User Comments - tony.cpod
tony.cpod
Posted on: Too Polite
October 29, 2007 at 6:20 AMSad but true. Further to Mark's comments above about people being polite to those they personally know but rude to strangers... I went to both Japan and China in April this year. I was amazed by how polite, well mannered, dignified and respectful the Japanese are to everybody, and also between themselves. On the other hand, I was very disappointed to see so much spitting, people blowing smoke in your face, queue jumping, "art students" on street corners trying to lure in foreigners, people trying to flog cheap junk for inflated prices everywhere, and taxi drivers blatantly trying to charge 5 times what a trip is worth. If you have white skin in China its very hard to be left alone and not harassed. I mean, in public parks they need to put signs up telling people not to relieve themselves in public. I hope in the future we will see a more Westerner-friendly China.
Posted on: Lesson
September 12, 2007 at 8:58 AMHi all. Somebody asked the question above about the difference between 孩子 (háizi) and 小孩 (xiǎohái) to mean 'child'. Maybe I'm going blind, but I don't think this was answered? Ken mentioned in yesterday's podcast (I think) that it's not very beneficial to learn a lot of vocabulary without learning how it is used. I totally agree! Unfortunately with the supplementary vocabulary in each lesson, the words themselves are all we get. I'm now totally confused by what difference (if any) there is between 结婚 (jiéhūn) and 已婚 (yǐhūn) to mean 'married'. Is one more formal, or is one more commonly used? Many thanks in advance :)
Posted on: Lesson
September 6, 2007 at 12:25 PMBedroom is wòshì (卧室). Maybe dòngfáng is something similar but somehow different as suggested above. This is the biggest problem I have with learning Chinese - there are always at least 3 Chinese words for every English word you look up, and if you rely on the first translation out of a dictionary you are almost always wrong! :(
Posted on: Lesson
August 23, 2007 at 12:15 PMAt the risk of sounding like a nay sayer, I'd just like to point out to everybody that these podcasts are listed in the 'Newbie' section. When people write an entire comment in Chinese characters, please be aware that very few people reading these posts will be able to understand them. I think it would be in everybody's best interests if we only used vocabulary and characters from previous lessons so that everybody can understand, unless accompanying Pinyin and explanations are given. Even so, some people are only interested in learning how to speak and not write. So all I am trying to say is please be aware of your fellow 'classmates' written skills when posting comments.
Posted on: Exchanging Money
November 28, 2007 at 7:00 AMI know this lesson was a while back, but I hope people still visit the comments section occasionally. When I learned 'exchanging currencies' in university, we were taught to use the expression 'wǒ xiǎng duìhuàn wàibì'. Is this not as commonly used as just 'huàn qián', or does it sound more formal?