User Comments - lostinasia
lostinasia
Posted on: Directory Assistance
May 24, 2007 at 2:01 PMDamon: I kind of agree with you - usually I'll repeat the dialogues several times - but it's probably a bit much to ask for. I do this with iTunes, and it's pretty easy: just copy the dialogues three times into a playlist, and sort by name. Or track number. (Getting the dialogue text in the Dialogue-only MP3 - in the information part - however, WOULD be very nice!) A "curious but not that important" question about characters in mainland China: in Taiwan, if you're writing numbers on bank statements/ official stuff you're not really supposed to use 一二三; there are more complicated variants, like 陸 for 六 (which makes sense - think how easy it'd be to cheat and change 一 to 九). Are these used in Mainland China as well? They've actually caused me headaches a couple of times: you'll sometimes see banks where they insist on the complex variants, and sometimes tellers will insist that the customer write the numbers on the statement, and when both happen together, I'm out of luck.
Posted on: The Olympic Mascots
May 23, 2007 at 2:16 PMThe dialogue-only MP3 remains chipmunked. Thanks ChinesePod for slowly repairing these, but one request: when a file's chipmunks are wiped out, please add a comment to say so. That way we'll find out in our "All feeds", and won't have to keep checking every week or two.
Posted on: Paying Child Support
May 21, 2007 at 1:13 AMOn the other hand: Man2Toe, fcfpoon, 謝謝, it's nice to read traditional characters here because I can read those much easier than I can read simplified. Quite a few of us have simply never studied simplified characters - we read traditional, we write traditional, all our materials are traditional. fcfpoon, welcome to ChinesePod, and I wish I had the guts to type so much in Chinese!
Posted on: Christmas Presents
May 19, 2007 at 8:27 AMChipmunks in the Christmas tree, little rascals...
Posted on: When the Taxi Takes the Long Way
May 13, 2007 at 3:22 PMTrevelyan, thanks! Good to know that these changes are in progress, and to know a little more about the timeline. So I promise I won't repeat these particular complaints for at least a few weeks. Really, I promise.
Posted on: When the Taxi Takes the Long Way
May 13, 2007 at 2:48 PMLangur. I took the photo in India somewhere, Rajasthan I think. They're the nice monkeys, the ones that look dignified as they swing around and don't cause trouble. Unlike macaques (usually red-faced), which are evil little fiends that'll trash or steal anything they can find. Seriously - I stayed at one hotel with lots of langurs around and had no trouble; I've been driven away from temples/ forest groves/ castles/ my dinner! by macaques more times than I care to think. (In south Taiwan too, actually...) Not that I swing through trees in any fashion whatsoever. I believe I may have been called an evil little fiend in the past, but that was a long time ago.
Posted on: When the Taxi Takes the Long Way
May 13, 2007 at 2:13 PMNote that the HTML file remains in simplified (unless there's a traditional HTML file I haven't found?! That would be nice!) - you'll have to do the conversion to traditional later, which occasionally gets some characters wrong. also a finicky point on the HTML: can we get the "A:", "B:", and sometimes "C:" speakers indicated, as well as capitalize the pinyin properly, i.e. at the start of a sentence? i suppose this sounds silly to some but when i look at text typed like this, without capitals, it give me a headache. does this date me to a time pre-e-mail? Oh, and please add the HTML link to the menu items below "PDF download". It'll save a click, and some days, with my internet connection, that means quite a bit. Great conversation, although nothing like this has ever happened to me in Taiwan. (A useful trick when travelling: have a map open and in your hands, and visibly follow where you're going. That discourages the cheating-inclined drivers somewhat.)
Posted on: Lili and Zhang Liang 14: Seeking Comfort
May 11, 2007 at 4:19 PMWhat the ?!?!?! Weird... when I posted the above just now, I couldn't see any of the (many!) posts after AlexYe's initial question. Had I just not refreshed my browser for a couple of days?! Oh well, never mind. Sorry about that.
Posted on: Lili and Zhang Liang 14: Seeking Comfort
May 11, 2007 at 4:15 PMAlexYe, since no one else has jumped in, I can give you a totally unsatisfying answer: 合适 and 适合 are not exactly the same, but I'm not sure how. Often you can use either, but there are differences in usage that a teacher once explained to me, and I totally failed to understand. I've just had a look at example sentences that dict.cn gave me, and, well, they didn't help me. MAYBE 適合 is a verb or an Adj, while 合適 is Adj only... as much as those terms apply in Chinese. In my textbook, I have these notes written beside example sentences: 那樣的衣服適合運動的時候穿. and I've scribbled "合適 NOT good" 那樣的衣服運動的時候穿比較適合. and I've scribbled "合適 also good." Hopefully someone else can be more helpful!
Posted on: Street Food
May 26, 2007 at 12:28 AMYesterday I listened to this lesson for the first time in a while... and it's great! There's A LOT of Chinese-only banter in it, which made it really difficult for me last year, but I can follow quite a bit more now. (I'm talking about the podcast as a whole, not the specific lesson.) Anyway, I just wanted to plug this lesson as... as what exactly... a good example of LONG chatting in Chinese at not TOO high a level. Like Advanced, there's good exposure to lots of spoken Chinese; unlike Advanced, I know what's going on; unlike the later Intermediate (which I do love and consider my current level), there's lots of Chinese-only chatting. I guess it's an Intermediate/ Advanced bridge? In a way it fills a hole analogous to the Elementary/ Intermediate gap: the LESSON DIALOGUES are great at gradually increasing by level, but that seems harder to do with the podcast itself. And, as an added bonus, I think I weirded out the people on the subway yesterday with the "HOLY CR*P, I UNDERSTAND THIS NOW!!!!!" grin that spread over my face. I suspect I just looked evil to everyone else.