User Comments - xiaohu

Mark: I also truly hope he can become the hero the nation needs. What we need more than anything in this country right now is unity, and I am quite hopeful that 奥巴马 can be the instrument of change. It's amazing what man can accomplish when uniited in a cause. 甜芳老师: 谢谢你的详细的解释! 那，我很好奇，你自己觉得奥巴马能不能够引起变革？

Posted on: New Lessons, New President

November 9, 2008 at 11:31 PM

andrew_c

Actually there is an equivalent, 切中要害 qiè zhòng yào hài. Also Cassie's 成语 in her post was quite high frequency and useful, 拭目以待 (Wait and see) shì mù yǐ dài, (literally, "to rub one's eyes and wait")

Posted on: Interview with Cassie

November 8, 2008 at 11:12 PM

甜芳，Kimiik,

我的头像真的是我自己。

说实在的，我不喜欢换照片因为就像一个商标一样，如果不停的换，人家不容易认出我的留言。我常常翻阅页故意的甜芳的留言再说如果她不停的换头像，我快快地浏览网页的时候我根本就识别不出哪个留言是小甜芳的。

例如，QQ 的商标, 我估计每个中国人都已经视 QQ 和那个带微笑脸的企鹅为同一了。Tencent 不断的换标志的话用户怎么能认出 Tencent 的产品呢？

我想要 Chinesepod 的用户能够轻易的视那张头像和小虎为同一，因此很容易可以看出我的留言。

Posted on: My Foreign teacher

November 3, 2008 at 8:32 AM

Mr. Jess,

Thanks for the support I'm looking forward to our weekly fun, tomorrow night at ABC Café. 100 N Garfield Ave at the corner of Garvey and Garfield in Monterey Park. (Hint hint...to all Angelino
poddies).

Adam (Urbandweller), Thank you so much for the kind words!

My wish is that everyone who is new to Chinese can quickly find a method of study that works well for them so they can see quick and lasting results. To strike a proper balance between listening,
speaking, reading and writing that works for them personally.

My former Mandarin Instructor used to teach at Santa Monica College expressed such frustration that in 5 years of teaching Chinese ONLY ONE of his students stayed with Chinese past level one.

By virtue of the fact that you are still here, you have surpassed 99.9 percent of those out there that start learning this language. I hope that you will be able to see it through to at least conversational
fluency.

Adam, I highly recommend you continue on with your online chats with Cassie, and speak as much Chinese as you can. Don't worry how you
sound, as long as you can speak and be understood, it's all good!

Also, Convoy street nearby where you live has a plethora of Chinese restaurants where you can also practice in real-life, face-to-face situations.

I also recommend that you work with the audio review, often! Don't skip over the part where you are asked to speak, it's the most valuable part.

Go one step further than the audio review by writing, (at least in Piyin with tone marks, or numbers) A LOT because this is a great way to use what you know, and build your abilities quickly. For your Chinese to be functional, you need to use what you know, so
use the time when you are by yourself to prepare for those nerve-racking times when you are with new people, forced to carry on a conversation without the benefit of dictionaries, study materials, or your teacher.

Read aloud, A LOT because it's one thing to know IN THEORY how to say something, but quite another to DO it on cue.

Find every possible way to immerse yourself in the language, which does include a lot of listening, but don't forget to exercise what will maximize the bebefit of your listening time.

Remember that I'm always here to help you, if you have any questions, just IM me through my profile, or e-mail me at: xiaohucai@gmail.com.

Xiao Hu

Posted on: My Foreign teacher

November 2, 2008 at 6:09 PM

Henning,

I agree wholeheartedly about reading, it's one of the best shortcuts to learning new vocabulary.

When I was new in the language, I tried to find ways to replicate the way we learn language from when we are young. I surmised that the way we identify words with objects, situations, feelings etc., is through a series of impulses. Once we begin learning a new language, instead of associating words with objects, situations, feeling and the like, we begin to associate words with other words, and this is something I didn't want to do with Chinese.

My goal was to find ways to associate inpulses only with Chinese words. I wanted to cut out the middle layer of English, so that in the Chinese language world there would only be a signal sent to my brain and the Chinese language interpretation of it. In other words, if I see an object that is a fruit, it is red and round and sweet, I don't see it and first call it an "Apple", then translate that to 苹果，I would only see the fruit and associate it with 苹果.

There is a well known language learning system called Rosetta Stone that uses this same approach through pictures, which is fairly effective. My approach was fairly effective, although without being in an environment where one is totally immersed in the language, this or any other approach to learning a language is stilted at best.

With regards to what John said about "listening" being the key, I have to sharply disagree. In learning a language, balance is the key.

By this I mean, a balanced approach to language learning including listening, reading, writing and speaking.

One doesn't become a fast runner by doing sit-ups. One doesn't become the fastest runner by ONLY running. Great runners are always at the gym doing strength training, weights, squats and exercises that help to fine tune the muscles that support their running.

Certainly doing a lot of running is key to becoming a great runner, however there's more to it than just constantly practicing running.

It's the same with language learning, mastering the different aspects of language means you need to practice them individually. You don't speak great Chinese unless you practice speaking. Listening can help support speaking, and practicing speaking can help support listening comprehension, but only doing one activity is not the way.

In helping me choose supplementary learning materials, my former Chinese teacher told me something that I take with me to this day. He said, "The quality of the material is second to the quality of the exercises".

The exercises in my textbook include:

Listening to prerecorded material
Reading (Pinyin and Chinese characters)
Reading aloud
Rewriting sentences to follow a certain grammatical pattern
Making your own sentences following a certain construction
Answering questions
Fill in the blanks
Completing a sentence
English word to Chinese character matching
Creative writing (in Chinese)
Translating from English to Chinese
Translating for Chinese to English

Obviously listening is only part of the equation, and listening when you don't know what you're listening for is simply a waste of time. That's like saying you can learn a language by process of osmosis, it simply WILL NOT WORK.

Words are put into use by associating them with something else, so one can simply LISTEN to people speak Chinese for an entire lifetime and never know what they are talking about because just by listening to unfamiliar sounds cuts you off to the the catalyst, the ASSOCIATIONS, that are necessary to being able to identify that red fruit with 苹果.

A simple formula:

Object or situation to word association
Watching
Listening
Creating one's own material (to speak)
Speaking (one's own material)

This can be solved by receiving input, interpreting (received) input and preparing it to become output, and finally, transferring it to output.

In language learning it's the middle step, interpreting and preparing input to finally become output that we are researching. Chinesepod is giving us the tools to quickly and as painlessly as possible perfect our input to become output.

Hopefully everyone here will take full advantage of what's here and not only use just one piece, because if you follow that path, the path will be a VERY LONG one indeed.