User Comments - zhenlijiang

Posted on: Upcoming lessons, lots of Chinese and a "jia you!"

boy Baba we're not helping our brains wake up are we. You and I need to find and talk to people who disagree with us!

Posted on: Upcoming lessons, lots of Chinese and a "jia you!"

Hey thanks for that! I agree with Barbara Strauch that middle age is a long period; I consider 中年 to start at 35 rather than 40 though, and go to around 65.

This part of the interview was particularly interesting to me:

Q. What about activities like learning to play an instrument or learning a foreign language?

A. The studies on this are slim. We’ve all been told to do crossword puzzles. Learning a foreign language, walking a different way to work, all that is an effort to make the brain work hard. And it’s true we need to make our brains work hard. One of the most intriguing findings is that if you talk to people who disagree with you, that helps your brain wake up and refine your arguments and shake up the cognitive egg, which is what you want to do.

Posted on: Upcoming lessons, lots of Chinese and a "jia you!"

This needs to be thought through. I won't do anything until I have a much better idea. I guess I was thinking zhongnian poddies could commiserate and trade stories of their experiences learning this foreign language (many of us have started as zhongnian); I think we have struggles an 18-year-old student doesn't. But we do do this already I realize, without needing any compartmentalization or special assistance. We just need to explain our cultural references to the younger people from time to time!

Posted on: A Tour of the Office

啊 You're so gracious! And me presumptuous. 不好意思了。Very much appreciated Jason.

Posted on: A Tour of the Office

Yes this was a very easy Intermediate--not that that's necessarily bad! It just felt a bit like when you go clothes shopping and discover that whatever brand it is they've reorganized their sizing so that now according to them you're a 0 or 1, when you were perfectly happy as a 2 or 4.

Anyway. （＾ｖ＾）  From the Expansion sentences:

现在是四点半，离下班还有一个半小时。
It's 4:30 right now. There's still an hour and a half until the work is finished.

I often find something simple such as this very difficult to express, so this was really good to learn. You can say 离~还有 (length of time)！

下班 shouldn't be translated though as the work is finished. the work I especially would not say (guess Jason didn't do this one). It would be better English to say something like "There's still an hour and a half to go before we get to go home", or "There's still an hour and a half to go before we get off work"--to use the rollover translation for 下班 there. To cover for the possibility that the speaker is talking about someone else's 下班 (we don't know for sure that they're talking about themselves), maybe "There's still an hour and a half to go before the end of the workday".

Posted on: Upcoming lessons, lots of Chinese and a "jia you!"

The User Group of the week 中文吧 is a zone in the Community reserved for Chinese only. Hope to see everybody there sometime! Learners of all levels and native speakers of course are welcome.

Very glad (as with last week) to hear this mention in News & Features.

P.S.  If I found a new group "中年吧" will many fellow 中年 join--?

Posted on: What do Foreigners Like?

A year ago in this discussion I believe I said that the term laowai and the Japanese ガイジン（外人）gaijin are pretty much equivalent, and I want to amend--I do think gaijin is worse. And of course I don't know what it's like to be on the receiving end of those particular terms, and I never will.

Anyway it doesn't matter really does it, what is "widely considered OK/offensive". If the person before you doesn't like it, if he asks you not to, don't do it. Simple, right?

Posted on: Requesting a Fork

Hi jiangcheng1985 I'm not being impatient, I'm saying that it's better, for native speakers of any language when they notice slang or other words being used not very correctly by foreign learners, to say something--it's unhelpful to remain silent. That's why we are telling you here, it's a good thing for you to know. And of course learners of foreign languages always want to know how to "sound more natural and fluent, like the native speakers"; we are the same way with our Chinese.

Like Orangina points out yes we sometimes use it, but it's tricky esp for learners. I personally think grownups generally just do not say "wanna", much less write it, except deliberately to make fun of people who talk like that maybe.

Look at all the people talking on these discussion boards. Most of our comments are friendly and informal. But how often can you find the native English speakers here using "wanna"?

Posted on: Requesting a Fork

I notice the same thing with Korean young people too. I think it's good to let them know we don't use "wanna" as often as they seem to think, and that it tends to look silly and disrespectful written.

Posted on: Fog or Smog?

I tend to think there are quite a few things only humans are any good at, probably because I'm old school (and a tech dummy) ...

Of course there's been so much else going on these past few weeks, but did you have plans to announce this important improvement (not sure how long it's been this way now)? I think many of us would have liked to know. Thanks Baba for bringing it up.

In any case it's great, that the multiple choice questions are better now (so the placement tests are also improved I guess?). I look forward to doing the exercises more often.