User Comments - light487

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light487

Posted on: Choosing a Chinese Name and Safety
April 8, 2008 at 8:36 AM

My real name is Luke. My new Chinese "girl" friend and I were sitting on the swings on Sunday and we were talking about how she picked her English name. Then we decided to choose a Chinese name for me. We decided simply on lu4 ke4 which I think she said means (lu4)street (ke4)over.. so basically "bridge" or something to that effect. Can someone confirm this for me and also how to write it with traditional characters. Xie-xie

Posted on: He's Not In
April 8, 2008 at 8:04 AM

好吧 means "that's ok" or "alright" ? In the "Qing Wen - Ending Your Sentence with 吧 (ba)" podcast the meaning is slightly different.. a questioning, uncertain agreement.. as if the person saying 好吧 isn't really sure or doesn't really believe you.. I may just be over analysing the dialogue here.. or have completely misunderstood also. Just a little confused and need some clarification please. Xie`-xie

Posted on: Ending Your Sentence with 吧 (ba)
April 8, 2008 at 7:53 AM

Hrmm but now that I have listened to it.. the 好吧 in this QW is saying that 好吧 means something slightly different than the "Newbie - He's Not In" lesson explains it as meaning. From what you are saying in this QW session, the "ba" particle is an uncertainty particle, or a questioning particle. So instead of it meaning "that's ok" or "alright".. the QW meaning would be more like "alright, if you say so but I am still not sure".. Have I misunderstood??

Posted on: Ending Your Sentence with 吧 (ba)
April 8, 2008 at 7:34 AM

Yeh I first encountered "ba" in one of Ken and Jenny's shows a few days ago, with the phrase hao3-ba.. meaning "that's ok". I had only been exposed to hao3-de prior to this meaning "alright".. For a little while I thought I had been saying it wrong. However now I see that they have two similar but different meanings.

Posted on: Lesson
April 7, 2008 at 11:18 AM

I've come up with a pratical way to remember my tones: 1st tone - the sound when saying the word "tea" automatically is a higher pitch and is fairly monotone. 2nd tone - the sound when saying the word "huh?" as a question. I copied this one from the "Newbie - 2nd Tone" lesson. It works very well. 3rd tone - the sound when saying the word "ouch" or just "ow!".. very similar to the way the alien in E.T. says "Ouch!". 4th tone - the sound when you say "oi!".. as I am Australian, the "aussie aussie aussie, oi oi oi!" chant springs to mind here.. but the singular word "oi!" is enough to get the tone.

Posted on: April Fool's
April 7, 2008 at 8:17 AM

wo3 xiao4 si3 le Would this be correct? Or am I missing a vital particle?

Posted on: He's Not In
April 7, 2008 at 7:55 AM

Yes I can follow it but it is very fast until the translation occurs line by line. I will have to learn how to say "Can you speak slower please?". :) The phrase for "sorry" is dui4-bu4-qi3 - This literally means yes/no ?

Posted on: He's Not In
April 7, 2008 at 6:25 AM

Nihao!! I haven't actually listened to the podcast yet as I am still at work but I have read through the PDF and done the extra vocab, expansion, and exercises.. and it is really a decent, though basic, lesson. I'm starting to think I might be ready to move to Elementary or to find more challenging Newbie lessons

Posted on: Name-Calling, Chinese-Style
April 6, 2008 at 1:19 PM

Why do these Qing Wen "lessons" not have PDFs? or something to follow along with? Anyway, I found all of this a bit beyond me but I did find a similar lesson to this a while ago in the Elementary level called "Mild Swearing", which I found much easier to follow along with and obviously much easier to re-use it at my level of understanding. I think the most important thing in any language when calling someone a "name" is the economy of language used. You generally don't have the time to fully insult them with a long sentence.. it's generally a short rebuttal or gesture that is directed towards the person. http://chinesepod.com/lessons/mild-swearing/discussion

Posted on: How have you been?
April 5, 2008 at 9:36 PM

Hehe.. I too scared to use anything I know, other than Xie-xie, in real world context yet in case someone starts to speak mandarin to me. :) With Xie-xie, I am usually at the end of my conversation with the person and about to walk off and probably will never see them again.. :)