User Comments - maxiewawa
maxiewawa
Posted on: Free Association
August 1, 2007 at 7:56 AMJohn老师，isn't it jìng安寺？
Posted on: Free Association
July 31, 2007 at 10:28 AM我也试试看： 1） 手表。 2） 猫。 3） 星期五。 4） 伊拉克足球队前星期在的胜利。 I don't know why I came up with them.
Posted on: Track and Field
July 31, 2007 at 2:15 AMYes, and dates are backwards too.
Posted on: 假冒iPhone
July 30, 2007 at 6:06 AM我觉得这趟课像iPhone广告似的。 这并不是批评Cpod,用中文说的话，我觉得任何话题有兴趣。 我有意见：可不可以采访一位来自苹果公司的提升员？ 我总觉得自然谈话比这种制造的对话有用。 其他的poddies呢？ I have a suggestion: How about an interview with someone from Apple China? This whole lesson is like a big ad for Apple anyway (and I don't mean that in a bad way). I've always thought that natural speech is much more useful than these 'devised' dialogues, and I'm sure Apple would be happy to send someone from PR around to the CPod studios to talk about their latest products. It would give us both a) vocab related to the lesson topic and b) natural dialogue. I've always thought CPod should do some more natural dialogues, at all levels.
Posted on: 军训
July 30, 2007 at 1:35 AM红 = communism, also prosperity 黄 = sex 黑 = organised crime 其他的不知道。
Posted on: What's Your Name?
July 28, 2007 at 4:17 AMA normal person should listen to the lesson 11 times.
Posted on: Where are you from?
July 27, 2007 at 12:49 PMThere is no syllable spelt 'Yung' in the Chinese language. The sound you're hearing is a Northern variation of the syllable 'ying'... It's done to sound a little more posh. Syllables with the 'in' sound, like 'yin' 'ying' 'xin' 'xing' 'qin' 'qing' etc are sometimes said with what sounds like a 'un'. I find it really annoying actually.
Posted on: Introducing Oneself to the Family
July 27, 2007 at 12:25 PMThis is a very cultural lesson; I've always had an advantage with this as I'm half Chinese. I have to say that if you were introduced to a Chinese person's mother and said ‘阿姨好' their response would probably to stagger back in astonishment. It's a very formal, very polite way, and *very Chinese* way of addressing someone, and if someone who clearly wasn't Chinese did it, it would be surprising. Suffice it to say that if one of my non-Chinese friends met my mum and said '阿姨好‘ I think she'd have a heart attack from surprise! I have to point out to all the non-Chinese poddies that although this dialogue would be very typical between two Chinese people, for non-Chinese people it would be a little different. Here are some expansion dialogues, based on my own personal experience. maxie: 阿姨好。啊，你们家真。。。 Ayi: 哈？？？你怎么回中文？！ *staggers back in shock* or Maxie: 阿姨好。你们家真漂。。。 Ayi: 你什么人啊？ Maxie: 啊。。。我是澳大利亚人。 Ayi: 不是啊。(A final tone in her voice). Maxie: 哦。。。是吗？ (I must have something wrong with my memory, because I could have sworn that for the first 20 years of my life...) Or even: maxie: 爷爷！你精神真好，一点都不显。。。 GrandPa: HELLO! *Big smile, waves hands at you* maxie: 。。说你每天锻炼。。。 GrandPa: HELLO! HELLO! *Grins again, looks around, showing off his English* maxie: (Thinks to himself: Wasn't there a CPod lesson on this...oh yes.) 请说中文。我想学习中文。 And there's also the more standard '哇aaaaa.... 你中文说得好好噢‘and the endless back and forward exchanges of '还不会‘ and ‘不不不，你说得很好很好。‘ I guess what I'm trying to say is that when introducing yourself as a non-Chinese person, there are some set deviations that speech patterns take. You probably won't get an opportunity to complement the lady of the house on the tidiness of her kitchen, or to commend granddad on his constitution, as everyone's always too excited to speak with a foreigner.
Posted on: Please Speak Chinese
July 27, 2007 at 1:35 AMThe confused/SHENMAAAA look technique always works for me. Just keep doing it until they speak Chinese. As for the rude 'da bi zi' , the standard response is to either do a 360, look around wildly, saying ‘哪理？哪里?‘ or to just point at whoever said it, and yell out '小鼻子！‘
Posted on: Buddhism and Taoism
August 6, 2007 at 12:17 PMCan we say 有中国特色佛教 or 'Buddhism With Chinese Characteristics'? Also, how many syllables are there in Chinese with only one 汉字 besides 佛? I can think of 日，暖。。。