User Comments - xiaohu

Posted on: 磁悬浮

Jenny,

In defense of Dave, I do think that if a student if frustrated with a teaching method of his instructors, and is voicing his opinions about it, that you should listen and respond.  It doesn't matter if he's wrapped his comments up in a nice big red bow of polite please and thank yous, or if he's gone off on an emotional tangent, the point is that he's offering up constructive criticism which you may perhaps want to take into account and incorporate into future lessons.

If you don't want to incorporate what he says into lessons then that's obviously up to you, but it seems to me that you didn't want to respond because you felt insulted, not because his opinions had no merit.

Your refusal to post a reply to his comments I think was a mistake.  Further on down in the postings, Clay appears to defend your methods, but Dave wasn't speaking to Clay, Dave was speaking directly to Jenny.  I felt the site would have been better served if Jenny herself had made an appearance to offer up some additional insights and clarifications into Chinesepod's teaching methods, and, who knows maybe other Chinesepod users may have benefited from this insight.

To the rest of the C-pod users,

I don't think Dave should be demonized just because he's frustrated.  There's nothing wrong with asking for a little structure to help accelerate the learning process.

Now...let's get back to learning Chinese!

Posted on: Sales Call

michaelhoyincheung:

I just thought it would be good practice to know how to say some sales oriented vocabulary, and it can be applied my many people to many facets of life.  If nothing else we will all know how to ask in Chinese , "Is this a sales call"?  And thereafter know how to politely decline a salespersons offer.  Jenny said her number was sold to nearby real estate agents and she's constantly getting sales calls, so this type of vocabulary can teach people who live in China how to deal with these types of calls.

Consider you just arrived home to your apartment in Beijing, the phone rings, you pick it up and it's a telephone salesman's call.

You: Hello?

Telemarketer: Hello is this the Feng residence?

You: Yes it is, who may I ask is speaking?

Telemarketer: This is Jia Yi Liang from the Zhong Hua Telecommunications Company how are you this evening sir?

You: Fine, is this a sales call?

Telemarketer: Yes sir, we are letting all the local residents know about our new product offerings.

You: Okay.

Telemarketer: Zhong Hua Telecom is currently installing a Fiber Optic network in your area allowing us to deliver ultra high speed internet and long distance and local calling at a very low rate.  Are you happy with your current phone and internet service sir?

You: Yes I am happy with them but if you could offer me a lower rate and better service I might be open to switching.

Telemarketer: Great, would you be available in the next week for a representative to come by with some brochures and information about our new products and services?

You: I would prefer that you not come by in person because I am rarely home, but you're welcome to email me any information you like about your new services.  My e-mail address is fengdewei@163.com.  Also I would prefer doing everything through e-mail, so there is no need for you to make a follow up call.  After I look over the information, if I'm interested I will contact you back, okay?

Telemarketer: That's fine sir.

You: Okay thanks for calling.

Telemarketer: Have a good night sir.

You: You too!

So we see, perhaps learning this kind of vocabulary may be useful after all!

Posted on: Sales Call

Yeah definately, an Intermediate or Upper Intermediate podcast would be great!

I know you guys already did a lesson about a salesman but the Telemarketing lesson could be completely different, maybe it could be a group of Telemarketers in a marketing meeting strategizing how to introduce their line of products, how to counter peoples objections, how to SELL!

It's one new telemarketers training day and he starts making calls, only to find rude people hanging up on him right and left, until he finally makes his first sale.

This could be a whole series!

Heh, heh, I wonder what the trailer would sound like?

Fade into Praxis logo

Fade in title:

"A Praxis/Carroll Production"

"A Paston/Zhu Podcast

(Cue music, enter booming voice)

Podcasting from somewhere in Shanghai China, not anywhere close to you. In a world of endless rejections and no's...one telemarketer pushed to the edge will finally vent...his...rage! 

Creepy Phone Voice: That's the last NO I'm gonna take from you, now.......IT'S PERSONAL!

(Trailer guy voice) Armed ...only with a headset and a smart mouth! HE...will push the boundries of human patience...TO THE LIMIT!!!

(Cue creepy music)

Creepy Voice: Hello...is this Mr Feng?

Mr. Feng: Yes...but I already told you, I'm not interersted!

Creepy Voice: Mr. Feng...you only have SEVEN... DAYS...LEFT!

Mr. Feng desperately slams the phone back on the receiver.

(loud CRASH!)

(Music stops abruptly, sound of dial tone, turns to busy signal, beep beep beep beep)

Fade in to Mr. Feng curled up in the fetal position, sweating profusely, on the edge of tears, frantically hyperventolating...

(Sound of creepy laughter, cue booming bass heavy music)

Mr. Feng: I...I...I don't want any....I'm not interested! 我没有兴趣，真的没有兴趣！

Creepy Voice: Mr. Feng, you only have 7 days left, or YOUR...limited time offer...will...EXPIRE!!!

(Music stops abruptly...cue sound of heartbeat, thump thump, thump thump, thump thump)

Fade In, close up shot of Mr. Feng lying on his back surrounded by thousands of ringing phones...RING, RING, RING, RING...

Mr. Feng: Why? Why do you keep calling me...为什么？(Screaming) 为什么???!!!

Creeply Voice: Because, you don't want any...

(Booming trailer guy voice)

This summer...don't...answer...your PHONE!

(Creepy squealing music getting higher and higher pitched, stops abruptly with a BANG!)

(Fade in title)

Limited time offer!

(Booming trailer guy voice)

Rated NNUL2, no Newbies under level two admitted without translator.

So what to you think?

Hmmm, right, maybe we should write a romantic comedy instead!

Okay...cue light hearted FUN ANNOUNCER GUY VOICE...

(Cue upbeat orchestral score)

Coming this summer to an I-phone near you...one Telemarketer will finally find the woman of his dreams, the one woman in a million who says, "I'm interested"

Chinese Woman: (on the phone) Huh, "Oh really?  It does all that? Listen do you think you can give me your speal in person over coffee at 星巴克?

Phone Voice: Really?  You are you sure you wouldn't rather hang up on me hastilly and angrilly, maybe nastilly or even forcefully?

Chinese Woman: Nope, I want you to show me ALL you have to offer...BIG GUY!

Leonard Maltin raves: "This film had me at HELLO... Is this the Feng residence?"

Gene Shallot raves: "We're ALL interested".

This summer, get ready to push 下载 and let the laughter and love begin.

Jenny Zhu and Bazza star in:

Fade in title

We're Eating Dinner Right Now, Call Back Later.

Sorry, phone sales humor ;)

Posted on: Good Morning!

Josedwin,

Hi my user name is Xiao Hu.  If you want to we can learn Chinese together.  You can e-mail me through my profile if you have any questions about Chinese, or post them here on the boards, I'll be happy to help.

Good luck with your studies!

Xiao Hu

Posted on: Sales Call

Being that I myself AM of those annoying people who call you, I feel for the poor sales person, just trying to do their job and getting treated like that!

Hey at least I'm only calling back people who inquire about our products FIRST!

The worst are the people who forget they inquired in the first place and just because you had the "audacity" to call their number they get all bent out of shape and hang up on you! 

Learn some manners people!

You never know who you might be hanging up on people, it might be your friendly Chinesepod language partner.

But I digress...

Since we've raised the topic, I have some questions related to sales vocabulary.

In Chinese, how would one say:

Warm leads

Cold leads

Cold calling

Follow up calls

Sales call

Telephone sales (telemarketing)

Marketing

Inside sales

Outside sales

Product demonstration

Market Analysis

(So much sales-ey language today...well I guess this is the forum for it huh?)

After today everyone will know how to ask, "is this a sales call?"

BTW: Jenny, I swear when you said "Xian Sheng" it sounded alot like "Xian Shen".

Posted on: Good Morning!

Wo hen hao!

Especially because this is the first of the re-recorded older lessons I've ever heard.  GREAT JOB GUYS!  The sound quality is crystal clear and it feels just like the other lessons, not sticking out like a sore thumb like the older lessons tended to do.

VERY COOL!

Posted on: Fortunate Cookies

Over here in LA we have a popular morning radio show, and they're always doing stupid sketches, which of course I'm a big fan of, the sillier the better.

One of the DJ's got a fortune that was very unusual and disconcerting, because it was NEGATIVE.

They were trying to get the the bottom of the fortune cookie connundrum by calling the company that makes the fortune cookies, of course the guy answering was an actor pretending to be Chinese and then procedes to bash all the "stupid gwei lo" 鬼佬 because they don't know anything about Chinese culture. 

Pretty ironic that most Chinese have never heard of Fortune Cookies.  (Ha ha!) Maybe before they write another sketch concerning Chinese, they'd better do some research first.

So I didn't quite catch the "default" term for Restaurants in China because Jenny stepped on John's line.  Is it 饭店 or 饭馆 or 菜馆?

Posted on: Microsoft

Has anyone else heard that Bill Gates just retired to run his charitable organization with his wife?

Posted on: Baseball

The translation of the sentence is, "What position have you played"? 

The meaning of guo4 in this case is to indicate that you have done something in the past.

EG: Ni3 zhu4 guo4 shen2 me5 cheng2 shi4? (What cities have you lived in?)

wo3 zhu4 guo4 luo4 shan1 ji1 he2 niu2 yue1. (I've lived in Los Angeles and New York)

I hope that helps.

Posted on: Regional Accents Part II

I love this series! The study of different accents is really fascinating. I think it's very important for all of our friends out there learning Mandarin to be well equipped from the very beginning to understand different accents. In fact, different accents is something that tripped me up for years, I could understand the standard Beijing Mandarin just fine, but maybe someone from Taiwan saying the very same sentence in their Taiwanese accent was lost on me, it's a very strange phenomenon. Keep this series coming! It also might help to throw in some 北方话 because of the popularity of 赵本山。 北方话 is in many ways different from the standard 北京普通话, in that they don't use nearly as much 卷舌, however they use a lot of 儿话音. Maybe even explore some of their colloquial sayings. I remember a lesson a couple of years ago with LeGuan and Jenny in which they explored a lot of different accents, and 北方话 was one of those. However that series just explored it without analyzing it, I like how this series is analyzing the differences and letting the listener know what to watch out for. Anyway, keep it up Jenny, John and the rest of the C-Pod crew!