User Comments - lostinasia
lostinasia
Posted on: Ordering Xiaolongbao
May 10, 2007 at 3:05 PMprimitiveworld: how are you downloading the lessons? If you copy the file from the link on this page, you'll only get the transcript in the "Lyrics" part of the file (using iTunes)--and that's not visible on 4th Gen (?--or at least not visible on iPods older than 2 years or so, i.e., MINE). On the other hand, if you subscribe to the premium feed the transcript will come up TWICE--once in the information, as well as in the lyrics section. (I'm not sure how or where it comes up in the basic or freebie feed.) I.e. on my iPod I need to get the podcast from the iTunes feed if I want to see the transcript - downloading from the link here doesn't do it. Oh yeah, I'm still using iTunes 6, because I gather iTunes 7 makes podcasts weird. Who knows - maybe that's part of your issue. Good luck.
Posted on: 物流
May 10, 2007 at 1:01 AMBoth MP3 download links for this are misdirected--they go to the Chinese Onamatopoeia (#491) MP3s.
Posted on: Parking Lot Rage
May 5, 2007 at 8:22 AMFair enough. Thanks for the reply! (And, um, shouldn't you be enjoying your holiday more?!) I was assuming that after you've already recorded the dialogue, recording an extra 4-5 minutes wouldn't really add to the costs - but I hadn't figured on the bandwidth. And I have NO idea how long it takes to record the podcast: would ten minutes of Jenny and John take 15 minutes to record, or is there take after take for a few hours? That being said... a little more would be nice. Definitely 30 minutes is too long to hold attention, but for an intermediate or upper-int those extra few minutes beyond 15 would be much appreciated (or, ahem, beyond *10* in the [recorded pre-holiday rush?] "Glory of Labor"). Anyway, enjoy the rest of Golden Week!
Posted on: Parking Lot Rage
May 5, 2007 at 5:44 AMRe: 15 minutes... I've wondered about that. Why that time limit? After all, it's a podcast and there's no cut to commercial. 10-15 minutes always seems right to me for the Newbie and Elementary--it covers the "extra" material that people for that level may not know. But I often find a few extra minutes would be helpful for intermediate and upper-intermediate. Not huge amounts, just 3-4 more minutes. Basically take as long as it should to go through "intermediate level" material in the conversation. (Actually, at upper-intermediate I'd almost prefer less time explaining vocab--just a definition, thank you--and more attention devoted to sentence patterns and grammar; for example, I'm often really confused by what the heck 於 is doing in a sentence.) All of the above is meant constructively of course, although I remain curious - where has the 15 minute limit come from? A while back there were more 20 or so minute podcasts.
Posted on: Lili and Zhang Liang 13: A Dad Gives Advice to a Broken-Hearted Son
May 5, 2007 at 12:30 AMOn 分手: one of my dictionaries gives "divide" as a primary meaning of 分, so I guess that's part of it. Perhaps the 手 implies that they're doing it themselves?
Posted on: Arriving in China on Business
May 4, 2007 at 1:41 AMOn DaShan: this week, CBC Radio's Dispatches (2007 April 30 episode) has an interview with Mark Roswell. They talk about humour in China and how it differs from the west. This link may or may not work: http://www.cbc.ca/dispatches/media/070430_dashan.ram And if it doesn't work, look at this page and scroll down: http://www.cbc.ca/dispatches/thisseason/april.html I wouldn't be surprised if DaShan actually ranks as the most famous Canadian in the world, simply in the way that China's population skews all sorts of statistics. (The other contenders would include Celine Dion, alas.) And this is the first I've heard of him in Canadian media!
Posted on: Ordering a Steak
May 3, 2007 at 12:04 AMexcuter asked about ordering a doner... Many Taiwan night markets do have schawarma, although of course they're quite Taiwanese (especially the bread). The Chinese name is something like 沙威溤 (shā weī mǎ), although like a lot of transliterations the name varies. You'll get the meat (often just chicken, but some places have more choice) with cabbage, maybe a tiny piece of tomato, mayo, and lots of the sauce of your choice--typically curry, tomato, black pepper, ma la (spicy), or "original." Processed cheese slices and egg are extra-charge options. If you want to get really specific, there's a place called Doner Kebab near Taipei 101, with less interesting flavours but much better bread than you'll ever see at a night market. And there's a few Turkish places scattered around. As for in Mainland China... I have no idea.
Posted on: Ordering a Steak
May 2, 2007 at 1:24 PMHot pot vs chafing dish: uh, in "normal" English, we'd say hot pot, right? My students' dictionaries always give them "chafing dish" which sounds somehow antiquated to me... but I don't know much about cooking, so maybe I'm wrong. Oh, hot pot is 火鍋 (huǒ guō). It can be pretty much any meat, although I prefer vegetarian. A "western" steak is eaten with a knife and fork, but often steak won't be served as a big chunk of dripping animal flesh. Instead it'll be sliced, near the end of cooking, into chopstick-handy morsels.
Posted on: 武林外传
April 25, 2007 at 3:07 PMOops. Well, that got voted down. Actually, I just meant the title and the "知道古装..." in English as well as Chinese (and I also wish all the titles in other levels would have Chinese AND English!): keep the podcast and PDF as is. The titles are often a key word that may be less familiar vocab, and for myself, the title's in those simplified characters that I don't really register. I say this because a lot of people probably see the Chinese characters for the Advanced lesson and will then just ignore it. Adding the English in brackets would add a little more motivation: a lot of us may not spend the time on an anonymous Advanced lesson, but would put the effort in if a title particularly grabbed us. Much as when I first started tackling Upper-Intermediate, "Shaolin Temple" got attention and "Marketing Proposal", well, I'll get to that one day. (Uh... yes, I DO have trouble understanding advanced... that's kind of why I'm here...)
Posted on: Parking Lot Rage
May 10, 2007 at 3:44 PM老子 vs 兄弟: they both seem to kind of mean "buddy" or "pal", but is the former unfriendly and the latter warmer, or are the differences more nuanced? A question about register: 臭, 关你屁事, 王八... just how strong ARE these words? Don't say in front of grandma? Don't say in front of parents? Only say when drunk and really angry? Ok on a first date, or only ok in a same-sex university dorm? A warning to all of us out there: as an ESL teacher, I've often seen students vaguely aware that something is a bad word, but they have no idea about where things are on "the swearing scale" - i.e. they won't really know when "jerk" is fine and won't get that a couple of other words are totally forbidden (think what got Kramer in trouble). When you're foreign to a language it's REALLY easy to use bad words in a totally inappropriate way. And I suppose I should mention that I had totally stopped swearing after university, but all of that went out the window once I started driving a scooter in Taiwan. WOW have I become foul-mouthed here, at least when on the roads. It's probably a good thing I don't know how to swear in Chinese.