User Comments - podster

Posted on: Protect Your Screen!

Gee, I always use screen protectors on my smartphones and tablet, and its not a habit I picked up in Asia. As for a radiation protection smock for pregnant women lesson, it's been done:

坑“妈”的防辐射服

http://chinesepod.com/lessons/%E5%9D%91%E2%80%9C%E5%A6%88%E2%80%9D%E7%9A%84%E9%98%B2%E8%BE%90%E5%B0%84%E6%9C%8D#sthash.pAJmyZAt.dpbs

Posted on: Kung Fu King Comparisons

I think you are right. It seems simple enough to me that "the books he wrote" should be 他写的书“ . But I could imagine the computer might prompt 写得 because in a different construction this would be correct. For example, "he writes very well." 他写得很好。 I still get confused about 的，得，地 so I hope a teacher (or the translator) will weigh in and correct me if I am wrong.

Posted on: Movie Theater Jabbering

I have a (half-baked) theory that the part of your brain that produces the correct tones (automatically) when you are not thinking about it may be beyond your conscious reach, so you may be more actively engaged in using the correct tones than you realize. Its a bit mysterious to me how one acquires the tones, so I think it safest to use several different approaches to getting them to sink in. But as you imply, probably best not to worry excessively about them when having a natural conversation.

By the way, Chinese teachers seem to be pretty good at quickly identifying tones by their numbers, but have you ever asked a native speaker about what tone a given word is? Do they have to stop and think about it for a moment? Maybe if they had to mentally remember the tone number for each syllable as they spoke it they would freeze up.

Posted on: Chinese Street Food (Part I)

I thought stinky tofu was rotted, er, excuse me, "fermented" with a fungus, not a bacteria. Maybe the fungus also thrives in the gut, so the "fecal matter" has to come from someone with this tofu in the diet? In any event, the story is certainly consistent with the smell.

Posted on: Hot Spring Vacation

也许Jenny 会跟你同意，感觉 有 “sleazy" 的印象。 我倒喜欢感觉是浪漫的。

Posted on: Discussing Internet Marketing and Sales (Part 3)

Can someone help me with organizing lessons?  This Internet Marketing lesson is the third of three in the series, but I don't know how to group it with the first two so that I can quickly navigate among them.  Is there some way to bundle them so that they stay together in my study list?  How about making them part of a single unit in the iOS app, or at least making sure that they are always adjacent to each other?

Posted on: It's Time You Got a Smartphone

Try "黑莓智能手机“ or just 黑莓手机

Posted on: Registering for 3G Service

Thanks for the info. It may be that 2 years ago China Unicom in your city was the best choice in terms of network quality. Today the quality of the 3 networks is coming closer together.

According to Wikipedia: In January 2009 the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) in China took the unusual step of assigning licences for 3 different third-generation mobile phone standards to three carriers in a long-awaited step that is expected to prompt $41 billion in spending on new equipment. The Chinese-developed standard, TD-SCDMA, was assigned to China Mobile, the world's biggest phone carrier by subscribers. That appeared to be an effort to make sure the new system has the financial and technical backing to succeed. Licences for two existing 3G standards, W-CDMA and CDMA2000 1xEV-DO, were assigned to China Unicom and China Telecom, respectively.

By the way, I just got back from a visit to China and while there I bought a Huawei MiFi and China Unicom SIM to use with my iPhone 4 and had a fairly satisfactory result.

Posted on: The Life of a Programmer 1: Staying Up Late?

我猜这次课会有意思。 又给我机会提醒你们哪里需要改革。 呵呵。

Posted on: Registering for 3G Service

I am pretty sure that iPhones that operators in China provide come locked, although it may not be that hard to find a way to unlock them. As to 3G service, all three operators (China Telecom, China Mobile, and China Unicom) provide 3G service. I am curious as to why you thought only China Unicom offers it. Did you hear that from a Chinese person? The key difference to be aware of if you are using a handset not provided by the operator is that each uses a different type of network for 3G. (CDMA, WCDMA, and TD-SCDMA respectively). I think any iPhone 5 handset supports both CDMA and WCDMA, but as I said in my original post it will not work with China Mobile's 3G. I think WCDMA is the only standard for 3G in the UK, so if you happened to pop in a China Unicom SIM card you may have just gotten lucky to have the matching standard, especially if it was an older iPhone.