User Comments - tingyun

Posted on: Calligraphy Practice

吗 is completely optional for indicating questions. Questions can instead be indicated similar to english, by a steady rise in tone over the last several words of the sentence (a statement in mandarin, as in english, generally has the opposite, a steady decrease in tone). Ie, in a question, the lowpoint of a 4th tone is often higher than a first tone at the begining of the sentence, and the opposite is generally true in statements. Though this effect may not be present if a speaker reads very slowly and mechanically, as in say newbie lessons (can't remember what ellie lessons are like, so it may or may not be the case here).

Posted on: The Different Differences of Different and Difference

'Naturally' may be questionable, I think language style generally reflects what one is exposed to. This is probably why most native speakers in any language generally find formal writing difficult (I had a friend who graded freshmen essays, sadly even top colleges don't seem to be an exception). But there is definitally timing to developing different skills, 欲速则不达 and all that.

That sounds great regarding your plans of studying at a Chinese university - ive been thinking in a few years after I finish coursework and pass examinations I may try to spending a semester visiting a Chinese university. Maybe we will be classmates some day. :)

Posted on: The Different Differences of Different and Difference

Hi Darkstar94,

Yep, the main course line at Harvard is 5 years, but there are also a bunch of side courses that some students also take, usually after the 4th or 5th year. For example, conversation practice courses, a business Chinese course, and a line of literature and art type discussion courses. I place-tested into the 4th year course when I arrived (in good part thanks to studying through the Cpod lesson library, hence my estimate that mastering advanced is about the equivalent of completing the 3rd year course), and then took the 5th year the next year, so I really only understand the content of those 2 courses (I never did take the side courses, I think at that skill level there really is no further use for formal courses in modern chinese, just go make friends with native speakers, read books, watch tv, etc). oh, you asked the text name for the 3rd year, it is "comprehensive Chinese:Understanding the People and the World"

At a higher level, there are a good deal of substantive (rather than formal language) courses that one can then take, for example, I really enjoyed taking a course 'Chinese authors on chinese politics', in which we read the works of several great political figures, such as Bo Yibo, and a number of chinese political scientists. Those courses generally have prereqs of 4th or 5th year language proficiency.

The 4th and 5th year courses were mostly focused on formal chinese, so alot of essay writing, structured debate practice, speeches, etc. But of course still a healthy dose of drill, usually focused on using a particular formal grammar pattern to make a sentence discussing some specified topic, usually regarding politics or current events. I'd say the content and focus of both courses was pretty similar, with a fairly even progression of difficulty across each semester (each year has 2 textbooks, one for each semester). One possible exception is the 5th year texts try to give some introduction to classical chinese with 2 or 3 lessons, which of course doesn't really work well...I'd think they'd have been better off just including a few more formal modern pieces, and leave instruction in pure classical chinese where it belongs, in a separate course.

Speaking of which, there is also a line of classical chinese courses - a main program consisting of 2 years (which seems to get one to about the same level as a high school graduate, as after completing the 2nd year I was able to comfortably start 王力's 《古代汉语》, which is a well regarded old college textbook), which is then followed by countless more advanced courses, covering just about everything you could want, literature and poetry of various periods, courses on specific works, document/primary source interpretation of different periods, courses focused on particular philosophical movements, etc.

At the time I only took one of those courses, Buddhist texts (focusing on texts discovered in Dunhuang), and it was enormous fun. Though when I go back in a few months to start my Phd studies I'm really looking forward to these, for example there is a yearlong course on Ming/Qing document interpretation (for example, contracts), and a late imperial chinese social history course that will cover alot of really interesting sources, people's accounts of cities from the time, official exams, etc.

Posted on: 欣弗事件

Hi Mark,

Actually, you'd want to compare 予以 to 给以。 In that case, they have the same meaning, though the use of 予 perhaps is a slightly more formal (and less frequent) use.

Then your question reduces to the difference between 给以 and 给。 First, 给以 usually has an abstract thing being given (though not a completely absolute rule), whereas 给 lends equally well to both abstract and concrete things. Second, the noun receiving what is being given should be placed before 给以, ie what directly follows 给以 is that which is being given (this is the nature of 以). For example 对___（whoever is recieving what is being given) ___给以___(what is being given).

Posted on: The Different Differences of Different and Difference

For formal written Chinese, the textbooks we use at Harvard are great - the 4th year coursebooks are Comprehensive Chinese: On the Present and Past, and the 5th year texts are Comprehensive Chinese: Writing and Truth. I ran a search, and it seems the series is available for mail order here, though probably plenty of other places too:

http://www.purpleculture.net/comprehensive-chineseon-the-present-and-past-awith-cd-p-1932/

If you've mastered Cpod advanced level, you should be at a sufficient level to start on the 4th year texts (you could always start with the 3rd year if not quite there yet, they are also quite good, and they do introduce elements of formal writing). Though the 5th year is described as focused on writing, while the 4th year on reading, you'll need the knowledge from the 4th year texts before starting on the 5th - plus, in practice both are similar in terms of content, the description more refers to the way the courses are taught.

They really are great texts, with well produced recordings on the cd, as well as excellent grammar explanations and tips, well suited for individual study. If you really want to learn writing though, you'll need to accompany their study with regular practice, composition of essays on a variety of topics with close corrections and editing by a well educated native speaker.

If I remember correctly, in the 4th year we submitted essays every 2 weeks or so, and in the 5th year I remember the volume increasing slightly. Also, every week they would assign some of the chapter end exercises, usually focusing on the ones that involve translating colloquial chinese into formal chinese. You'll probably want to encourage whoever grades your essays to be really, really picky, correcting to achieve a high level of eloquence rather than simply being grammatically correct. Good luck with your studies,

Posted on: Introducing One's Spouse

Ma used to Indicate a yes or no question is always optional, in Chinese questions are indicated in a manner similar to English, a steady rise in the tone as the sentence progresses towards the end (ie, a 4th tone starts and ends higher if it is close to the end of the sentence). Adding a ma to yes or no questions can add clarity though.

Posted on: Negotiating with a Taobao Merchant

Southern accent goes both ways in confusing the n and ng - it's natural form seems to be everything as an n, but then when someone tries to train their mandarin to be more standard it often leads to the other direction mistake becoming very common (perhaps resulting from confusion as to which words or front n or back ng nasal). A similar phenenom can be seen with the zcs zh ch sh distinction, often someone trying to speak in a more standard manner will start turning way too many words to the zh ch sh version, and creating much more of a mess than if they stuck with their original accent. Though I've known many southerns who speak perfectly standard, it seems to be a problem that appears during the process and then can be trained away...

Though 亲 is pronounced qing4 in 亲家, a special case. Otherwise qin1

Relatedly, people seem to mistakenly turn the chengyu 卿卿我我 , using the 卿 qing1 charecter (an archaic intimate way of saying 'you' between husband and wife) into 亲亲我我 (not actually a proper chengyu) with rather high frequency, perhaps because of confusion both on the pronounciation and meaning.

Posted on: Motivating a Team

As much as I love cpod, I don't think it provides a good path to learning to read. Probably using McNaughton's Reading and Writing Chinese book to get you used to understanding character composition, some flashcards to get you remembering a few core ones, then finding some really basic reading material (the old elementary chinese readers - http://www.amazon.com/Elementary-Chinese-Readers-Volume-I/dp/7800521346 - was nice, the first volume has pinyin under the characters, the second removes the pinyin but has tone marks over the characters, and all of them have nice level appropriate little stories and dialogues), and then a move to pleco and increasingly advanced material as a later step.

I think cpod's strength lies in providing lots of interesting dialogues to work on one's listening skills, but at least in the form it existed when I was still studying here it didn't provide a well suited reading learning program - which seems completely natural, really the first steps to reading don't seem to have much of use for technology, and pleco does the later step so impressively (note I don't mean the pleco flashcard program, at a certain stage one is much better off in time efficiency by reading stuff than endlessly reviewing characters, it just takes too long to review a flashcard compared to the many characters one reads every second and thus reviews.

In sum, I think cpod's usefulness is mainly for listening practice, which it's amazing at, but although one can read the dialogues and that's fine for a little extra practice, other tools should form the core of one's study of written chinese.

Posted on: A Qing Wen to Our Listeners

Glad to have helped - I've had lots of similar experiences in my language learning. I suppose it's better than overgeneralizing language rules all the time, though perhaps we just have careful personalities.

Though it would make a good qingwen, to help people see all the ways they can use it. I just wanted to make sure you didn't have to wait that long for an answer.;)

And thank you jiaojie - one of the things I found most enjoyable when using cpod to study Chinese was your great lesson dialogue.

Posted on: Volunteering in China

Not sure if 'really' captures it well - it's emphasizing something, but 还以为 is usually used in a sort of giving ground manner, in a situation where what a person has just said or what has just become clear negates or challenges the viewpoint, and it seems to acknowledge the challenged nature of the view while expressing what would have been the person's viewpoint absent the new information (most of the time it seems an honest admission that the viewpoint is wrong or problematic, other times just a bit of a 委婉 (not sure how to translate that word into english..) manner of expressing one's view without challanging the other person too directly)