User Comments - root

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root

Posted on: Calling a Supplier for a Quote
July 31, 2012 at 4:35 AM

woohoo, it works, thank you!

Posted on: A Business Dinner with a Supplier
July 31, 2012 at 4:33 AM

missing key lexis from vocab / expansion 谈起（事情）来、多亏, to add to go_manly's comments.  While I agree not all words uttered in the podcast or even dialog should be in vocab, I humbly suggest that all vocab/lexis that hosts actually spend time covering is included somewhere where it can be reviewed in an organized fashion...  Please add these words to vocab !

Posted on: Dog Personalities
July 30, 2012 at 4:23 AM

valuable lexis missing from vocab and expansion: 不完全是，反而. Is it possible for someone to add it to the Supplemental Vocab or expansion section ? Also, very happy to see 心思 in Expansion, but would be even cooler to see it in vocab as well!

Posted on: Calling a Supplier for a Quote
July 27, 2012 at 5:10 AM

sentence in the expansion

地上的雪有一尺厚。

(The snow on the ground is one foot deep.)

Has no sound :(

I like this sentence, can someone fix it??

Posted on: Finding Live Music
July 27, 2012 at 4:54 AM

a lot of lexis that hosts spent so much time on is not in vocab, main or supplemental, and neither is in the expansion : 别闹了，亲身感受 just to name two off the top of my head. Is there a possibility someone can add them to the vocab section so that I can review the useful parts?

Posted on: Going to the Gym
July 19, 2012 at 5:18 AM

Excellent lesson, lots of cool grammar and phrases.  Also appreciate how the hosts spent most of the time explaining useful grammar, and how to use the special phrases.  This kinda stuff is almost impossible to pick up from dictionaries, or just listening to speech by yourself without someone explaining it to you.  Well done, lesson writers.  Too bad none of this language  like 真巧，几乎，不是...就是...，硬要啦，简直，准没错  made it into base or supplemental vocab, or expansion.  All the useful bits are completely omitted !! Instead, the vocab sections are filled with banal stuff like "gym", or "muscles".  I can look this stuff up in 20 free dictionaries in 1 minute, why would I waste my CPod time on this ??  Where is the beef ? (sorry, got carried away)  Seriously, even just listen to hosts, they spent maybe 20% of the time explaining the stuff found in vocab, and 80% on the stuff that is missing --- how does this make any sense !!  I don't study lessons for the subject, I study them for the useful language, which almost always the surrounding stuff.

Does anyone know how I can choose lessons that have the actual important stuff included in the vocab / supplemental / expansion sections ??

Posted on: Lili and Zhang Liang 7: A Guy's Advice on Women
July 19, 2012 at 1:45 AM

ah, good to hear they did stabilize in the end... I've noticed a similar pattern, as well. Unfortunately, since I didn't know how to choose my 80 lessons for the intermediate stint, I just did the simple thing and decided to do them chronologically starting from the beginning. It appears to have been a mistake. I still need about 40 to reach the recommended amount, so I would want to continue chronologically, but starting at a time when they will be even level. Do you have an idea starting with which number Intermediate lesson difficulty gets more even?

Posted on: Lili and Zhang Liang 7: A Guy's Advice on Women
July 18, 2012 at 4:50 AM

Wow, just got done, this lesson is a bit overwhelming compared to other Intermediates. I vote for moving it to Upper Intermediates . I wish I hadn't included it in my plans, hope others can avoid the same fate.

Also to echo go_manly's observations -- a lot of words that hosts spent 30 seconds explaining, like 相通，想开 are not mentioned in the main or supplemental vocab, while supplemental as usual is chock-full of un-mentioned words. Not saying I don't like supplemental, just for this lesson it looks like a great place to put all those words that might be more important.

Posted on: Random and Reckless
July 14, 2012 at 1:00 AM

I've run into this, too, and coworkers tell me 随便 does have a tone of 'whatever, I don't care' in it. If you want to be completely sure you are 100% polite, use 随意 (suíyì), I am advised.

Posted on: Please Speak Mandarin!
June 3, 2012 at 10:20 AM

I always translated in my head 他们在说什么？ as "What are they talking about?", while 他们说什么？ turned into "What did they say?". But then again, I may be completely off, and am going to wait for someone with more experience to weigh in...