User Comments - weibosi
weibosi
Posted on: A Promotion
December 19, 2008, 05:37 AMThis is just a mild suggestion. I find the grammar exercises in most lessons too easy. Most of the differences are misplaced subjects, which is pretty easy to spot. I also can't help but notice that the fill in the blanks exercises are taken verbatim from the expansion sentences. While possibly unpopular among those with a burning need for validation, there is a strong correlation between cognitive effort and retention in language study. Here's an idea. Everyone in intermediate should know elementary vocabulary, yes? Why not form new sentences for both the grammar and fill-in-blanks sections using only the new vocabulary from the intermediate lesson while freely using all elementary vocabulary? That way you'll be testing people's true language skills, and not their ephemeral retention of the current expansion sentences.
Posted on: Counterfeit Money
November 15, 2008, 05:04 PMIn the expansion I encountered yet another word for "do": 弄. So now I do that 干，做，弄，all mean "to do", but in what subtle ways are they different?
Posted on: Weather, Man
October 23, 2008, 05:08 AMCorrection. In the last exercises (drop the characters into the boxes), there should be a '干' character, but instead there are two '下雨'. I'm using the Opera browser, which I don't think would make a difference. Anyways, just trying to improve things.
Posted on: Is China Scary?
October 15, 2009, 11:47 PMI apologize for not using Chinese for this comment, but I feel that my Chinese is not good enough to convey exactly what I intend.
I have read these comments with great interest, admiring people’s evident passion in discussing their views. Passion, however, is not often born of reason, which is the only way about which we may ascertain the truth. Neither citizens of the United States of America, Australia, Taiwan, nor China are privy to all that their seated governments have recently done and are capable of doing henceforth. We all have varying degrees of true knowledge, heavily biased by our cultures and environments.
In order to provide meaningful comment on this lesson, I think it important to understand why we are all communicating with one another in this forum: We are people mutually interested in each others’ languages. I think that the Chinese Pod staff are keenly interested in people visiting China and do so not as agents of the government, but as individuals with a desire to share their language and culture. This lesson is an attempt to encourage people to visit China.
Having said that, the staff should realize that the dialog they created is culturally insensitive; that is the reason this forum has been so heated. In the United States, although nationalism exists, it is rooted in a common belief in individual empowerment that, in many cases, is inherently distrustful of government or parts therein.
The specific statement I believe most people from the United States would take issue with is the following:
"Then you’re saying that ordinary Americans have been misled by the media? And that’s the reason they’re afraid of China? Why does the media have to do this?"
A modern and conscientious citizen of the United States should not base their opinions of a nation solely on media content, and certainly not by stereotypes perpetuated by Hollywood. I dare say many who use Chinese pod are likely information-savvy, and know to consult many differing sources before forming an opinion. The interviewer in this dialog dismisses the U.S. media as misleading. It is accurate to say that they exaggerate the truth by generally only reporting bad news regarding China. This does not, however, discredit individual reports that contribute to an overall well-informed opinion.
In conclusion, I think we all should remember that we are interested in each other’s languages and cultures, not our governments, and that each of us can grow culturally by trying to see each other’s intentions rather than our unintended affronts. Moreover, we should inform people when they have been offensive, not to create conflict, but to clarify potential misunderstandings about our values.