User Comments - zhenlijiang

Posted on: Farewell, Son 游子吟

hi pete, 大家好，

骆宾王's 咏鹅 was the first poem our beginners class teacher had us learn, and i will never forget how it goes because she had us repeat it gazillions of times over weeks and weeks. i can see that it wouldn't be particularly suited to cover in PWP, but it is delightful--as are any of the numerous rhymes, riddles and songs that Chinese children learn to recite--to read aloud, and i loved it. for beginners, it's very good pronunciation practice (especially to get your four tones right) to learn even one poem like 咏鹅 by heart and recite hundreds and hundreds of times.

and i agree, it's good to seek recordings by a professional and listen to those too because those people take the performance to another plane, and enormous importance is placed on the art of reciting these poems.

Posted on: My computer froze!

大家好，

the zhi2 character in yizhi as we were taught is written slightly differently from 直, and i would like to show you how exactly but can't seem to get it displayed here (or is this only happening on my computer?).

there seems to be no reference to this in this lesson, which i find strange. it should be noted somewhere, in the vocab section probably, especially for the newer learners not yet familiar with hanzi.  when they inevitably come across 一直(with the different zhi, which i can't get to show here) they should be able to recognize it as a term they've already learned.

Posted on: All the Things You Can Hit: 打 (dǎ)

a couple (would these be considered collocations or compounds? or collocations that became compounds?) that came to mind:

打听 da3ting1       to make an inquiry.

you could say to someone 打听一下，这附近有邮局吗？da3ting1  yi1xia4,  zhe4fu4jin4  you3  you2ju2  ma?      Excuse me, is there a post office around here?

跟某人打听道儿    gen1  mou3ren2  da3ting1  daor4      ask someone the way (somewhere)

打扰 da3rao3  /  打搅 da3jiao3      to disturb someone (not sure about the distinctions between the two).

请勿打扰 qing3wu4  da3rao3     Please Do not Disturb, as in those cards you can hang on your hotel door

打搅您了。  da3jiao3  nin2 le      (when you're done "disturbing" someone and are letting them go)    I'm sorry to have bothered you.

just want to add, i cannot get over how well organized Chinesepod is!  looking for a Chinese teacher who can address questions in English (there are enough people who tell you they can) proved futile in Japan, but the situation here is pretty close to ideal.  i take lessons from teachers who speak Japanese and will continue to, as that's also extremely beneficial, but certain expressions just "click" better or translate better word for word than explained in Japanese and this makes studying more fun.  so glad to have this kind of resource, and learn from so many 非常fei1chang2    认真的ren4zhen1 de 同学们tong2xue2men.

Posted on: Hungry Traveler: Hong Kong

sorry this is already old but i just came across and couldn't resist trying:

中国人是什么都敢吃。天上飞的除了飞机，地上跑的除了汽车，水里游的除了潜艇，四条腿的除了桌子，两条腿的除了梯子，一概通吃。中国人不但敢吃，还很会吃。

The Chinese will eat anything. Everything that flies but airplanes, everything that runs but cars, everything in the water but submarines, everything with four legs but tables and everything with two legs but ladders--the Chinese will not only eat all these, they really know how to.

the little scary reference to cannibalism aside, 法国人也是这样吧。