URLLesson Introduction
A square, you say? Touring a rectangle seems a little more stimulating, perhaps? This is not just any four-sided box. This is the center of Beijing. A place full of history and full of people. Now it's so big, you may just stumble across it, but we're thinking you might need a little more help. Since you've already learned where Changan Jie is from Pimsleur, let ChinesePod take you the rest of the way, in this Mandarin lesson.
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shuaibao says
June 10, 2008
我还没去过天安门。天安门是什么样子？
shuaibao says
June 10, 2008
oopps. sorry about that. here, wo3hai2mei2qu4guo2tian1an1men2.
tian1an1men2shi4shen2me yang2zi?
I think that's right. I'm kinda bad at pinyin, ever since I started using characters I kinda just forgot.
It says: I've never been to tiananmen before. What's it like?
That's all.^_^
azerdocmom says
June 10, 2008
@shuibao
天安门是个很大可以走路的地方。我只去一次。这是我拍的照片...tian1an1men2 shi4ge hen2da4 ke2yi3 zou3lu4de di4fang1. wo2zhi3 qu4yi1ci4. zhe4shi4 wo3pai1de zhao4pian4...Tian An Men (Square) is a big, walkable place. I 've been there only once. These are pictures I took...
shuaibao says
June 10, 2008
It looks really cool. I'm excited to go there someday.
clay says
June 10, 2008
Yeah, Tiān'ānmén is a sight to see. I just went there a couple months back. Oh, also...Lets keep this one clean and relevant today folks. Something tells me someone may feel the urge to get off topic. If you agenda is outside of an educational one, please refrain from posting. Cheers.
lilywhytelegs says
June 10, 2008
我兩年前去了天安門廣場。這實在是非常大的。有很多人。
Went there 2 years ago. It's indeed very big. There are lots of people.
chillosk says
June 10, 2008
Went there twice already. It's really a nice place to walk around, lots of people flying kites. Beware of the kite-sellers though, I bought a kite there with a friend and the string that came with it was really short so we had to end up buying more string. :P
lilywhytelegs says
June 10, 2008
Haha, chillosk. Your story reminds me of an experience we had. We bought 2 copies of the "same" book from a vendor. When we compared the 2 copies later on, we noticed that there were quite a few discrepancies. Not sure which one of us got the more authentic version. Maybe our bookseller is also a kite-seller...
faylaun says
June 10, 2008
No comment, I am very new to Chinese Pod
johns says
June 10, 2008
So, I am not the only one who bought books & kites. Also, hats, scarfs.....the little kid selling this stuff was really cute! I enjoyed the long walks, the sense of history, the guards who could still smile and look serious at the same time. I am a foreignor and taller than most but it was interesting to have a group of people come up and touch my hair and arm. One has to visit this place at least once if you are in Beijing.
I never thought to consider what the name meant until Ken broke it down here. Still not sure I could have understood it on my own.
This is a great topic. You said that you would do this. Thanks, Jenny
johns says
June 10, 2008
alwingate
I keep Babel Fish open in another window. It is easy to cut and paste if you need help.
changye says
June 10, 2008
Hi Chinesepod (and poddies),
May I please ask when you are going to add a notice such as “Indicate Pinyin, if you please” in Newbie and preferably Elementary lessons? Or, are you just letting the same thing, i.e. a no-pinyin comment and warning to it, repeat over and over in the future? Do you think it’s a productive way for both Chinesepod and its learners?
It is NOT that I don’t want to see comments written in Chinese without pinyin, I welcome anything, but it is that I’m tired of seeing warning comments posted OUT OF GOOD WILL, making some benign (and sometimes a bit careless) commentators feel embarrassed and end up apologizing just for not having indicated pinyin.
Of course, I admit pinyin is important for beginners, but it won’t hurt you to occasionally look up dictionaries on your own, even if it is NOT “on your terms”. You have online-dictionaries, Chinese-perakun, or paper dictionaries. If they are all unavailable, please just neglect no-pinyin comments. I’d say they are not your things. No offense.
About the notice, forget old lessons.
Only adding it to new lessons would be OK.
osckeezee says
June 10, 2008
Dear ChinesePod staff;
Does anybody know the difference between "na3li" and "nar3." And "you4zhuan3" versus "you4zhuar3"
Thanks
suburbanite says
June 10, 2008
I agree with Changye. Using Chinese-perakun or paper while not always simple, but necessary. Afterall we are learning.
A note on dictionaries: (and I would like comments back)
For a beginner (absolute), the Oxford beginners chinese dictionary seems to be a nice place to start. They have a radical table and all of that, but the Chinese section is orderd alphabetically by pinyin spelling. Anybody else have a recommendation?
I found other dictionaries that really required the reader to know the character sounds or radicals -- even if you have the pinyin, there was no easy way to lookup the word.
I have been using perakun for about 2 months and really like it. Plus as you read you review the characters and pinyin. It's not a perfect solution, but you can get pretty far. Babelfish and google translator are fine, and I use them. I prefer the browser plugin solution.
jennyzhu says
June 10, 2008
osckeezee,
In both cases,the meaning are the same. The 儿/er sound at the end is a Beijing speech habit. It adds some nuance to the language, but doesn't change the meaning of the word.
jennyzhu says
June 10, 2008
My memory of Tiananmen was a freezing January early morning. My best friend and I braved the cold, wanting to see the flag raising ceremony, which takes place at sunrise everyday. But it was so abusingly cold and the square was such an open place with nowhere to hide from the wind. We eventually gave up. But a few month ago, I was in Beijing attending a Hanban conference (China's government agency responsible for promoting Chinese worldwide). I walked past 天安门 on the way，and it happened to be the time of the flag ceremony! That's fate. (The conference started at 7 in the morning).
weibwo says
June 10, 2008
I use http://www.nciku.com for translations. It has a good dictionary and has a tablet where you can practice writing Chinese characters. This is something I wish Chinesepod would do.
auntie68 says
June 10, 2008
Dear alwingate, I've just read the comments by changye and suburbanite. Just so that you know where I'm coming from, a lot of what you write about the need for more "structure" in CPOD resonates with me. I enjoy reading your posts, which are refreshingly unconventional.
If ever you should ask a lesson-related question on any of these threads, you can be sure that I'll take care to pinyin-ize any answer which I might attempt to offer you directly. Because I know how you feel about pinyin-less comments in Newbie/Ele threads.
But if somebody like shuaibao asks a direct question in very simple, un-fancy -- but confident -- no-pinyin Chinese, I think it's okay for me to reply directly in a similar manner. Because I know that the recipient won't have problems understanding my answer.
Please don't be offended, alwingate, but not understanding what shauibao wrote, because it was written in Chinese characters, is no loss to you. Nor is my non-pinyin answer so valuable or relevant (no way!) that it's a problem if anybody -- apart from the person I was trying to "help" -- found it unintelligible.
If, however, the mere fact that you are seeing Chinese characters in a lower-level lesson is making you angry, well then that can't be helped, regardless of anybody's best intentions. But I don't think that's the case?
Chinese characters tend to creep in, despite our best intentions, because it's really, really counter-intuitive to write everything twice over. Quite often I will omit the pinyin as long as I can be very sure that all the characters I am using are already pinyin-ized in the lesson pdf. Or if I'm directly answering a question that was framed using Chinese characters; but I will try to make sure that the language I use is "tuned" to the level of that person.
It is very clearly your right to study Mandarin without learning the characters, especially on a site which promises learning "on your terms". However, you will find it very difficult to avoid seeing Chinese characters here and there, and most of the time no harm whatsoever is meant to you by it, so I guess the question is whether it's worth it to be offended. With respect, learning to write Chinese characters is a big deal, but "character recognition" sort of falls comfortably somewhere between that and "pinyin-only", and while you shouldn't pay attention to any pressure to learn characters, keeping an open mind about learning to "recognize" characters may not do you any harm; it doesn't have to take a chunk of time out of your Chinese studies (unlike, say, learning to write), and depending on the individual learner, it may even help you to make sense of all those pinyin homonyms.
We all learn in different ways, I just want to put it to you that it seems fair to be a bit tolerant towards people who are trying to learn Chinese through Chinese characters, because there's nothing strange or weird or stubborn about that.
My promise to you is that if you ask a specific question anywhere on CPOD, and I attempt to answer it, you will get full pinyin from me. Take care.
man2toe says
June 10, 2008
You know how all capital LETTERS can mean shouting in English internet language: how does one shout in internet language when typing Chinese?
tucsonmichael says
June 10, 2008
I actually prefer these other places around 天安门. for example, 比如 bi3ru2....
天坛 tian1tan2 Temple of Heaven (3 km south of 天安门)
故宫 gu4gong1 Imperial Palace (at north end of 天安门
颐和园 yi2he2yuan2 The Summer Palace (need a cab or a bicycle to get to from 天安门)
北海湖 bei3hai3hu2 Beihai Lake, just northwest of 天安门 is also beautiful, or fun for shopping / dining, and renting a boat at dusk to ride on the lake s wonderful.
Is the picture considered to be part of 天安门， or is it really a separate building or part of the 故宫? It sure looks beautiful with those flowers. When I was last there 18 months ago many of the buildings had renovation scaffolding on them, but I expect that with the Olympics approaching it will be quite incredible to see.
By the way, I was taught 往左传 wang3zuo3zhuan3 for "turn left". Is 左传 the more colloquial way of saying this (in the interest of effective concise Chinese communication)?
changye says
June 10, 2008
Hi tucsonmichael,
I usually say 往左拐 (wang3 zuo3 guai3) for "turn left", and of course 往右(you4)拐 for "turn right". I guess that 拐 is a little more conversational than 转. By the way, the 传 (chuan2, or zhuan4, but not zhuan3/4) in your comment is a typo. Don't fail to turn properly in CHINESE!
a1pi2 says
June 11, 2008
@Weibwo: nciku is cool, but the "character pad" is the reason I love studying Chinese on my Tablet PC. One helpful thing is that the tablet respects stroke order, which is great for learning (but not so good for finding weird characters.) I know Cpod's kind a Mac-Firefox place but if you can score a cheap used tablet the ability to write Hanzi is amazing.
clay says
June 11, 2008
man2toe,
they dont have a similiar method to capitalizing to signify yelling. only thing that works is adding exclamation marks
changye says
June 11, 2008
Hi suburbanite,
I'm also a faithful user of Chinese-perakun. That is an excellent Add-on! I don't feel like reading Chinese webpages without using it now. But please be careful, you occasionally come across a mistake in pinyin indications.
The add-on is weak especially in 多音字 (duo1 yin1 zi4) or multi-reading Chinese characters. I guess the same goes for other online dictionaries, perhaps. I think that is just the limit of online materials.
mervyn says
June 11, 2008
I am going there in October this year , so I will practise this off by heart.
Thanks.
Mervyn
light487 says
June 11, 2008
I'm also thinking of a Shanghai-Beijing holiday later this year. Not sure how things will pan out just yet.. will know by the end of this month whether I am going to be able to afford it or not. Just bought my first home and settling next Tuesday the 17th June.. so it won't be till after that when I will know if it is economically viable or not. If it turns out to be October, I'll let you know and may be we could meet up for a day while over there. I'll definitely be imposing myself on anyone I can wrangle into meeting up with me there regardless of the time I go.. hehe.. :)
This is another of the old lessons redone in a much easier to follow format. I remember there being a newbie lesson similar to this, perhaps even mentioning going to Tiananmen Square and using directions on how to get there. I prefer this simpler version, which stays on topic the whole time without veering off course too much. I have a question about time relating to going somewhere:
Going to (somewhere) in Future:
我到天安门今天
wǒ dào tiān ān mén jīntiān
I am going to Tiananmen Square today.
Or should it be:
今天我到天安门
jīntiān wǒ dào tiān ān mén
I am going to Tiananmen Square today.
And.. in the past, where do I add the 了 - le particle?
今天我到了天安门
jīntiān wǒ dào le tiān ān mén
I went to Tiananmen Square today.
Or should it be:
今天我到天安门了
jīntiān wǒ dào tiān ān mén le
I went to Tiananmen Square today.
谢谢
xièxie
Thanks
PS. One last thing. How would you distinguish between "I went to .... today." and "I came to .... today."?
espela says
June 11, 2008
I heard of an expression
你的天安门开了 ni3de tian1an1men2 kai1le1; a polite way to say your zipper is down
where 天安门 replaces the word
拉链 la1lian4(zipper)
jonsg says
June 11, 2008
A little word about Chinese perapera-kun - right now, it hasn't been updated to work on the most recent versions of Firefox and Thunderbird.
The writers suggest users "donate a cup of coffee" - in other words, a PayPal donation about the same amount as you'd pay for a cappucino at Starbuck's, which seems reasonable enough to me. They've a link at their site at perapera.wordpress.com. If enough of us donate, with a gentle hint in the "comments" section of the donation that we'd like updates in order to work with the latest Firebird and T-bird versions, I imagine it'll encourage them to get on with it! (And, yes, I've done it already.) Moral blackmail. ;)
It's an excellent tool (when you can use it!), so it's definitely worth fuelling its writers' caffeine habits!
Jon
(who has no connection with the C-PPK people, just another C-PPK user ... when he can!)
hitokiri6993 says
June 11, 2008
Hi light!
I'm not sure if my "corrections" are correct. But it's worth a try.:P
Going to (somewhere) in Future:
我到天安门今天
wǒ dào tiān ān mén jīntiān
I am going to Tiananmen Square today.
Or should it be:
今天我到天安门
jīntiān wǒ dào tiān ān mén
I am going to Tiananmen Square today.
I'm not sure if 到 is commonly used as "to go", but it's always used as "to (a place)" 或 "to arrive".
我今天去天安門。（wo3 jin1tian1qu4 tian1an1men2).
I'm also not sure if 今天 can be placed before the subject...I think it could...:D
And.. in the past, where do I add the 了 - le particle?
今天我到了天安门
jīntiān wǒ dào le tiān ān mén
I went to Tiananmen Square today.
Or should it be:
今天我到天安门了
jīntiān wǒ dào tiān ān mén le
I went to Tiananmen Square today.
If you put a 了 at the end of a sentence, then it functions as a modal particle.
If you're still going to 天安門 on "today", then you can say:
我今天去了天安門。（wo3jin1tian1qu4le5tian1an1men2)
But if you're not going to 天安門 anymore on that day, then replace 了 with the experience marker: 過。
Hope this helps. :)
ingmar says
June 11, 2008
Sory folks, I tried for an hour to paste some photos of Tian'men just before National day late September 1988, but alas, simple cutting and pasting did not work.
ingmar says
June 11, 2008
Sorry folks I tried for an hour to post some photos of Tian'anmen Square in preparation for National Day late September 1988, but simple cutting and pasting did not work. I have noticed from other poddies, it must be possible, but I have not yet discovered the secret.
Is there anyone who can help me out? It would be much appreciated.
light487 says
June 11, 2008
May I enquire what all the CAPS are about? On the internet, this is considered as shouting. I've never seen you write your posts in CAPS before now, so I am curious why you decided to start now?
tezuk says
June 11, 2008
I tell you what, I would imagine newbies are tired of your crazy replies alwingate, not a few characters that they can either easily scroll over and find the pinyin using perakun or using an online dictionary. I think it would be more beneficial if in future, discussions departing entirely from the lesson were made into seperate posts in the community section. Surely we can all agree on this atleast?
auntie68 says
June 11, 2008
Ouch, alwingate, I know what you mean about my bad habit of ending my sentences with a preposition... it drives one of my dear friends absolutely bonkers! And because I am -- after all -- a dear friend, he has to keep his cool (or his wife, my friend), will read him the Riot Act.
Now that you've finally told me a little bit about your circumstances, I'll be humble and shut up. Yes! You live and work in Taiwan; my everyday life is in Singapore, where everybody speaks English. It's not good English, it's Singlish, but everybody is speaking it as a first language. It makes a difference.
All the best with those Chinese characters. Try not to let them grind you down (says the Singaporean who has never had to open a bank account in Chinese...). "Character recognition" can be a pretty modest goal, just be open to new things, and let it all take you as far as you can go. Don't be afraid to try learning to recognize some characters, even if it's just the "characters du jour" in the Newbie pdfs... it doesn't mean anything like "I surrender to the Chinese characters!", it's... it's merely knowledge.
Stunt Toddler will be jetting into Singapore in just over an hour, I'm so excited! It was only a short holiday, but I missed my nephew! Take care.
auntie68 says
June 11, 2008
Oh dear tezuk, I've just read your post. Can you let this one slide? Just this time. I'll do my very best to keep on-topic after this. Thanks for your patience. All the best.
spongeybob2 says
June 11, 2008
Ah my first comment :D
This was the first lesson I listen to (to get gist of what the others lesson formats will be like) and I have to say, it is very well written :)
The supplementary vocab in that lesson are incredibly useful! thank you Jenny & Ken.
~Spongeybob
auntie68 says
June 11, 2008
Hello alwingate. All you sentences sound fine to me except that I think "I am above you" should perhaps be "wo3 zai4 ni3 de shang4mian4" (我在你的上面). I think it's safe to drop all the 的‘s (de's) if you like eg. wo3 zai4 ni3 qian2mian4 etc. Okay, it's late... take care.
P/s: In the Chinese character "shang4；above, up" - 上 - all the action is happening above the horizontal line. In the character "xia4; down, below" - 下 -, all the action takes place below that horizontal line... but I suppose that's not news for you.
calkins says
June 11, 2008
alwingate, PLEASE stop using ALL CAPS. If you think reading characters with no pinyin is annoying, reading 30 paragraphs of your babble in ALL CAPS is about 47 times more annoying.
Has anyone noticed fewer overall posts in the last couple of weeks? It's sad that a few users are ruining things for everyone else.
nahan says
June 11, 2008
Sure would be nice to actually read discussions of the lessons at hand... just sayin'...
lostinasia says
June 11, 2008
(Grimaces as he starts to type:) Oh man... sorry Clay, I'm going to try really hard to keep this clean and relevant... but... how shall I put this... I can't be the only one that wishes the lesson title focussed on a different famous landmark in Beijing or Shanghai or wherever. There's lots to choose from. That way I'd be able to focus on directions and imperative structure without getting distracted, and the lesson would be more educationally useful.
I DON'T want this to start a massive off-topic discussion (er, assuming this thread has a topic, which I don't believe it does)... but I had to say something.
PS: the "rule" about not ending with a preposition is total nonsense - an urban myth, non-existent. It's not even pushing up the daisies and no more; it quite simply never was. As Churchill may have but probably didn't say, "It is a rule up with which I shall not put." (Now THIS is a safer direction for the OT thread to take.)
chillosk says
June 11, 2008
Actually have a friend named after the Tiananmen Square :P
她的名字是Tiana.
Ta3 de ming2 zi shi4 Tiana. :)
a1pi2 says
June 11, 2008
@LostInAsia: I'll bite : ) The "rule" about prepositions is a rule, it's just a rule some people consider useless. I agree with you and your friend Winston--preposition placement is a silly thing to concern oneself about.
I myself am a linguistic descriptivist, one who believes that languages are fluid and changing beasts that should be described as opposed to controlled. The supreme beauty of English is that it was bastardized repeatedly by the French invaders. Now it's totally lost its focus by moving under American and thus global influence. It's a beautiful thing! Not even the "linguists" know where the language is headed!
wjefferys says
June 11, 2008
Here's another suggestion for an online dictionary; I have found it to be the best and most flexible one available. I use it with FireFox on a Mac, so it isn't subject to some of the problems that others have noted with platforms and software
It is the MDBG dictionary, apparently a volunteer effort hosted in Europe. To access it, click here
My usual way of using it is to click on the "annotate" tab and paste characters into the box. This will produce a customizable annotation: Characters, pinyin and (if you wish) an attempt at a translation (I normally leave that out as you can get the meaning of a word by mousing over it). Pinyin can use numbers or diacritical marks for tones. Tone sandhi ( the change in a tone dependent on other characters in a sentence) is not implemented.
It has many features. There are ten tabs on the left that give various modes. You can look up by radical and stroke number, and I believe also by four-corner method (I don't know that method but some swear by it). You can type pinyin and get characters (but I prefer the Mac Chinese input method). Just click on the tabs and experiment.
It's also possible for the user to add information to the dictionary, Wikipedia-style (although it may be moderated).
朱勇谋
azerdocmom says
June 11, 2008
@wjeffreys
Thanks you for that link. That's such a great dictionary! And good-looking, too: cool and calm blue color ; )
suburbanite says
June 11, 2008
So Clay--is there any posibility of having a font-size addition to the comment editor? That might save some extra CAPS.
mdtubio says
June 11, 2008
Ni3men Ha3o! (Hello everybody.) I like the new Chinesepod format! Great lesson on Tiananmen - I think we need some "heaven and peace" right here on the message board! :)
Zai jian!
captbrian says
June 11, 2008
wow, a perfect example today of the only thing really wrong with Chinesepod.com... the very unkempt comments sections. very little to do with the lesson (I am guilty of that too today, but jeez, can't take it anymore) and always 25 posts by the same people. And I am surprised at how many people are so addicted to posting comments that in each and every level, they must comment. Everyone rushes to be first, and the comments basically stop after just a day or two. What a great resource this could be to discuss the lessons and pickup related or extended grammar (like once upon a time, thank you Connie for when we used to get some additional vocab).
Since most of it is off topic anyway I will choose today to put in my full 2 mao worth. Not everyone uses Perakun (or even knows what it is), it is kind of weird that Cpod community is such a Firefox one. Kinda sad, because while I know you all think it is cool, the majority of the world does NOT use it (Cpod web guys take note?). It was funny that for so long people had problems with the html instead of an mp3 right-click save-as issue, only because the developers are using Firefox and don't look at things through IE glasses (am I wrong?)
With that, my strong recommendation for the rest of you to use as a translating source is www.chinese-tools.com, (ah, almajors beat me to it, I second that!) there you will find a converter for every purpose (and the best I have seen to date). Everything including tone numbers to tone marks, even unicode for webbies.
Sorry again for continuing off-topic. tian an men is great by the way!
maryjeanne says
June 11, 2008
Whatever happened to civil discussion of the lesson?
clay says
June 11, 2008
all,
please dont make me ban another user.
allright... lets get back to learning some mandarin.
coyote says
June 11, 2008
Why not learn some Shang4hai3 hua4 (language of Shanghai)?!
Correct me if I am wrong but:
zuo3 guai3 is xiao3 guai3, turn left
you4 guai3 is da4 guai3, turn right
rcamposgmail says
June 11, 2008
大家好 (da4jia1hao3)
Why did shuaibao used the "子" in "天安门是什么样子".
谢谢！
lostinasia says
June 12, 2008
rcamposgmail, you asked "Why did shuaibao used the "子" in "天安门是什么样子". The lesson Fortunate Cookies includes 样子 in the Expansion sentences. The examples there may help out a bit. One example:
你新買的手機是什麼樣子的？ / What is your new mobile phone like?)
If you look up 什么样 in the glossary, vs 什么样子, that can help. It seems like 什么样 is similar to "what kind" and 什么样子 is closer to "what's it like".
Except one of those sentences is:
外星人到底长什么样？奇怪吗？
(So what do aliens really look like? Weird?)
And that would seem to contradict what I've just said. Ah well. I can provide some leads, if not an answer.
vann0000 says
June 12, 2008
tian an men = 地图
vann0000 says
June 12, 2008
kesirui says
June 12, 2008
Thanks for this lesson!
I really like that people get to talk about all of this and connect. I dont care if its off topic as long as it has something to do with China or 中文！
Everybody lighten up!~ ^_^
Also a really good Chinese/English dictionary called Nciku is: http://www.nciku.com/
I highly recommend it to all levels of Cpod users! You can even "draw" a character and find out what it is if you cant read it.
maryjeanne says
June 12, 2008
vann0000 -- Thank you for the maps and the beautiful photo of Tiananmen!
I have learned so much from the positive comments and questions on the discussions. (I can even sing a song about my big head!)
Chinese Pod is the best!
auntie68 says
June 12, 2008
@rcamposgmail and @LostInAsia:
To supplement LostInAsia's explanation, which sounded correct to me, I'd like to add that 样子 is a actually compound word -- a noun -- which means "appearance or type or kind".
The sense of shuaibo's question was, "What's Tiananmen like?" Literally, Tiananmen is what kind? But it's good Chinese.
Here are the examples from my little dictionary (apologies for the lack of pinyin-ization, but I honestly only have enough time to get these down for you and do a rough English translation):
小姑娘的样子好像她妈妈。The young lady resembles her mother.
他生气的样子很吓人。The way he is/ looks when he is angry is very frightening.
你姐姐长什么样子？What does your elder sister look like?
看他的样子好像不太高兴似的。Looking at him he doesn't look too happy.
这种样子的大衣很便宜。This kind of winter coat is very cheap.
他穿衣服从来不注意样子。He has always dressed without caring about how he looked.
我也有这种样子的书架。 I also have this kind of bookshelf.
他们家的沙发样子很大方。The sofa in their home looks very tasteful.
The Chinese used in the examples is, in all honesty, too difficult for newbies. But I hope it will be able to help somebody on some level.
changye says
June 12, 2008
I’m not a busy guy, so let me give pinyin for auntie68. Anyway, I’ve also learned a lot of things from those nice examples.
小姑娘的样子好像她妈妈。
xiao3 gu1 niang de yang4 zi hao3 xiang4 ta1 ma1 ma
The young lady resembles her mother.
他生气的样子很吓人。
ta1 sheng1 qi4 de yang4 zi hen3 xia4 ren2
The way he is/ looks when he is angry is very frightening.
你姐姐长什么样子？
ni3 jie3 jie zhang3 shen2 me yang4 zi?
What does your elder sister look like?
看他的样子好像不太高兴似的。
kan4 ta1 de yang4 zi hao3 xiang4 bu4 tai4 gao1 xing4 shi4 de.
Looking at him he doesn't look too happy.
这种样子的大衣很便宜。
zhe4 zhong3 yang4 zi de da4 yi1 hen3 pian2 yi4.
This kind of winter coat is very cheap.
他穿衣服从来不注意样子。
ta1 chuan1 yi1 fu cong2 lai2 bu4 zhu4 yi4 yang4 zi.
He has always dressed without caring about how he looked.
我也有这种样子的书架。
wo3 ye3 you3 zhe4 zhong3 yang4 zi de shu1 jia4.
I also have this kind of bookshelf.
他们家的沙发样子很大方。
ta1 men jia1 de sha1 fa1 yang4 zi hen3 da4 fang.
The sofa in their home looks very tasteful.
azerdocmom says
June 12, 2008
@coyote- I believe this is incorrect
"zuo3 guai3 is xiao3 guai3, turn left
you4 guai3 is da4 guai3, turn right"
zuo3 is left, and therefore da4 (big) turn.
you4 is right, and therefore xiao3 (small) turn.
Amber talks about it in one of her DA's, but I can't, for the life of me, remember which one it is. She says she remembers left=big because it's the longer turn compared to a small=right turn. Hope this answers your question : )
changye says
June 12, 2008
Hi azerdocmon,
Thanks, 小拐 and 大拐 are completely new to me, probably because I myself don’t drive a car here in China. Let me try to shout “大家注意，我要大拐!” (da4 jia1 zhu4 yi4, wo3 yao4 da4 guai3) when riding a bicycle!
azerdocmom says
June 12, 2008
changye舅舅
你说的那句话太好笑了！我笑了一大声！
ni3shou1de na4ju4hua4 tai4hao3xiao4le! wo3xiao4le yi1da4sheng1!
Uncle changye, what you said was so funny! I laughed out loud!
standuke says
June 12, 2008
Thanks to the Auntie/Changye tagteam for their 样子examples. Who knew 样子was so versatile? I'm still wrapping my mind around the grammar--I can practially feel the synapses loosening. You just can't do that stuff in English.
steeley says
June 12, 2008
Wow... This is my first comment, I am very much a Newbie. All this discussion is verrrrry interesting! it shows me there is not necessarily a right and wrong, or good and bad with Mandarin, very yin yang! Thanks to ChinesePod, Jenny and Ken, and all the people who make comments... I will learn from all of you.
noncamb5888 says
June 13, 2008
u r welcome:-)
billm says
June 13, 2008
Mao’s Museum?
I used to fly through Beijing quite a bit, so I’ve been to Tiananmen a number of times. Most of the times I’d be there on a weekend due to my work schedule. The second time I was there with a Chinese colleague. I asked him about one of the buildings in the middle of the square. He said, “oh that’s Mao’s Museum. You need to come on a weekday to visit it….but you must go if you can.”
Next time through Beijing I was traveling with my colleague Manuel from our TJ Mexico plant. He mentioned to me on the plane that he hadn’t heard or seen much about Chairman Mao on his trips to China. I replied, “don’t worry Manuel, we’re going to Mao’s Museum tomorrow.”
We got to Tiananmen and it was a pretty cold day, overcast and windy, but there was a line that stretched around the building. We toughed it out. As we entered I got a peak around the corner before Manuel and said, “well we haven’t heard or seen much about Mao until now…but your going to see all of him now.” We were in Mao’s Mausoleum. I recommend the trip.
chrisinguam says
June 16, 2008
I agree the discussion sometimes drifts off the initial subject, but I don’t mind. I am about to be an offender myself. Chinese dictionaries, help! Portable, not on-line. One of my pet peeves!
All my Chinese friends have these little handheld electronic dictionaries, and I want one, too. Good ones run about 350 US Dollars. However, all these little devices are excellent for native Chinese speakers, hard or useless for foreigners. You type in an English word and it displays a Chinese character. Great for the Chinese! But for me: If I knew the character in the first place, I would not need the dictionary. If it only throws the character at me without any Pinyin and English context, it is worthless to me. Some of these devices do have pinyin, after you negotiated a lengthy and confusing Chinese menu. They all don’t work for me.
Anybody know a good handheld for foreigners????
On the go, I use my ultraportable laptop, Asus Eee with NJ Star Chinese Wordprocessor on it. Works reasonably fast and has a good dictionary that is userfriendly for non-Chinese. For bigger stuff I use Kingsoft Power Word; all my (mainland) Chinese friends use it
For a “biggie” with excellent explanations, the big Langenscheid German – Chinese has no equal. In my mind, the Germans just are the superior linguists. My native language is German.
Tschues or zai jian, Chris in Guam and Spaetzchen
rjberki says
June 16, 2008
Chris- the overwhelming answer to this question in the past has always been - buy a hand held palm such as tungsten and load with plecodict software. I am planning to do just that but have not as of yet.
http://www.pleco.com/products.html
darrencook says
June 29, 2008
Two of the expansion sentences are:
车一直往前开。
(Keep driving straight.)
直往东走。
(Keep walking east.)
Why is 车 in the first one? I asked a Chinese friend and he explained it stops it being a command; but the English is a command (perhaps to a taxi driver), so is the English wrong? He suggested the meaning is more like: "The car is going straight"?
amber says
June 30, 2008
hi darrencook,
thanks for pointing that out, we have amended it to "The car is driving straight."
spitfire says
July 29, 2008
Hi. Long time listener, first time caller : ) Two questions to the community at large:
1. Anybody else think it's a bit challenging to distinguish 早 (zao3 - see "good morning" lesson) from 走 (zou3)? Any advice (other than "keep listening!" ; ) ?
2. Why does the "ou" in 右 (you4) sound like "oh" (like "yo-yo") but the "ou" in 走 (zou3) sound like "ow" (like in "how")? At least that's how it sounds to me. Anybody else? Is it the tones? Is the initial affecting the final through some implicit rule (like two third tones become second-third)?
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