little research into the why the Intermediate lessons are so tough compared to Elementary will highlight some possibilities.
Posted on: What's Your Name?
May 4, 2008 at 12:17 PM你叫名字。 nǐ jiào míngzi. Can I say the above... as in "By what name should I call you?" The distinction here is that I already know the person's real name but I am asking, respectfully/politely, what name I should be using to address them? May be they would prefer I call them by their English name.. or may be I should be calling them "Sir" or "Madam" or perhaps "Boss" etc
Posted on: Yoga
May 4, 2008 at 4:42 AMI have to agree there, shengyuan. I don't know how they are able to come up with 800+ different topics.. There is a little bit of overlap from time to time but for the most part, each new topic has mostly unique subject matter to digest.
Posted on: Diet Coke
May 4, 2008 at 4:35 AMI like that some Elementary lessons are more challenging than others because it gets you ready for the massive leap to Intermediate.. and it is such a massive leap as many others have commented on before. Even though I would consider myself to be more of the Elementary level now I still listen to both the Newbie and Elementary levels because there is so much to learn and I can't understand much at higher levels than Elementary, so I have to get it from Newbie as well. I do believe that an Elementary level person has the means to begin learning some basic characters. Just like with spoken Chinese, there are many high frequency characters as well. The great thing is that they are the very same characters as the high frequency spoken words, such as 我，你，and 好. (wǒ, nǐ, and hǎo). They are only relevant, however, if you wanted to read and/or write Chinese though. However, many people who frequent ChinesePOD are here to learn how to understand spoken Chinese, so the use of Hanzi (Chinese Characters) at the higher levels is more relevant than at the higher levels. Still, those of us that choose to learn the Hanzi want to practise it as much as possible when we are writing and often we forget about those people who are not up to that part of their learning, or simply have no interest in it. No need to thank me though, alwingate, I am not doing anything special.. just learning like everyone else.
Posted on: Diet Coke
May 4, 2008 at 3:34 AMSo.. 请我想买可乐 (qǐng wǒ xiǎng mǎi kělè) is ok, as long as I don't need to specify whether I want a bottle or a can of it?
Posted on: Diet Coke
May 5, 2008 at 10:00 AMI was looking through my Reading and Writing Chinese textbook on the way home from work today, as I do about once a week now, and I noticed that the character "乐 lè" does not actually appear in it. I know there are 40,000+ characters and this book only has the most common 2,500 or so.. but I would have thought that "乐 lè" would have been one of them. Instead the character "乐 lè" is found under the character "乐 yuè" which means exactly the same thing but has an, obviously, different pronunciation. Why is this? Once I get to that page of the book it actually mentions "乐 lè" as sharing the same character but does not indicate why. Then it gives examples of its usage: 音乐 yīnyuè - music 快乐 kuàilè - be happy; happiness