User Comments - marcelbdt
marcelbdt
Posted on: The Final Jizhou Pieces
January 9, 2008 at 10:00 AMThere is a more theoretical point in this. I think it is a very good idea to make lessons in series, because when you learn a language, you need repetitions, and since we study something as hard as Chinese, we need a lot of repetitions. You can't really get enough repetitions from one lesson on a particular subject. In a textbook the author can plan for this(de Frances comes to mind), and have a certain number of words repeated many times in different situations. On Chinese Pod thisis not so easy, because the anarchistic students can and will listen to a random selection of lessons in a random order. But if they follow an entire series like the 寂州 series or the 八卦周刊 series, certain words and expressions will naturally get repeated in slightly varying positions. I myself find this quite helpful. An additional advantage is that probably it is a little bit easier for the teachers to prepare a lesson in a series than to prepare an independent lesson. On the other hand, every series I have seen on Chinese Pod has been an ongoing fictional story. That is an excellent format, and please do it to us again, but it is not necessarily the only one. You could also plan a series of lectures tied together by a common theme! I won't suggest a particular such theme, but I am sure that the brilliant teachers or my creative co-students can come up with some ideas..:)
Posted on: The Final Jizhou Pieces
January 8, 2008 at 9:11 AMThe complete and true story, as reported by Baguazazhi.
Posted on: Complaining About The Boss
January 6, 2008 at 10:47 PMIs 太监 "tai4jian4" (as twice in the pdf file) or "tai4jian1" (as Amber writes)?
Posted on: The Final Jizhou Pieces
January 6, 2008 at 10:19 AMHere are my answers to the questions raised in the comments.. Mark> 健明 heard the flute in his head, it was a recollection promted by his return to the familiar country. It was not an agreed signal, since he mentioned it to the others. Melitu> She is with him now.
Posted on: The Final Jizhou Pieces
January 5, 2008 at 1:04 PM我想除这个故事真有兴趣以外 这个方法教汉语有很大好处。 解决虽然简单可是可信的。 重要的问题了结了。还有几个小问题。 比如为什么Jenny 说了空落族是一个 悲哀的民族?把空落民族的名字， 我是跟Changye 同意。但是我想在故事里 最好说不出这个秘密。 而且, 空落族长老说得话我都懂了。
Posted on: 藏传佛教
December 17, 2007 at 9:10 PMI believe that there is a certain (black) market for rhinoceros horn in China. Is this because it is considered related to the qilin, or is it just because it is a big and dangerous animal? I remember that 孙悟空, the monkey, had to fight a 独角鬼王, a demon king with a single horn. I wonder if he was a rhinoceros or a unicorn? I think that a Chinese 龙 has nothing to do with a medieval European dragon, the European dragons are evil and often seen hoarding treasure. But possibly the two bloodlines of dragons were more similar in ancient times. One of the few European constellations that look like the thing it is named for is "Draco", the dragon. It was named by the ancient Greek, and looking at the sky, it looks a lot like a Chinese 龙, and not so much like a European dragon.
Posted on: #25
November 26, 2007 at 7:55 PMThis is fantastic! I won! I won! :)
Posted on: 一见钟情
November 24, 2007 at 11:05 PMListening to this lesson made me think about how emotions are expressed in Chinese. A European like me has a basic understading of emotions, because after all we are human beings, but I have the suspicion that I am fooling myself into assuming more understanding than I really have. Since Chinese is a tonal language, what I take as expressing emotion might just be a part of vocabulary and phonetics. But we are extremly fortunate to have Chinese Pod. The performances here seem to be of the highest quality, so that we can use the recodings for decoding subtle things like emotions. Now I have to put my head on the block. I will try to guess the emotions of the participants in this lesson. I would REALLY like to have comments and corrections of my white person guesses. Here we go. B is the woman in love, A is her friend. (1) When A talks about "bai2ma3wang2zi" the phrase already indicates ironic distance. (2) B plays into A's verbal game, and when she says "bu gao4su ni3" she is probably already bursting to tell all, but her voice does not yet reveal any particular emotion. (3) A stresses "deng3buji2le". She is slightly annoyed.. (3) When B says "ni3zhi1dao", her voice drops slightly. This is done for emphasis "now I am telling something that really matters to me". (4) A's answer with "yong1su2dexiao3shuo" is still delivered without emotion, A is playing a verbal teasing game. (5) A stresses "wo3xi3er3gong1ting1". Still annoyed. (6) B delivers the big story from the art gallery. She speaks slowly for emphasis, and enjoys her second tones. She makes pauses between the sentences, to signal that she is telling Important Things. The infinitely long "lai2" in "hou4lai2" is playful, or perhaps even coy? (7) A is seriously bothered now. The fourth tones ("buHUI4ba") are cutting the air like knives. (8) B is not affected by A's lack of empathy. She stresses "empty" words ("ke3shi4", "wan2quan2" and "er3qie2" ), and makes rather long pauses between them and the following statements. This is because she wants to make very clear statements. (9) When B answers about her lovers profession, again her voice drops at "wo3 qu4guo ta1 de hua4shi4". This is to signal that she is now saying something important. (10)A has now recovered, and when she complains about painters in general, she is not really serious. She reverts to playing a game. (11) When A says "ni3men cai2 zai4 yiqi3 ji3tian1", she is a little upset again. (12) B answers "hao3la2" with a playful long second tone, to confirm that she is not mad at A. The word "ta1" is appropriately stressed by a long pause. (13) A's last reply contains an "ai", which is a mixture of exasperation and acceptance.
Posted on: 八卦周刊：巩俐疑似怀孕
November 23, 2007 at 12:41 AMI worry more about what 丽丽 will say when she reads in the 八卦杂志 that 刘翔 is pursuing some 北京 tramp.
Posted on: The Double 了 (le) phenomenon
January 11, 2008 at 9:17 AMMayue: Here is one list of measure words: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_measure_word It would still be nice to have an online list that for each noun gives the possible measure words it can take.