User Comments - lorean
lorean
Posted on: Studying Japanese
June 25, 2007 at 9:00 AMLeeInEngland, The amount of ambivalence Chinese have towards Japan is just amazing. In Beijing I met a 1st year Japanese language major. When she told me she hates the Japanese, my head wanted to explode. Most Japanese language majors will tell you they hate Japan. They will tell you this with as much conviction the average North American has announcing he's Catholic, Protestant, (insert flavour here). A lot of these students dream of getting on an exchange to Japan. Getting a job in Japan. etc... This whole country (China) officially hates Japan. Yet they drive Japanese cars; go to Japanese stores; go to Japanese restaurants; watch Japanese cartoons. Their ambivalence astounds me.
Posted on: Where Children Come From
June 3, 2007 at 3:05 AMConstructive suggestions: Why not let users also grade lessons on difficulty? Since users can indicate their Chinese level, their input can produce a weighted score. For example, for elementary lessons and using a 5 star system. 1.5 + Upper Intermediate score +1 + Intermediate score +0 + Elementary score -1 + Newbie score Alternatively, the scores could be segregated by difficulty to produced a graph of scores for each level. E.g. Upper Intermediate: * --------Intermediate: ** ----------Elementary: *** ---------------Newbie: *****
Posted on: Where Children Come From
June 3, 2007 at 2:46 AM"Speaking of the ban on Wikipedia in China, the Golden Shield Project ( Great Firewall of China) would make a great topic for a lesson!" Dave, good idea. Take pictures when the SS show up at the recording studio okay? When you upload them to Chinesepod, don't forget to tag "chinesepod".
Posted on: Chinese Wedding Customs
May 19, 2007 at 8:05 AMGuiller, do you mean like the recent vocab repetition across podcasts, and the two story arcs 张亮和丽丽 + Canadian Businessman?
Posted on: Chinese Wedding Customs
May 19, 2007 at 5:06 AMLantian, great transcript. Here are the mistakes I found in the first part (changes in brackets): 就是全(说)中文。。。(97% sure she says 说 not 是) 但是哪，（其实）喝喜酒的。。。 咱们（赶）快去喝吧。。。
Posted on: Chinese Wedding Customs
May 19, 2007 at 4:42 AMHey, first this is an amazing 5-star lesson. What cpod does with 白头偕老 is really clever: repeating it 3 times in the dialog. Chinese sayings are particularly difficult for me to remember. But by listening to the dialog over 25 times, I've heard the same phrase at least 75 times. I encourage cpod to continue using difficult vocabulary multiple times in the same dialog. I don't want intermediate level speech retarded in any way. As an English teacher, I know that by not speaking at my normal speed, my intonation and rhythm become alien. As a Chinese student, I don't want to actively learn retarded speech.
Posted on: Lili and Zhang Liang 13: A Dad Gives Advice to a Broken-Hearted Son
April 28, 2007 at 3:16 AMPlease remove the opening advertising "chinesepod.com", and the closing bell sound from the dialog-only files. I load the dialog files onto my iPod and listen to them while on the bus, waiting for a friend, etc... Sometimes for upwards of an hour a day. Since the length of a dialog is 1 minute on average, I will get to hear "chinesepod.com" at least 60 times. 听腻了. I respect your right to self advertise. However, the dialog clips are only available to paying subscribers, and I am a paying subscriber, it is pointless to advertise your web address to me. Furthermore, I can strip the opening advertisement from the dialog myself. It's not difficult, but it is time consuming. It is a minor annoyance I would rather live without. Thank you.
Posted on: Capital Punishment
April 26, 2007 at 8:07 AMHenning, I went through my “小学生汉语学习词典” and did an estimate on the number of words. The number is between 10,000 - 15,000 words. Given the current trend of 10 new words per podcast, and a healthy amount of overlap, I would say your estimate is pretty good.
Posted on: Studying Japanese
June 26, 2007 at 3:28 AMAZERDocMom Generalization is warranted and supported by empirical evidence. Go ask 10 different Chinese what they think of Japan. 9 times out of 10 everyone will give you a negative answer. Sorry, if you think the country is not racist you must have a rosy eyed view of things. Blacks, Indians, overseas Chinese are faced with discrimination in the Chinese job market. There are no laws to punish racist hiring policies; no social programs to fight racism. Chanye, From Wikipedia: "Ambivalence is a state of having emotions, thoughts or actions in contradiction with each other, when they are related to an object, idea or person " Sorry, the Microsoft/Windows example you cite is clearly a case of ambivalence. I don't understand the rest of your post. Sorry.