User Comments - light487
light487
Posted on: Ordering Noodles
April 16, 2008 at 8:20 AMI think that half the fun of eating noodles is learning how to hold your chopsticks correctly. I got a cramp the other night when I had special Taiwan style beef noodle soup. Whoever invented the fork should be awarded a Nobel prize in cookery :)
Posted on: Ordering Noodles
April 15, 2008 at 9:01 PMIt says it on the forums.. I try to look for people's names in the forum birthdays but there is always so many. However your name stuck out from the pack. :) Nothing sinister :)
Posted on: Ordering Noodles
April 15, 2008 at 9:20 AMHappy Birthday Calkins :)
Posted on: Ending your sentence with 嘛 （ma)
April 14, 2008 at 1:54 PMMay be the next particle lesson can be on: 啊 - a1 呀 - ya1 Not sure about anyone else but this one is interesting to me. It is also potentially amusing.. :)
Posted on: Do you have...?
April 14, 2008 at 9:04 AMWhat is something that you can easily get now that you couldn't get then? I mean something that you always wanted to have back then but seems trivial by comparison now because it is so commonly available? Is there anything that you wish for now that you could only get back then? Sometimes I feel that because we can get everything and anything we want, it makes the daily life a little less interesting and exciting. The struggle to find what you need and the making do with what you have style of living makes for a completely different world view.
Posted on: Do you have...?
April 13, 2008 at 3:41 AMwhen you say "you" do you mean the english word "you" or the chinese word you3 ? :)
Posted on: Sydney, Australia
April 13, 2008 at 3:37 AMHrmm.. it's interesting to hear an authentic, honest commentary on Sydney. I hear the standard, clichéd comments all the time of course having lived here for the last 22+ years. Before I lived in Sydney, I lived a few hundred kilometres North in Newcastle. Newcastle is boring.. there's hardly anything to do there at all in comparison to Sydney, however I can certainly imagine why Sydney would be considered "slower" and more "simple" than a big bustling city like Shanghai or Hong Kong. Most people I know don't live near the city, we all live about 30 to 45mins drive from the city because it allows for more room to breathe. I've noticed that Chinese people tend to gravitate towards the inner suburbs that surround the city centre. Especially suburbs like Ashfield, Marrickville , Chippendale etc because they are close to Sydney University and other universities in Sydney. Those suburbs are also close to the Sydney version of China Town... there's one in every large city, I'm sure. :) Another thing I have to admit about Sydney is that is very small. You can walk from one extreme of the city's CBD to the other in less than an hour, without walking very fast. Consequently, you can't fit a lot of things to do within that small area. Also a word on animals, the Koala is not a bear like many people think. It is, like the Kangaroo, a marsupial. I'm sure you will find a better explanation of what a marsupial is on wikipedia than I could ever tell. Also the names of many of the indigenous animals in Australia have been named by the indigenous people here, which is why the names are a bit odd when compared with many European based English named animals. Another animal that is indigenous to Australia is the possum, which is also a marsupial. These furry little things could be said to be like a cross between a kangaroo and a koala, for a very simple explanation. I was walking through the park that borders Sydney Uni the other night, and a family of possums appears to made a home in the trees there. So it is possible to see native animals within the city but it's not like they are running around the main streets.
Posted on: Do you have...?
April 13, 2008 at 3:03 AM阿德里有 ? This is what appeared for me when I typed adly.. not sure if it gave the same characters as you were expecting but at least I can decipher it to mean what I think you meant: To talk about my Chinese name. :)
Posted on: Do you have...?
April 12, 2008 at 10:12 PMThe link is on the left of the Discussion page: Podcast MP3 (64kbps, 6.85mb) Podcast MP3 (128kbps, 13.42mb) Dialogue MP3 (0.31mb) The Fix MP3 (1.93mb) Lesson PDF
Posted on: Ordering Noodles
April 16, 2008 at 8:33 AMAlso a quick comment on the lesson itself, now that I've actually listened to it without being distracted by other things: I found that dialogue section was done a little too fast for Newbie level. Need to go slower at least once, then go faster on 2nd time and then normal fluency speed on the 3rd time, in my opinion. I know that you do break it down afterwards but I just feel that the dialogue was done a little fast the first time through. Hehe.. I think this has to be one of the funnier lessons. Jenny's "observations" are very amusing as are Ken's genuine reactions. This is what I find so fascinating about people from other cultures: the fact that they see some things in different ways, even if it's a joke.. Jenny is very cute. :) And Ken just keeps encouraging her, which is just great. You can see how good friends they are from this lesson. :)