User Comments - zhenlijiang

Posted on: "Thinking" in Chinese: 觉得 (juéde), 认为 (rènwéi) and 以为 (yǐwéi)

She said 其实 qíshí, which must be a very common way to say "actually" in informal conversation. The podcast hosts say it all the time, at least in the Intermediate level.

Posted on: Toothache

No problem! Having been here awhile has its uses. Many discussions in CPod's history are so valuable. I would presume that even if our old-timer teachers could also recall and retrieve as easily as I can, they'd be mostly uncomfortable with linking to or quoting from old discussions in lieu of answering a student's question directly--even if the comments in such a discussion add up to what they may consider the best, well-rounded response possible. And teachers need to be more thorough and careful than helpful users too, to answer questions accurately and well. It is a lot of work.

So I kind of feel like it's up to us users who do remember, to bring up good stuff from the past.

Posted on: Second-hand Bicycle

oops led you astray there, sorry. 泥轰, ni-hong = 日本？我没见到过这个，是火星语吗？

Posted on: Second-hand Bicycle

我猜徐洲说的是“帖”。 Close like brothers.

Posted on: Toothache

In addition to the above, this discussion is also helpful:

http://chinesepod.com/lessons/foot-therapy#comment-145432

I've been here about two years now and have seen many discussions on this (the 痛/疼 question is asked frequently, I think every time a lesson dialogue includes these words). I went to the Glossary and ran a search for 痛. That brings up many sample sentences. Some of those are from the Dialogues, others from Expansion. The little green arrow over at the right edge is a link to the lesson the sentence appeared in. That's how I retrieved this discussion (open the collapsed Older replies too!).

Posted on: Blind Massage

Thanks istara!

"Empowerment" is one of those words (because its higher profile in these contexts is new, I guess) that can't be easily translated. I know exactly what it is, and can't find a Japanese counterpart. It's probably one of those terms--because the whole concept has to be introduced to our society--that gets added, at least initially, to our lexicon as a transliteration. We can do that in Japanese, just deal with the phonetics, in 片假名 (カタカナ katakana).

How would you say this in Chinese?

Posted on: Toothache

Helps shed light on 太吓人了！ Nice pic.

Posted on: Toothache

I've found issues in Managing Lessons, with adding labels in Chinese. Haven't tried to do anything in Chinese with Vocab, however I have typed in my own notes in both English and Japanese, which I find very helpful. Strange isn't it, if the system won't take our Chinese notes?

Posted on: Blind Massage

Thanks for that; it's good to be reminded of this remarkable woman Sabriye Tenberken. The first time I heard her story and the story of the blind kids in Tibet whose world she was changing, I was about a year in my Mandarin studies. It shamed me with my lazy unfocused ways. I thought, I will never ever again complain that Mandarin is too difficult. If I want to achieve I just need to commit, work harder, want it more. There's no obstacle except my own lack of will.

Posted on: Nothing more than 而已 (eryi) and 罢了 (bale)

Hi, trying to fit Mandarin into English patterns is a bad habit I need to break of course, but in English it's not strange for instance to say something like, "It's only a rumor, that's all". In that sense this pattern doesn't feel strange to me.

Not sure about your sentences, sorry. Hope you get a good reply!