User Comments - rich
rich
Posted on: Colors Song
May 5, 2007 at 5:01 AM(I think Bazza and John are both on something that makes them 青, and hey, I want some!) Wande (aka Walter in Berlin), let me see if I can help you. Remember, Chinese is more ambiguous than English...much more.. I was even told when I started that it "doesn't have grammar" as in the sense of having one way or one place for everything or verb endings or plurals etc. (in which case I said "I'm in!") WIthout the 着 in your expression of question (他穿白色的衣服), literally it is "He wear white clothes". Now in sense that actually has no exact meaning...e.g ambiguous... does he USUALLY wear white clothes? ALWAYS wears white clothes? IS wearING white clothes? THE ONE wearing white clothes? It all depends on context... and context is the key to Chinese, and since many one-sentence-examples don't have context to build from, it is best to assume a sentence like this would normally be used in the context of "He IS wearING white clothes." It's the way you've got to think when studying Chinese (and believe me, I don't have all the thinking down yet, so maybe I'm far off) 她点了点头 is just a way to tone-down the "She nodded her head". This one is harder to give an exact English translation for... unlike 她看了看他 which can be more easily translated into "She took a look at him" or "glanced at him", which is less harsh than "She looked at him" or "She watched him." Again, don't try to take Chinese to English.... just feel the force Luke.. the difference between "她点了点头" as opposed to "她点头了"... much sweater to the eyes and ears. (and lets us 2nd language learners hear the verb twice, which is a big help) ... but if you do want a another translation, maybe it would be "She nodded her head a bit" or "slightly nodded her head." 孟
Posted on: Colors Song
May 4, 2007 at 1:02 PMMust say great lesson too... not that I need to learn my colors (well, okay, sometimes I mix up hong and huang... too similar), but was at a Shanghai family's home tonight and wanted to show them ChinesePod as they help a lot of foreigners come to China. They have a 3 year old daughter and so I played the dialog and she enjoyed singing along... I had to laugh... made me miss my days of kindergarten teaching in China. (just put up a video of her saying hello to my parents, who gave her an English name 3 years ago...should have got a video of her singing! http://www.youtube.com/v/f0TT6DuEhBA)
Posted on: Subway Announcements
May 1, 2007 at 5:48 AMIf anyone is able to meet up, my cell phone number is 13821360779... feel free to send me an SMS. Won't be getting on the Internet much. 以明
Posted on: Subway Announcements
May 1, 2007 at 12:22 AMWell, I'm in glorious Shanghai now, writing this message from my cell phone. (does CP have a mobile-friendly version of their web site?) Still no word from Ken after telling all my info about my stay. Been riding the subway here, and now know my hostel is at the Caoyang Road station. Subway's okay but the red line is a little old, and last night the subway closed on us when trying to get home at 10:30 and so we not only wasted money on the subway(no refund) also paid 35¥ for the cab. I thought Shanghai had night life!!!!! Only for people with cars or money?! Went to 新天地 which was cool to see again, went to what must have been the world's biggest & coolest 火锅 restaurant! Now the only cool thing that could happen is to meet up with some ChinesePod staff... Rich, a little lost in 上海
Posted on: Capital Punishment
April 29, 2007 at 12:21 AMPascal, In your own personal podcast feed you can get traditional character PDFs, but apparently on individual podcast web pages you can't. Don't know why that is. Can you guys add more options to downloading from this page? I personally am not even able to download all the episodes I've missed the last past month due to my feed not containing anything old. I so much liked how the old feed for everyone would have two weeks of shows, and so all I had to do was remember to at least load Juice and let it have at a downloading spree once every week or so. Where can I find more info on feeds and how to get past episodes without having to go one by one? -Rich
Posted on: Subway Announcements
April 28, 2007 at 9:29 AMHi Amber, Just saw your message. Yeah, well, let me see, will be staying at the Shanghai Central Youth hostel in the Putuo district. Anyone familiar with that one? Last time I stayed right there on the bund in the Captain Youth Hostel, but my British friend picked the current one since he was just looking for a cheap one. Heard it is near the subway... how do I find my way from wherever that is to stalking around ChinesePod's office? (Yes, even though I know you will be on vacation, I will still find some ground you guys walk to kiss... ha ha) -Rich
Posted on: Subway Announcements
April 25, 2007 at 3:48 PMHey Alwingate, I got one too... wow...rejoyce! Just to see Ken back on the discussions was something to celebrate. Yay! Yeah, I know as well as anyone living here in Chinese as long as I have that May 1st is a week holiday, and a well-welcomed break to be looking forward to, especially as the weather gets nicer...hence the reason I'm going on this trip. I'll be going to Shanghai on April 30 arriving on May 1. Shanghai is the city which I actually had originally hoped to live in, and will probably not look forward to leaving so soon back to Tianjin, especially since the people I know there has grown (and hopefully will some more if I get a chance to met some people from ChinesePod). I'll be there from May 1 until Saturday... looking forward to any physical presense of ChinesePod I can get... MP3s and web pages just don't substitute for live interaction with others (yet the Saturday Show videos come close. :-) 以明
Posted on: Subway Announcements
April 24, 2007 at 4:17 PMWell, gotta say that this lesson got me even more excited for my trip to Shanghai next week for the Chinese May 1 (Labor day) holiday. Man I love spur of the moment trips. Of course, having been made a big fan of this podcast since I had my first 听听 阿almost a year ago, my first stop is definitely any chance at connecting with ChinesePod. I of course started to wonder if those at ChinesePod would actually have nuttin' better to do with their holiday.... but hey, what could be better than getting to see me? ha ha (ego's beginning to be like Aric's... yikes). (been in touch with Jenny about this, so if any of you there at ChinesePod also want to met lil' ol' me, talk with our wonderful Teacher Zhu... would be awesome to see any of you!) So I better get this lesson down so I don't miss whatever stop I will need to get off and miss out on seeing whom ever I'm able to meet when I come! Now which subway stop is my hostel at? Hmm.... 上海 or bust, 以明 P.S. Will let you all know about my experience (well, if it's a good one, which I don't doubt it will be. heh)
Posted on: Riding the Elevator
April 24, 2007 at 3:40 PM2=er=liang(when used with measure word) Can't think of any others, but when talking about people in the sense of "you two" or "the three of them", "lia" (俩 short from of liang, character has a person radical added to the left) and "sa" (仨 short form of san, character has a personal radical added to the left) respectively, as in the following examples: 你们俩在干什么? (What are you two doing?) 他们仨不来了.(The three of them aren't coming) But if you're talking about reading numbers like in a phone number, no, only 一 "yao" has a different pronunciation.
Posted on: Parking Lot Rage
May 5, 2007 at 5:13 AMYeah Amber, I laughed a lot too. Great lesson. Never thought I'd be hearing these kind of lessons here. It was a great reinforcement to my last two months of 习惯口语 lessons in which there were lots of negative remarks and critism (as much as I hate that kind of talk, I realized most common sayings go in that direction). Great job ya all!