User Comments - melbourne

Posted on: Measure Words for Food

bellefly, changye and bodawei:

thanks for your responses, even if the answer is not simple!  It might be easier if I even knew what all teh English words differently signified.

Orangina: there is a series of little books that I find useful: Chinese ... Without Tears.  They are about intermediate level.  For example: Chinese Grammar Without Tears and (relevant to your question) Chinese Measure Words Without Tears, which has 187 measure words.  Depending on the thickness of the book, RMB 15 - 20 each.  Published by 北京大学出版社 （Beijing University Press).

Posted on: Measure Words for Food

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Please, some help:

This week, we have 一个橙子 yīge chéngzi， an orange. Last week we had 一个橘子 yīgè júzǐ, also an orange (mandarin?). The latter I think is used for juice (橘子水) - is that right? But what is the difference between the two fruits?

Posted on: Finally

i'm not sure what you mean by "my first question", bababardwan.  pete did say this:

In 那最后谁赢了呢 we cannot substitue 吗 for 呢 because the question word 谁 is not asking for a yes/no answer but rather "who"-- a name.

is this the response to your question.  like you, though, i had expected a 吗, so perhaps this would be a reasonable qingwen?  or have you found something else?

Posted on: To do

hi, CPod: it seems that the examples and sentences of use of 做 and 干 are missing from Pete's / Connie's list first posted.

otherwise, though, an interesting and useful complement to the regular lessons.  continuing the recent solid performance of QW.

Posted on: Podcast Language 2

this has been a very interesting discussion to read through.  obviously people have thought a lot and tried a lot of different things.

for my part, i like the variety of Cpod's offerings, i like the variety of formats and i like being able to pick and choose.  i guess that i should have some guidance about levels of the different skills (how good is my vocab as compared to my listening, as compared to my speaking or writing?) to guide me into spending more time on the deficiencies.  can there be automated tests for these things, i'd guess so.

i also think that - as a relatively slow and analytical type - i would like some kind of assurance that after some number (is it 20 or 200 or ...?) i'd know most of the grammar and vocabulary that is appropriate to an intermediate student (at least for conventional labels).

Now: concerning the topic of this Qing Wen: i think that the lessons in intermediate tend to reflect what would happen in a classroom, at least one beyond the elementary level: virtually everthing would be in chinese.  however, i think that it would clearly be useful to several others - and to me - if there was a series of lessons packaged to be the start of each new level.  for example, package several of this type of Qing Wens together to make a series that is clearly labelled 'introduction to intermediate'.  i don't know how it will be if / when i graduate to upper intermediate, but current experiments indicate that i am totally lost in the lessons, though i can just get the dialogue, after several tries and much learninbg vocabularly and reading the transcript.

i would also think it useful to newcomers to a level if some of the lessons were graded as, for example, 'early intermediate'.