User Comments - washingtondcmandarincooperative

Posted on: Digital Currency in China

虚拟货币 virtual currency

数字货币 digital currency

加密货币 cryptocurrency

电子货币 electronic money

区块链 blockchain

Posted on: 清谈: 关系在中国文化的重要性

Thanks, very helpful. I hope that you were able to access the original script and did not have to type this from scratch. If the original scripts are made available to you I hope that future lessons can also include the transcripts, and that it is not too much trouble.

Posted on: Tips While Living in China - Part 1

芬兰

Posted on: Tips While Living in China - Part 1

在这个对话里有关”砍价“的问题有些地方我还不懂。

庆琳说　”比如，一件衣服，它的标价是三百块。如果你会砍价的话最后的成交价可能只剩下一百块了。“　　

那么博理说　“老板只要看到我是一个外国人，他会贵个两三倍。”　后来博理说我平常砍价的时候是砍一半“

我的问题是：　为什么庆琳对博理说　“这样听起来你真的很不懂砍价的道理，很不讲理“？

Posted on: 清谈 Job Opportunities

DanielMads, you are not the first person to ask this question. 　Maybe all of the production of the videos is outsourced and the provider does not provide the script. More likely the boss just said "no." Whoever made the video must have a file for the subtitles that are appearing on screen when we watch this lesson. If it was made in-house one would think they could easily provide it in a pdf. Even if it is not translated into English, it might be handy for subscribers to have. They could even challenge the students to take on the translation as "homework" and maybe share it in some way for comments and corrections. That could probably be done in the comments section without having to do anything new to the website.

Posted on: Learn Mandarin From Commercials: 滴滴 DiDi Phone Number Security

The boss, 李总 （Li3zong3) doesn't actually say 明天 ming2tian1 in the commercial. He just says "come to my office." Actually, he adds the words 一趟 yi1tang1 at the end, which probably should have been explained in the lesson, though that might also have been outside the scope of newbie material. 趟 is a measure word for visits, trips, etc., so the boss is saying something like "make a visit to my office."

I am not sure if there is an additional nuance here that this will be the employee‘s last time seeing the boss as he is going to be fired. Maybe Becca can comment whether 一趟 is emphasizing having just one visit to the bosses office.

And yes, I agree that even though the presentation is very well done, the nature of the dialogue definitely makes it NOT a newbie lesson. The fact that the lesson claims that a word is spoken which is not actually in the dialog would make it even more confusing for a newbie learner. I hope CPod would edit this again and re-post it as pre-intermediate or something like that.

Posted on: 3 ways to use mei 没

Becca, could you please clarify what you mean by "in this case"? Perhaps with some examples. Also, what about a third counting word: 门 ？How would you say a class, as in "tonight's class will cover the subject of the battle of Red Cliff"? What about "This semester I am taking a class on Chinese military history. "? How about "Last semester I missed three classes because of family matters." Would it be 三节课？ 三次课？ 三堂课？ 谢谢！

Posted on: 旅行在中国 Traveling in China

It seems like the whole video is a dialogue. I don't think they said anything that was not scripted, and since there are subtitles for everything including English translation I wish you would take the extra step to provide that either as a file or a pdf since the work has already been done. There were many vocabulary items here that I would like to review that were not part of the list or emphasized in the video. By the way, if anyone doubts that this was scripted, you can hear Lyn say something like "and when we foreigners (non-Chinese) visit China this is so convenient. Lyn is from China. Anyway, this was a great lesson, with both good production value and lots of useful information.

Posted on: One Chinese Pancake

Serup,

Good point. Technically, the currency is not specified. 一块 yi1kuai4 just means one unit of the implied currency, with 块 kuai4 being a "measure word." In English it might seem a bit unusual to say the price is "one" and it would be more natural to say "one dollar." Conversely, I think it would sound weird in China for a street vendor to say the price is "one yuan" or "one yuan renminbi" It would be like a New York City hot dog vendor saying a hot dog costs "one US dollar." Of course in Taiwan the currency is the "New Taiwan Dollar" so maybe the translation problem solves itself if we just assume that this dialog took place in Taiwan and its obvious that we are not referring to US dollars or Canadian dollars.

Posted on: It's Hot This Time of Year

Becca, I believe It is an actual mistake in the pinyin. If pronounced báo then the translation would have been " . . . such thin clothing" but since the audio recording uses bó and the translation refer to "scanty clothing" then it seems the pronunciation should be bó (referring to a lack of clothing, or very little clothing being worn.)