User Comments - richwarm2

Posted on: 谋杀案4

The supplementary vocabulary has 错杀 for manslaughter, but isn't manslaughter normally 误杀?

Posted on: 谋杀案4

The vocab list says [判令 pànlìng inconsistent]. I think it should be  [判令 pànlìng to make a court order] and  [不符 bùfú inconsistent].

Posted on: Golf

Sorry. I didn't mean to leave all those blank lines. It says "15 minutes left to edit your comment" but HOW do I edit my comment??

Posted on: Golf

nciku.com has two separate entries, giving different tones for 杆 !

1号木杆 [1hào mù gǎn] driver
一号木杆 [yīhào mùgān] driver
 

By the way, if you go to

http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php

and enter "golf" you will get several dozen golfing terms in Chinese.

Posted on: Golf

Can anyone confirm that 杆 is first tone for all golfing terms? (e.g. 一号木杆 [yi1 hao4 mu4 gan1] driver). I am finding "gan1" and "gan3" in various dictionaries, and variation even within a single dictionary.

Posted on: Golf

I was not quite satisfied with Ken's explanation of 早就 in 
我早就告诉过你了 
"I told you so."

Wenlin gives "long since" or "long ago," which is not quite right in this context, since the caddy had only just offered his advice, but CC-CEDICT says "already at an earlier time," which I think helped me to understand the construction. 

I think the first character of 造就 (in pcmi's comment above) should be 早, shouldn't it?

Here are some example sentences using 早就, from jukuu.com, a site well worth checking out. I had to add the pinyin myself. (Wenlin makes it easy, though.)

He has already been told, so our comments are superfluous. 
早就有人同他说过，所以我们的意见是多余的。
Zǎojiù yǒurén tóng tā shuō guò，suǒyǐ wǒmen de yìjian shì duōyú de.

He'd clean forgotten about it.  
这事他早就扔在脖子后边了。 
Zhè shì tā zǎojiù rēng zài bózi hòubian le.

He had learned to despise technical dexterity. 
他早就懂得轻视技巧的娴熟。
Tā zǎojiù dǒngde qīngshì jìqiǎo de xiánshú.

Posted on: Pageant Final Episode

Wow! We get a lesson about a qiangshou, and an actual (former) qiangshou writes in. Jiajia is disgusted by the cheating, but the real qiangshou just seems proud to have made a ton of money.

Posted on: Pageant Final Episode

It says "12 minutes left to edit your comment" but I can't work out how to do that. The pencil icon is not clickable.

Posted on: Pageant Final Episode

Thanks for the lyrics, artkho. I suppose a literal translation of the first two lines would be "the sun will rise tomorrow morning as ever; thanks for the flowers; next year is another beginning." Is that right? And what is the meaning behind it??

Also, I guess there are no tones when you sing in Chinese. Is that right? Does it cause any problems in understanding the song? 

Posted on: Consoling the Bereaved

I transcribe the lessons into romanization and hanzi as an exercise. As I listened carefully in this lesson to the word bang4mang2 (meaning help), as spoken by Jenny, I thought I heard bao4mang2 (though the male voice actor sounded more like bang4mang2). I think what is happening is that, with three consecutive nasal sounds ang-m-ang, the entire word is nasalised. The first "ang" is really just a nasalised "ah," and the back of the tongue does not touch the roof of the mouth, as it would in an English word like "sang." Also, the mouth starts to close up as it moves into position to pronounce the following consonant "m," and this results in a sound very like "bao4" (but nasalised, as if the speaker has caught a cold). Also, I note that one of the voice actresses (the one who plays the bereaved woman in this lesson, I believe) pronounces the question particle "ma" very like "mang" in numerous lessons, which confused me at first. In other words, she carries the nasal sound of the "m" over to the vowel "a" (though it doesn't come up in this lesson). Jenny's "ma" sounds quite different. It would be good to get some more on pronunciation in the podcasts. I note that there have been some Elementary lessons on tone changes (tone sandhi) with John as a guest teacher. These were very good. Does chinesepod cover the "foundation work" relating to the sounds of Chinese, pronunciation, tones, and contextual sound and tone changes? This would include the pronunciation of sounds that are deceptively similar to English sounds, as well as difficult sounds that are quite different from any sound in English. I skipped the Newbie level so I don't know if it's done there.