User Comments - tingyun

Posted on: 中国新富豪

I think  好象 should be 好像 in the first page.

Posted on: 人性本善

It seems the speaker in the dialogue uses 断论 when they should say 论断 (from the transcript) - or am I hearing wrong?  I can't seem to find the earlier one in a dictionary - is it a word?

Posted on: Superman

Shanghai_rocks -

You should not think of it as 'dropping the verb is'.  First, this is trying to understand Chinese grammer in terms of English, which is going to get you very confused and never able to naturally apply it.  Second, on its own terms it will confuse you.  Instead, understand that most adjetives in Chinese can also serve as verbs (yes, I do see the irony in explaining this grammer point in english given my previous comment, so pretend I'm saying dong4ci2, xing2rong2ci2, and ming2ci2).  The only reason you would also throw in shi4 would be in special circumstances, for example in conjunction with de to add emphasis. 

Of course, if instead of a Noun + adjetive (acting as a verb) construction, you want Noun + Noun, then you do need a shi4 inbetween, because nouns don't have that property of acting as verbs. so these would be some simple constructions

1 - Noun + adjetitive (acting as verb)

2 - Noun + shi4 + adjetitive + de (same as above but adds emphasis)

3 - Noun + shi4 + noun

Now, recognize that shi2zai4 is, I think (I could be charecterizing it incorrectly, I'm not 100 percent sure), both an adjetive and an adverb.  So if you want to use it as an adjetitive (acting as a verb) just insert it into its place in construction 1 or 2. 

If you want to use it as an adverb, then adverbs go before the verb.  All 3 constructions have something acting as a verb, so just throw it in right before shi4 in the case of 3, or the adjetitive in the case of 1.  Using it in 2 seems a bit convulated sounding though...

So, 2 main points.  First, don't think of English as some baseline grammer that you form rules for when Chinese departs from it, ie 'dropping' 'is' - it will blind you to the logic of chinese language.  Second, try to understand such individual questions in term of the larger structure of chinese grammer, rather than seeing every word as its own case requiring you to learn seperate rules - ie treating 'shizai' as a single case, rather than in terms of the rules applicable to other adverbs and adjetives.

Posted on: Chinese Celebrity: Bruce Lee

Interesting!  Well, I'm glad you did find ChinesePod - I remember you answering questions I had about grammer on a few occasions.  You're an incredibly helpful part of the community, especially to us less-advanced learners.

Hulu is actually an exception.  Its a joint venture of several major US broadcaster networks (FOX, NBC, ABC).  Basically, they make available the tv shows they own the rights to, which is most of the US ones - though, availability varies.  The latest shows they post the most recent 4 or 5 episodes, older ones they often put the entire show up.  But, when watching the show, there are a couple of commercial breaks - but, usually only 3 or so 15-30 second commercials for an hour long show, much less than normal tv.  Its all properly licensed, but only for the US market, so its not accessible from outside the US.

Its a very interesting market development - I think the broadcasters feel, that in the age of Tivo, where people skip commercials on tv, and in the internet age, where people want to watch shows on their schedule, they are better off embracing these trends and offering their IP online, though with these short 15-30 second commercials, that the program doesn't allow the viewer to skip, and that people are unlikely to walk away from the computer over, since they are so short.

Actually, whats even more interesting - a recent FOX show, "Dollhouse", had pretty poor traditional ratings - it just wasn't attracting many tv viewers, and so everyone thought it would not be renewed for a second season.  But, it had a huge following on Hulu, so FOX was making good ad revenue from that source, and partly for that reason, it ended up being renewed, surprising the TV industry.  It dramatically showcased the economic potential for this kind of service.

Anyway, I'm hoping the trend will continue, and Hulu will expand, and similar services will arise in the other markets.  Honestly, it makes sense for all parties - the viewers gets on demand access, and only has to watch one minute or so of commercials, while the Network gets to maintain its ad revenue. Maybe in 5 years or so, things will be different.;) 

Final Note - I the name Hulu comes from Chinese.  I'll paste the explanation from wikipedia below:

"

The name Hulu comes from two Mandarin Chinese words, hulu (simplified Chinese: 葫芦; traditional Chinese: 葫蘆; pinyin: húlú; Wade-Giles: hu-lu) "calabash, bottle gourd" and hulu (simplified Chinese: 互录; traditional Chinese: 互錄; pinyin: hùlù; Wade-Giles: hu-lu) "interactive recording." The company blog explains:

In Mandarin, Hulu has two interesting meanings, each highly relevant to our mission. The primary meaning interested us because it is used in an ancient Chinese proverb that describes the hulu as the holder of precious things. It literally translates to "gourd," and in ancient times, the hulu was hollowed out and used to hold precious things. The secondary meaning is "interactive recording." We saw both definitions as appropriate bookends and highly relevant to the mission of Hulu. ^[4][5]

Posted on: Chinese Celebrity: Bruce Lee

miantiao,

From glancing at the website, it seems to be pirated...am I mistaken?  I know in America we have www.hulu.com - which is all properly licensed (short commercials in the videos) and lets you watch for free...but, though I couldn't find a definitive statement on the 风行 website, it does not appear to be a legitmate site. 

If it is a pirating site, I think the equivlant of 10-15 US dollars is a pretty reasonable price to get 50 1-hour episodes of a well produced tv program - no need to become a thief.  The 李小龙传奇 actors, directors, writers, studio, all did a good job, and its worth its sale price.

Honestly, I wonder how people would feel about others, say, pirating our beloved ChinesePod lessons and not paying.   Personally, I'd feel that the effort Jenny, Ken, John, Aggie, and the support team put into ChinesePod deserves much better than that - and I'd feel anger that law-abiding customers either have to pay higher subscription costs, or make do with a less-well-funded level of service, to make up for the freeloaders. 

Posted on: Chinese Celebrity: Bruce Lee

I think Malacca means 李小龙传奇，which is not a documentary but rather a 50-episode, 2008 CCTV produced 电视剧 (TV drama).  Its a bit of good fun, but definitally not realistic.  In particular, the real Bruce Lee didn't get attacked by gangs of 10-20 thugs on a weekly basis.

Actually, its also great for language practice, as most of the actors speak very clearly, the situations in the show give good clues to the meaning of the dialogue, and it has a good range of language levels. 

You can buy it off of the chinese version of amazon.com (http://www.amazon.cn/ )for less than the equivlant 10 american dollars, and maybe the equivlant of 5 american dollars shipping if you pick a slow method.  Though you'll need a pretty good level of literacy to navigate the website and payment methods.

Posted on: Introduction to Pinyin

In the chart, I'm fairly certain the final sound in niu and miu (most evident in the 1st and 2nd tones, but also a little in the 4th, and not really at all in the 3rd) is slightly different than the final sound with the other initials, ie jiu, qiu, xiu, you....it sounds as if the u sound is being emphasized disproportionatly, and the contribution of the o (ommitted in pinyin) is being skipped.  I noticed one of my chinese friends has a similar distinction.

Is this an accent, or standard?

Posted on: Podcast Language 2

Henning - best post I've ever read.  Wonderfully clever!

I think people's different personalities lead to different ways to motivate themselves, and so both Matt and Henning's advice is valid - depending on whatever will best motivate/not discourage you. 

Posted on: Podcast Language 2

bobt - Sorry, my earlier post wasn't clear.  I was trying to draw a distinction between the very academic specific vocab that gets used again and again across the podcasts (and that is explored in this QW series, making it a very valuable addition) - and the other 90% of what is said in a given podcast, which has no such concinse set of vocab, but is instead natural speach in which Jenny relates stories, explains things, etc.  It is that diffuse 90% which is so difficult to learn (since it is constantly changing) but is also readily learned by studying the dialogues (Since they to involve a variety of topics using a wide spectrum of vocab).  Of course, you are very unlikely to pick up the academic specific 10% (that you list from Connie's post) precisely because that sort of language does not occur outside of this very specilized type of conversation, and so is unlikely to show up in podcast dialogues.  Which is what makes this QW series a great thing - and yes, I agree they should have done it, or something like it, sooner. 

Now, I should also point out that I don't think simply studying all the ele lessons completely preps you for the Int podcasts - at least in my case, I also needed to study 60 or so Int dialogues, as I've menotioned.  Incidentally, Int dialogues do involve those words you've listed that aren't highly academic specific (ie 内容 nèiróng,  接下来 jiēxiàlái,  类 lèi, 词语 cíyǔ, 结构 jiégòu,  说法 shuōfǎ, 用来 yònglái,  强调qiángdiào, 语气  yǔqì,  省略 shěnglüè).

Now, I understand your reasoning - if I study all the Ele lessons, shouldn't I be able to comfortably walk into the Int podcasts?  But, in truth, I think it is equally natural that, during the begining part of your Int studies, until you've gotten a sizable number of them too under your belt, the Int podcasts are still too difficult to be fully comprehended.  Its a transition period - and its probably the most frustrating time of language learning (or the most fun challange).  But, short of knocking down the difficulty of the levels (which would be a bad idea), there's really no solution to this.  I think a small part of the complaints here, are blaming CPod for the fact that, in language study, one periodically has to accend to higher level material and face difficult challanges.

Alot of talk has been had of better choosing the vocab that goes into lower level lessons to prepare for the higher ones - but I really don't understand this.  Sure, if we didn't now have this QW, maybe introducing this academic language in ele podcasts would be good - but now that we do, its not nessecary.  And, as far as preparing for the rest of the podcast discussion - as John said, it is unscripted, natural speech.  So...I think its best that the podcast dialogues for ele level remain unscripted, and natural, based on a wide range of topics, as that would seem the best preperationfor the later podcasts. 

Honestly, on a side note, I go through periods where I think the most efficient approach is just the dialogues and transcripts - the podcasts are fun and useful, but I've never been sure whether it wouldn't be more efficient to just use that time to study more dialogues and transcripts...still, the fact that they are fun, filled with interested stories and energetic chat, causes me to continue listening to them.  Restricting the unscripted nature so as to allow earlier comprehension of them would really hurt their value, in my opinion.

Posted on: Podcast Language 2

A side point, and I'm curious as to how many people have a similar experience.  If I hear chinese, I understand either less than 20% of the sentence (ie the very, very frequently used words) or greater than 90% of it, and pretty much never anything inbetween.  The reason is, the sounds are so alike in mandarin, and since trying to conciously pick out tones of individual sounds in fast speach brings my mind to a complete stop and destroys total sentance comprehension (as opposed to the natural, unconcious comprehension of tones as you simply listen) - I find that I need to context of recognizing 90% of the words in a phrase in order to really percieve what any of the words mean.

Now, of course if I can take an isolated sentence, and listen to it once, and stop and think (as opposed to needing to focus on the next sentence) - or repeat it multiple times - or if the sentance is spoken slowly - this rule starts to break down.  But generally, say listening to a chinese tv drama, or chatting with chinese friends, its either total or near total comprehension or pretty much none at all.  By the way, very different from when I was learning German...

Have others noticed a similar situation?  Incidentally, a happy part of this, is that sometimes progress in listening comprehension has been almost overnight.  I know for the Int podcasts, it was basically over the course of a week or so, I went from not understanding much at all without repeating or stopping, to near total comprehension.  Still waiting for that to happen with Upper Intermediate...;)

BTW - Pete, I just finished the UI lesson on "Translation Issues" - you have a very interesting profession!