User Comments - paulinurus

Posted on: Dog Meat and Animal Rights

Whether meat or vegie eaters, bleeding hearts liberals or not, the bottom line is that we are here at Chinesepod to learn the Chinese language and Chinesepod is our teacher.

In my opinion, specialized and controversial topics are not the way to go in teaching us Chinese. What's next?  Discuss topics such as abortion, capital punishment, and organ harvesting of the young recent dead? I think it can be assumed that westerners who are interested in China and who are in the upper intermediate level are already well informed on topics such as dog meat, animal rights, etc. - thanks to the multitude of articles about China reported by the free press, the many tv documentaries, and youtube videos.  So the argument that "we've introduced this dog meat topic from an educational perspective" does not hold water for me. How many westerners visiting China will find the need to talk about dog meat, horse racing, or how to cut open a frog? And even if interested, how many lessons from Chinesepod are required to enable us to communicate and discuss fluently on such specialized topics?

Seems to me the more useful topics are the day-to-day living conversations. For example, in-depth conversations shopping in department stores; inquiring and buying food in supermarkets; asking questions or bargaining with vendors; talking to bureaucrats to obtain visas, licences, or permits; travel sight-seeing and dialogues on historical sites; recent economic or cultural developments happening in China (the sorts of interviews and coverage done by danwei tv ) etc.  I'm sure poddies have many other day to day topics to help them converse fluently in Chinese which they wish can be developed into lessons.  

Posted on: In a Moment

according to my dictionary, 门 is second tone: men2

hi baba, don't know where you get all the pics so quickly, relevant and funny, but it's great, thanks mate!

Posted on: About Face! A Multi-faceted Look at 面子

@Changye

 'Vulgar prosperity' sounds a bit like Reganomics trickling effect - allow the rich to be very rich so that their riches can trickle down to the poor when they spend.

@RJ,

I agree that there is some pressure in the West to keep up with the joneses, however the pressure is due to issues of personalities rather than due to national culture. People who buy things they cannot afford so as to keep up their appearances with the neighbors may perhaps need help from the likes of Dr. Phil? On the other hand, if people in China has to keep face even though they cannot afford to do so, then that's sad. Maybe (I'm just guessing) that's how the "哪里" culture emerged - as a counter balance to the 'keep face' gesture so that you can protect someone from overspending and offering you things you know they cannot afford to do so. As for the story of your ex-father-in-law, yes the very wealthy can afford to dress poorly since they are able to teach a lesson to the people who draw erroneous impressions on appearance alone.   

Posted on: About Face! A Multi-faceted Look at 面子

Interesting QW!

Certainly glad that in Western culture there is no or little of the cultural pressure to live accordingly in order to 'save face'. Rich people here buy expensive things not because they want to save face, but mainly because they can afford to own or enjoy the finest things in life.

And some of the very rich people in America don't even care for material things. A perfect example is Warren Buffet - second wealthiest person in the world who is only passionate about his work and has never cared for houses, cars, or any of the bling blings to show off that he is rich. 

The one person who probably personifies a person who is most care less of saving/having face would be Simon Cowell - wearing T-shirts and blue jeans and speaking his mind right from day one of American Idol

By the way, what are the ways of describing a person who is care less of saving/having face? 很不可怕没面子？         

Posted on: Reporting a Loss

hi ructo,

Just to say I appreciate your efforts to help us learn Chinese. Clearly, there is a quite a difference between Chinese and English syntax, and even after a literal translation of either English or Chinese sentence, the next challenge is to re-write in proper Chinese or English sentences.

For instance, when I do a literal translation of your Chinese text:

有一次我在自动取款机取钱慢了，卡就被吞了。我想说中国银行的出纳员一点用都没有。他们让我去了另外的四家分行也没找回我的卡。我把我的钱都取回来了，并在其他银行开了新帐户。

I get:

Once I at atm withdrew money slow, card then was swallowed. I wish to say Bank of China's tellers  a little bit completely not helpful.  They let me go other branches yet not found my card. I took my money all out, and at another bank open new account.

Now, how do I write the above literal translation into proper English? There are various ways, one of which is:

Once i was at an atm withdrawing money. I happened to be slow and the atm swallowed my card. The Bank of China tellers were not at all helpful. They lead me to go to (four) other branches and I still could not find my card. As a result, I withdrew all my money from this bank and opened a new account with another bank.   

Posted on: Reporting a Loss

hi bill

Another common exclamation is "oh my goodness!" which could be easily argued to be more related to "我的妈呀!" since mum is always good rather than holy moley which, as you said, is a Robin/Batman expression. 

Posted on: Watch Out!

hi evasiege,

until changye or CPod comes to your rescue, here's my understanding of the grammar when two 了s are found in a sentence.  

the first 了is an 'aspect marker' indicating the completion of an action. .

the second 了 is a 'modal particle' to express meanings such as exclamations or intentions.

So, I would interpret 我学了中文三年了 as "I've studied Chinese for three years la " indicating that I've studied for three years and still studying.

And, 我学了三年的中文了, as " I've studied three years of Chinese". We don't know whether the person is still studying presently, but we do know she/he has studied three years of Chinese to the present time.

Posted on: Saved by the Gong: Cutting Open a Frog

tvan. I was referring to a policy regarding private conversations in a different dialect other than Mandarin. Similar to the principal of giving consideration of having English translations for newbies and ellies, how about having consideration for others (intermediates and advance) by not having littering of these boards with private conversation in a dialect which even Beijing mandarin teachers do not comprehend. 

Posted on: Watch Out!

I notice only 2 people rated this lesson (one of whom is me :) Does Cpod use the rating as a feedback? And how is the popularity index determined? Recent poddies may be interested to know.

Posted on: Saved by the Gong: Cutting Open a Frog

I encountered a similar situation in another website teaching Mandarin when our Beijing teacher told us she too could not understand the conversations between some students because they were writing dialects.

ChinesePod recently introduced the policy (see below Comments Policy) that out of consideration for newbie and ellie users, English translations should be provided with any Chinese characters written on the discussion posts. I think CPod should extend a similar consideration to all users with respect to use of dialects.