User Comments - zhenlijiang

Posted on: A Qing Wen to Our Listeners

Ah if only I had a careful personality! Was simply clueless and in need of help here. 谢谢！

Posted on: A Disgusting Man

Yes, the vocab 又丰富又有用!

Posted on: A Qing Wen to Our Listeners

Hi Tingyun, 好久没见 and thanks for your help! I don't know really just why I had so much difficulty attaching 第一个 to a person. "First time", and things I've been entirely comfortable with. But it's just a 第一 (first) and the Measure Word--what else could it be? After all we say 一个人 so of course we should be able to say 第一个 +person.

What a relief, not to have to panic about this any more. So much for that QW suggestion!

Thank you too Jiaojie.

Posted on: A Qing Wen to Our Listeners

This may not be something that takes a whole QingWen. Even now after years of Chinese language study I don't really know how to say "first" as in "my first Chinese teacher", the first Chinese teacher I ever had. How do we say that?

Posted on: The Kindle

OK I've gone and taken a closer look now, don't know how I missed the first half of the sentence before. But so it’s 这个在国内买不到，我是托朋友从国外买的。 I'm having a friend buy it outside the country for me.

Still can be either of two possibilities. 1) They're looking at the actual thing the friend got from some other country. 2) They're looking at a picture of the thing in a magazine, catalogue, etc.

Maybe the problem is that the tense of “I'm having a friend buy it” is ambiguous. It could mean that you intend to ask your friend to buy it, in which case I agree that wouldn't be 我是托朋友从国外买的. It could mean that you've already asked your friend and he's agreed to get the thing for you, as I thought it meant here. Perhaps it's more likely that most people would first assume the former?

In any case I‘m not arguing that the translation shouldn't be changed to “I had a friend buy it ~”. Just thought this discussion was needed to make the answer to Rob's question more complete.

Posted on: Is China Scary?

Zhang Ziyi 章子怡, actress

Posted on: Discussing Old Jobs

噢谢谢。是，当这些方面的意义中国和其他国家肯定不一样吧，所以提问题的时候用英语写的，其实是希望 John 或者 Greg 从外国人的观点能来谈一下。没准备突然要客观地谈到母国的思维，那应该是不容易的。

虽然所寻找的还没拿到，可以说我对你的回答很满意。呵呵。无所不在，没有边界，而且影响可以很大也可以很小的存在——听到这样的形容有充分的教育意义。

反正我还是认为对话里“无党派人士”的英文翻译最好改一改。英文表示的不是那种模糊的感觉。

我当然不愿意闹事，不愿意给你们压力。 ”入党“这个话题有些 taboo 的话，不能说出的就不说出或者婉言提就好了吧。我们用户大多数连很基本的事情都不知道。

我中文水平低到（“到”这个说法是模仿台湾电视剧的。大陆不太说吧。）每次花半天儿才能写完这样挺简单的内容啊。以词典为好友！是我的口号。

那期待“BST - Joining the Party”啊。一定会受欢迎！

Posted on: The Kindle

Mmm but so isn't the 托 in the past in any case? I think this is a sentence that can be interpreted two ways. Maybe you're saying that the more likely interpretation, and therefore a translation less likely to raise questions, is that the speaker is talking about some thing that is already in his possession. These expansion sentences have no context. I still think this one can fit into a context where there is a standing agreement between friends, a promise, and the goods haven't yet been delivered. The friend doesn't even have to be overseas yet.

Or is this something about 托 I'm not understanding fully?

Posted on: The Kindle

Hi, why are you fixing it? There are two possible interpretations--one, that whatever goods are already in the speaker's possession, and two, that the friend has agreed to buy the goods overseas and has yet to return from the trip and/or deliver = speaker is currently still waiting for the goods (present progressive). So the translation given is good. Interpreted the other way it would be ”I had a friend get these (it) for me overseas“. Both correct.

The speaker asked the friend, and the friend agreed. That's what has already happened.

Posted on: Playing Mahjong

About being able to see Jenny and John recording this lesson, have to say I'm also finding it more distracting than helpful, and kind of awkward (not that I don't think it's a treat) as is.
There was the comment that John seemed a bit nervous. Others mentioned how they'd always pictured Jenny and John seated and were surprised to see them standing as they recorded the lesson. Guess I felt the same way.
I recalled a discussion on the boards a couple of years ago--I forget where--in which a poddie mentioned that you could hear the podcast presenters (Connie I believe it was, to be specific) smiling. And John replied that that was actually something the CPod hosts were doing deliberately, to be really smiling eyes and all (you can make yourself feel happy by making your facial expression happy, right? something like that) as they recorded, because it makes a difference that the listeners will hear.

Jenny and John have been recording audio lessons together for a long time now and how they work and their presentation have evolved and been fine-tuned into their current style, which obviously works very well for the audio lessons. I think because it's second nature for them to speak so clearly for our benefit, it doesn't add anything for me to see their faces in terms of lip-reading (even more so as audio and visual aren't in synch) or better listening comprehension; I'm with Baba on this. I've already been hearing them as well as I possibly could. Seeing their facial expressions and body language would be helpful in understanding--if they were 1) appearing to engage more with each other and spontaneously as people do in easy, natural banter, 2) engaging more with viewers through the camera, as another user has also mentioned, or 3) both.
But they weren't, not in a visually obvious way anyhow. The main irritant and surprise really for me other than John's face being obscured so much of the time was that the hosts held their notes up in their hands. I guess that's how they're used to doing things, just that it isn't a good visual. At least a stand to prop the notes up on would have been better (best if the paper just stays out of our view), because that would free up their hand for much better body language. And as it is now their eye-line so frequently dropped to look at the notes (not saying they shouldn't use notes. just saying it's a bit irritating to watch the frequent loss of the eye-line, and it results in starving us viewers of eye contact whether between each other or also with us).
And considering how important John had said smiling was, he seemed significantly less smiley anyway than I had imagined. Jenny smiled a bit more than John I think, she generally looked more comfortable and in her element. Yes I realize this is the first venture. And how different it must be from recording an audio lesson when you aren't going to be watched doing it. 
But this is also why you need a director for any video shoot, even the most dry "demo" types of video. The same person can often be both cameraman and director, but you can't not have a director.

I guess there's going to be a decision, if these recording studio visuals are going to be included in future video lessons, whether the hosts are to engage with the viewers at all or not. I don't think there's a choice with regard to the hosts seeming to engage with each other more. And even their height difference I found quite distracting, at that angle and framing anyway. That's why I think it would be much better if they could be seated across from each other or even on adjacent sides of a table, with the mic well out of the way and their notes flat on the table surface, both hands free to flow with the gestures. Coffee mugs too, if it turns out that such props indeed help the hosts look relaxed and easy in each other's company. In other words, like a radio show recording. And there's always the option not to include these visuals. It may just not be worth the trouble, may be vain and silly, to make Jenny and John change their whole tested-and-true routine just to appear like smiley radio show personalities on camera.

Of course as a user I can opt to not look and just listen, for the hosts' banter. But I wonder if the residual image of the awkward scene may now affect the way I hear the audio podcasts, now that I know how the hosts are doing this--quite different from the more relaxed, spontaneous sort of radio talk show scene we had for so long in our minds.

I can see how video would make a lot possible and that's very good. I'm thinking primarily demonstration-type things, like showing how to prepare a dish, write hanzi, go through a yoga or taijiquan sequence rather than skits and drama and altercations (however if you do have the capacity and resources, by all means bring it on!).
Having said that this little skit was short, sweet and unfussy and I did thoroughly enjoy seeing Connie act (not shy, is she!). Cute haircut.
Finally I'd like to add that I too am happy about this new dimension of CPod educational content, not trying to be discouraging. Hopefully poddies giving feedback here don't have to apologize for being bashers just because they have something other than a rave 10/10 review to contribute.
～我的两份～