User Comments - xiaohu
xiaohu
Posted on: Experiencing Agricultural Life
July 8, 2007 at 11:16 PMHey Auntie: Was that really a bad line? I've heard alot worse both in English and in Chinese. RE: Negative feedback, as long as someone is trying to be constructive then I think we should all thrive on negative feedback to help correct our mistakes. HOWEVER if a Chinese person just says: ＂你说的不对＂, or says, “你说得不够好”but doesn't offer a solution on how to say it better I think that kind of negative criticism can kill a persons determination to study the language. While most Chinese people are very supportive, I've run into a few in my time who seem to thrive on pointing out little errors and magnifying them to the point I myself felt a few times like giving up. I'm not really sure why it is there are people like the one's I've described out there?
Posted on: Requesting a Glass of Water
July 8, 2007 at 6:17 AMIt's funny because my first teacher taught me to ask for a beverage refill this way, “在给我一点儿。。。（某种饮料）” zai4 gei3 wo3 yi1 dian3 ... Only MUCH later did I learn 请给我 or 再来一杯 By the way...can anyone tell me how to type tone marks? I see Ambers post with those nifty tone marks and I'm stuck with these substandard tone numbers.
Posted on: Experiencing Agricultural Life
July 6, 2007 at 7:01 PMHuibert, I really think we do need a variety of lessons focusing on improving different aspects of language. Even though it seems old fashioned, I think drills are good to learn set patterns in a language that keeps your sentence structure clean and authentic. One could theoretically have a very advanced vocabulary and great pronunciation but not have a good command of the FEELING of the Chinese language and always sound artificial to the Chinese persons ears. I can't tell you how many times I've said something in Chinese that seems authentic to me and my Chinese friends say, "I understand but we would NEVER say it that way". For example, my first Chinese teacher would always say, "together with" IE: "Tonight would you like to go to a restaurant and dine together with me?" here is a perfect example of the, I UNDERSTAND BUT WOULD NEVER SAY IT THAT WAY syndrome. The native English speaker would say something more like, "Do you want to go out and get something to eat tonight?" I'm not one who believes entirely in learning by process of osmosis, (although it definately helps to reinforce what you learn), I think the weak point of a lot of language learning systems is in this area. They figure we'll just pick up the language patterns by hearing other people use them, which to a degree is true, but if one is always thinking about how to say things in the mother tongue and then directly translating that into the second language they will always speak like a foreigner. Each language has it's own unique patterns, colloquialisms, slang etc. So there is a need for lessons that focus in on correcting common mistakes of this nature. I wonder if Chinese Pod will ever bring this kind of lessons to us? Maybe call it the, "I understand but would never say it that way series"?
Posted on: Condoms
July 5, 2007 at 3:28 AMDusty, I don't know why you're saying it sounds like "biyungtao", it sounds very standard to me. But sometimes this sound borders on sounding like, "yin". However there is no "yung" sound in Mandarin, if your confused on the sounds you can always look at this page: chinesepod.com/pronunciation it has all the sounds that exist in Mandarin all in one place.
Posted on: Chinese Wedding Customs
July 5, 2007 at 1:08 AMHi JohnT and LongFei, Yeah, learning Chinese is more difficult than you thought. I had these great dreams of being fluent in reading, writing and speaking within 2 years, well obvously I was wrong. I feel the same as Longfei, Chinese has been much harder and even more satisfying and rewarding than I originally thought. Chinese is rated among the few hardest languages in the world to learn so if anyone is even marginally successful at learning it, that's still a pretty monumental feat! I'm 32 and started studying in my late 20's so I don't think your age has anything to do with it, just that Chinese is that difficult. Keep on learning, putting in the extra effort to learn the Mandarin language and having the ability to communicate with the Chinese people is SO WORTH IT!
Posted on: Experiencing Agricultural Life
July 2, 2007 at 6:46 AMDear Ken, I wonder if we might establish a protocol on how to handle it when people digress and the conversation goes completely off topic? Should we then write that in our own personal blogs? I sincerely hope I wasn't a culprit in dishing out personal attacks, however looking back over recent posts perhaps some were of the personal variety. Looking over our recent posts It is baffling why we're arguing so much. One would think that we should all be united in a common goal to help each other better their Chinese. In the predominantly Chinese area of Los Angeles I live I VERY rarely ever see another 老外 who can speak Chinese (I've met only one), and the few people I met through my teacher are never serious about it, they only wanted to learn a few phrases for a trip to China, which there is nothing wrong with that but I always wonder why no one is ever serious about it. Even my teacher said that, other than me, in the nearly 10 years he has been teaching here in America he has never met EVEN ONE student who took it past level one. We have a forum here at Chinese Pod that can allow people passionate about a common subject (Learning this fascinating language) all meet in a common place to help each other further their goals in Chinese. I wonder why we're (myself included), not doing more to help each other and be constructive? Maybe I should start a personal blog on this subject?
Posted on: Studying Japanese
July 2, 2007 at 5:00 AMReika03, RE: "I think it's important to remember that the Japanese government of today and that which hurt China are different and that the Japanese young people of today are not the ones that hurt China either. Every country has something to be ashamed of in its past, but it shouldn't affect relations forever." So true and so well spoken!
Posted on: Experiencing Agricultural Life
July 2, 2007 at 4:43 AMI wonder if amidst the massive wave of deprecation Hennings idea about more info on the voice actors even got heard by the good people here at ChinesePod?
Posted on: Experiencing Agricultural Life
July 1, 2007 at 3:43 PMKen, Jenny, John et al, I think it would be a good idea to have credits for the lessons that we can connect to a bio on Chinese Pod with info on the voice actors backgound, personal information, list of other credits if any. I always liked Zi Heng's voice acting, I myself particularly liked him the very first lesson I listened to and thought, "this guy has a lot of talent and he also has a very likeable, fun attitude," it really helps speed along learning with people like Zi Heng, he truly is, like the dialogue said, ”非常地活泼”！
Posted on: Studying Japanese
July 8, 2007 at 11:45 PMglyph: I completely agree! I studied Japanese for about a year and a half and I was so utterly surprised that not many Japanese people really want foreigners in their camp (so to speak). I tried so many chatrooms to try and improve the level of my fluency in Japanese, and I NEVER used Romaji to chat I only used Hirigana, Katakana and the occasional Kanji, but it's like as soon as I introduced myself as an American they just shut completely down! they would talk with each other but would not talk to me. I'd go to little Tokyo here in Los Angeles trying to practice my Japanese and besides "Konnichiwa" I couldn't get any Japanese people to speak with me in Japanese. Not only that, but 10-15 years ago here in America, Japan was constantly in the news, stories abounded about how Japan was going to take over the world (economically, not literally), but now the only countries that are in the news are China and India. Japanese products, once hailed as the best in the world are being taken over by Chinese and Korean products. The once laughable 现代 （Korean car manufacturer known as Hyundai), is beginning to overtake the market and being given praise as having a great repair record equal to the big three Japanese car companies. I believe it's only a matter of time when the 中华，car company will begin flooding their cars into The States as they are also comperable to Nissan, Toyota, Honda and Hyundai. 3 years ago one of my coworkers chided me about learning Chinese, he asked, "why are you learning a useless language like Chinese? Everybody knows Japanese is the international business language, Japan is a first world country and China is a backward third world country." Now here three years later he's completely turned around and recently came to me and asked, "so what are you planning on doing with your Chinese? It seems to me that Chinese is the new Japanese and there are endless opportunities for employment." Yes, it seems Japan is determined to completely dissapear from the radar and China is determined to become the #1 country in the world, so when people ask me, "why are you studying Chinese?", I just in turn ask them..."don't you watch the news?" You can't go ONE DAY without another story about the fact that China's economy is the fastest growing in the world!