User Comments - xiaohu

Posted on: Hanoi

Mikeinewshot,

It just seems to me that there was that extra level of detail and exploration in this lesson.  But it must be that it's just me.

I'm looking forward to many, many more great lessons like this one.

Happy Birthday C-pod!

:)

Posted on: Hanoi

Maybe it's just me, but it seems that after the changeover to a paid site, the podcasts seem to be more informative.  

The old podcasts saw John and Jenny pretty much just skimming the surface of grammatic structures, parts of speech, definitions of words, and definately not going into great detail into structures like, 去+地方+的路上.  Before it seemed like John and Jenny would almost never break down characters "特别的特"，"颜色的色".  I'm actually quite pleased.

I don't know, maybe it's just me, expecting there to be big changes after the September changeover, does anyone else feel like the structure of the lessons has changed?

Posted on: Language Power Struggle

Ewong,

Don't you mean, 絕不說不？

Posted on: Traffic

So any possibilities of taking video a step further and doing a Mandarin soap opera like Japanesepod101?  I'm positive if you did, it would be way more interesting that what they did with their series.

Posted on: Changes on ChinesePod

Josh,

I totally agree that they should provide a basic transcript of the dialogue in the podcast.  While Jenny is in her flow during the recording of the podcast, she brings in a lot of new vocabulary and grammatical structures which are also useful study material.  Ever since the beginning I thought they should give a full transcript, not just a transcript of the dialogue.

Posted on: Death by Ninja

C-pod:

After listening to all the lessons in this series multiple times, I've come to the conclusion that this last part of the series isn't appropriate as part of the "business terms" series.

Consider that this lesson contains absolutely no business related vocabulary whatsoever and in fact only teaches the learner one new word: 忍者, Ninja, which I would venture to say isn't the worlds most businessy term.

In the beginning this was one of my favorite lessons, but at the time I wasn't examining it from an educational standpoint, only looking at it from an entertainment standpoint. 

The thing is, with Peter's untimely end so ends our Chinesepod users education of valuable business related vocabulary, and yet OUR NEED TO LEARN MORE lives on.

Consider that business is one of the central reason why, over the last 25 years China has developed so quickly and doing business with China will be the single most important reason that Westerners want to learn Chinese over the foreseeable future. 

There is still a wealth of business left to do, and I'm afraid this series only scratches the surface. 只是蜻蜓点水而已.

I feel like those who had a hand in the creation of this series and the final episode were just plain getting tired of all the boring business terms and jargon and wanted to get onto something more entertaining, so why not kill of boring old Peter, which was in essence, killing off the the boring old business series.

Hey, I'm all for having fun, I love my entertainment way more than the next guy, but we need to balance things a with a little bit of practicality here.

My suggestion is to start a new series, one that will be ongoing.  One that won't end when a C-pod staff member leaves the company, or when someone decides that business related curriculum is stuffy and humdrum.  How about creating a new character and following his excursion into China, erecting his own company?

We can follow him from his first phone calls to the Chinese provincial officials inquiring about land and permits, to his plane ride over to survey many locations in China to his interaction with the locals, to dinners with locals as well as the officials who will give him the green light for his project. 

We can be there with him when he flirts with some cute Chinese girls and exchanges phone numbers. We can be a fly on the wall of the restaurant while he wines and dines some of his OTHER important prospects.

We will be a distinguished guest as he presents his plans to the local provincial officials, even when they reject his plans, and ask for everything to be redrafted.

We can see him through his process of renegotiation's in his quest to make his dreams of China fortunes a realty.

We can see him finally break ground in his new venture, and be there as new employees are hired, trained and supervised in their new positions. 

We can be filling our cups from the water cooler when the unruly ones in the company flit around, trash-talking their employer's lack of understanding how business gets done in China.  We can listen in to these gossip-mongers as they whisper back and forth about fellow employees.

We can see the bad seeds finally flushed out and new-hires, bright eyed and full of enthusiasm, determined to work their way up the Corporate ladder to a high position in this foreign-owned but fast-growing firm are hired, promoted and become successful executives.

We can feel the same growing pains as our beloved expat as the company begins to expand, but meets with many trials and challenges, and see how this stranger in a strange land problem-solves to keep his company on the right track, all the while greatly deepening his (and simultaneously our) knowledge of the business and culture of China and the Chinese people.

This series really could go on forever, giving us ample opportunities to learn a great variety of vocabulary and cultural insights, while all the while being anchored in the world of business.

Let me know what you think C-pod.

Posted on: Traffic

I love it!  AWESOME!!!  实在是太精彩了！

Posted on: On Location at the Beijing 2008 Olympics

Dedsall78:

Your Friday, August 29, 2008 picture is exactly how Beijing looked the entire time I was there.  I never ever saw Beijing look like the second picture.

I liked Beijing so well, I e-mailed all my friends while I was there about how cool the vibe was.

I want to go back really soon.

Posted on: On Location at the Beijing 2008 Olympics

Cassielin, 不好意思，你写的这个句子，“你的中文说的很好”，好像带着微小的一个错误。你把”得“ 错当成，”的“。我的一个笔友也是，她从来没有用过，“得” 这个字，我不知道为什么，这是什么样的现象呢？ 就像年轻中国人都忽视，“得” 这个字。

Posted on: Language Power Struggle

a1pi2:

My best advice to you is to pend judgement until you know a lot more about the Chinese people than you do now.  I looked at your profile, your language level is Newbie, so because of that I'm making the assumption that your knowledge of the Chinese culture is also at a Newbie level. 

To many others who've posted on this string,

I'm a bit surprised and also disconcerted about how many negative comments have been made about Chinese people who go out of their way to shower compliments on a foreigners Chinese.

Comments like, "If my first "你好" is greeted with flowery compliments about the beauty and skill of my Chinese, this is at least annoying, and possibly offensive."

and, "when I use Chinese to a Chinese person, they so often answer in English, "Your Chinese is very good." Is answering in English a hint that my Chinese is not very good?"

and also, "The line that gets me in this is the 'I think Chinese is very difficult for you'. That one always really stings me. You know it isn't meant but can't dismiss the overtones of 'I think you're really stupid' or 'Contrary to what I just said your Chinese, in fact, sucks.'"

I'm having a very difficult time understanding what all the suspicion is about.  I've asked many Chinese people why OTHER Chinese people go out of their way to be so compimentary so quickly and they all say the same thing, it's for encouragement. 

Remember, Chinese people aren't really used to foreigners speaking their language.  Whenever they come across with someone who can speak EVEN A LITTLE BIT of Chinese, they get very excited.  I personally think it's cute.  I enjoy it.

It's much better than our American attitude that everyone in the entire world needs to speak our language, and if they don't then they're worthless.

I co-hosted a Chinese New Years event with a guy who lived in Beijing for 6 years, his Mandarin was excellent.  He and I got talking about 大山 (Da Shan, AKA: Mark Rowswell) and he said how much he HATED it when the Chinese people would hear him speak Chinese and say, "Do you know Da Shan?  Your Chinese is better than his!"

He ranted and raved saying, "I HHHHAAAAATTTEEE IT when people compare me to Da Shan, I'm like...hello...I'm NOT Da Shan!"

There is a young white guy working to break into the entertainment industry in China, he even went so far as to write a song called, "我不是大山” (I'm not Da Shan).

I don't understand why people would have a problem with being compared to Da Shan.  It's probably the ultimate compliment that a Chinese person can give you. 

When Chinese people say great a marvelous things about your Chinese, like, "你的中文怎么说得这么好呢？" and "你知道大山吗？你的中文说得比大山好！"，when you feel that they don't know enough about you or your Chinese level to be able to make that assumption, I would just take it in the spirit of which it's intended...as simple encouragement.

Perhaps we Westerners need to stop being so jaded.