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Lesson Introduction
With more and more “laowai” coming to the People’s Republic, more and more find themselves in conversations about the occasional frustration one finds at that point in Mandarin where you’re good enough to get by, but are far from fluent. In this podcast, Ken, Jenny and Aggie discuss the aforementioned, and teach you to cry the language blues using Mandarin Chinese. Please be assured that we at ChinesePod are devoted to helping you get through this difficult period.
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Out of consideration for our Newbie and Elementary users, English translations should be provided with any Chinese (characters or pinyin) written in Newbie and Elementary lesson discussion posts. New lesson idea? Please let us know on our contact page.
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AndrewJune 8, 2006
BitTorrent link for the old Japanese lessons up yet?
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MichaelJune 8, 2006
Hmm, could it be... yes it is isn't it... John Pasden doing the male voice in the dialogue? Wow. Your Chinese is awesome.
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jenny zhuJune 8, 2006
Dear Poddies, I honestly admire laowai's effort in studying Chinese and any language for that matter. I studied Japanese at uni and was cruising at first because of the striking similarity betweeen Chinese and Japanese. But quickly all the Ozzie took over us Chinese and could speak and write better than we ever could have wished. I know it's a generalisation, but laowai are amazingly committed.
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LantianJune 9, 2006
LIKE IS IT? - One of the fun things about learning something new is what it does to the old, any Cpod academics have ideas on how to separate the following for me? If it was English I'd just make up (flimsy as it is) the excuse, oh it's probably because the origins are different, you know, one's Latin, other's German, it's all okay. Hey Arisa even let us know 'jing1 ji' 经济 came via Japan. But I want more, maybe sentences that I CAN'T say? A crazy situational sentence that captures the essence of the word? 你的(目标/目的/到底)是什么？ 目标 mu4 biao1 from Cpod 目的 mu4 di4 from somewhere, here it all the time. 到底 dao4 di3 from somewhere, has been asked of me. 我(困扰/阻挠/气愤)。 困扰 kun4 rao3 from Cpod 阻挠 zu3nao2 by looking up 'frustrate' in the dictionary 气愤 qi4fen4 learned from tennis partners
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LantianJune 9, 2006
DAILY DOSE -日常对话 ri4 chang2 dui4 hua4, day-always-conversation, daily conversation. Anyone want to hash over this one with me? I hardly ever use 'ri' or 'chang', even though chang2chang2 常常 and jing1chang2 经常 are really high frequency. I think I just avoid them because I know I don't pronounce them that great. I always say my 'ri' with a second tone. I compensate by using 'bai tian' or 'tian tian' instead. But maybe with yesterday's work with 'jing' I might tackle this yet, 我要出去经济快菜吃饭。 After hearing John's reading I got inspired, taped myself...geez it's nerve racking and nobody is even listening to me! I think I sound ok, I sound more 'Chinese' when I mumble and pour on the Beijing accent, maybe I just sound worse. ----------- June 9, 2006 China Lantian: 下个礼拜我不上课，我也用中文博客学中文，因为我是一个Cpod迷。 但是现在我很困扰，因为我来中国已经一年了, 还是不能和不认识人随便用中文交流。 Many people: 可是你的日常对话已经很好了。 Lantian: 我的目标是多八个月努力学中文。现在，我的听力和日常对话还可以。但是，我的词汇不太多，写故事的语法太丑，也有时候三四个人一起对话我不能入参加。我还需要改善我的中文。 *Bonus commentary 过这几天我看法国网球公比赛，世界提球比赛，和 NBA篮球比赛，这是不是 好好的输入？我的眼睛有点累了，我的屁股又痛又大。
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Andy (美国土子)June 8, 2006
from the lesson, can 溝通 (P:gou tong) be used interchangably with 交流 (P:jiao liu)? Is 交流 a commonly used word? BTW, does anybody know why is the Bank of Communications called 交通银行 (P:jiao tong yin hang)？ 交通 means traffic.
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MikeJune 8, 2006
Ken said this was lower intermediate!! It was all in Chinese - I would have thought it would have put off any elementary students
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雷安 Rian 'the Intern'June 9, 2006
Andrew: RE Japanese BitTorrent -- http://www.chinesepod.com/blog/2006/05/25/a-place-for-general-questions/
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MikeJune 9, 2006
I like this lesson but it is hard work to pull things out. I sometime think even if I could understand the chinese banter well you miss items that are more important to me . Let me list a few as a follow on to Lantian. 我将开始 I enroll or is it 我将开始上 但是还是不能 ---" But I am still not able " I can use that one many times a day 日常对话 -- Daily Dialogue -- this is new but I like it 两年内 -- within two years -- never would have guessed how to say this but this is great 我的听力 -- I can't wait to be able to say this instead of 聽不懂 我还需要改善 Well this sure fits me I need to improve as well .... So 我的目标 is to just get better everyday Mike in Jubei ( but now in Rye USA for 10 days)
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MikeJune 9, 2006
Sorry I forgot one and I have a question. 本地人 How local is local ? Would one use this just to refer to Chinese when there is one or two western people around or is this more to separate a Shanghalise from a Beijinger or even used in really small disticts. And can you say本地 飯 for some local dish or asking for a local specialty? Mike in Jubei
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kwongJune 9, 2006
john is quite the over achiever--"liang nian nei, shuo liuli de zhongwen." chill out dude. in a related note, i find it useful to have www.zhongwen.com open in another web browser when i'm listening to advanced or intermediate chinesepodcasts on the web (at work). the reason being, when i hear a word that i don't know the definition of or can't guess via the context (and there's alot of them), i can quickly look it up via the pinyin pronunciation from zhongwen.com in 5 seconds. this might actually be slowing down my language cognition/acquisition skills. ehhh...
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Israel HolbyJune 9, 2006
There was very little English explanation for an Intermediate lesson. Also, could you refrain from speaking on top of each other, that is only one speaking at a time.
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Long FeiJune 9, 2006
How about a lesson on soccer? I'm here in Shanghai watching coverage on Chinese TV trying desperately to understand soccer vocabulary in Chinese... I understand tou qiu and jin qiu but I need a crash course to understand "offside", "corner kick" and "great unexpected win by Ecuador"!
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YoungJune 9, 2006
Hi, every one Have any one tried Clavis Sinica 3.1 software, I can not copy and paste GB Chinese text onto Clavis Sinica 3.1 text reader window for sound and translation. Is this nornmal???if so, product is useless??? Have any one tried Hanzibar extention? Does it work???thanks, Young, Atlanta
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DavidJune 11, 2006
Young, I just installed hanzibar in firefox and it works great. I like it more than livedictionary(which only works on mac). Also, if you type chinese, you should get QIM. 再见 德微
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Chinese Transcripts » Blog Archive » Intermediate 45: Studying ChineseJune 10, 2006
[...] ZDT Word List | Practice Writing Sheet | Listen at Chinesepod.com [...]
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jenny zhuJune 10, 2006
Andy, 沟通and交流are interchangeable.I don't know the origin of the name of 交通银行, but 交通大学 got its name because it indeed specialised in the discipline of traffic infrastructure. Mike, Local dish or specialty is 本地特色菜/beng3 di4 te4 se4 cai4.
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ZjemiJune 10, 2006
Long Fei, I don't know "jin qiu". A ball that enters the goal? Corner kick is jiao3 qiu2 角球， 厄瓜多尔【e4gua1duo1er2】 = Ecuador. Pick-up games in the US tend to pick up a lot of linguistically talented people, so I've gotten help.
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CarlyJune 12, 2006
Forget soccer, what about a lesson on hockey? We Canadians only have one real sport to talk about; help us out!
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David WolffJune 12, 2006
I am mostly an elementary level student but wish I could follow the intermediate lessons better. If only you would provide some English translation I could get a lot more out of the intermediate lessons. Any chance?
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AlJune 23, 2006
David Wolff makes a good point, many times there are "juicy" vocabulary words contained in the discussions that are not included in the text. These are very hard to pick up, especially when the speakers talk over each other. The entire transcript should be made available, especially for those who are paying for the service. It does not have to be necassarily have to be translated, we can look up the words ourselves, but please provide it.
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SioriNovember 28, 2006
你的到底是甚麼 (什么)？is wrong grammar in Chinese. You can use 你到底是甚麼 (什么)？ instead of the original. I think交通銀行 中的「交通」 is a complex word of 「交流及溝通」, so it might have two meanings in the word. 溝通 means “to interchange with conversation”, 交流 means “to interchange with action”. My English is not good, I hope you can understand my replay.^.^
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MarwaDecember 17, 2006
Iam Glad that i can learn chinese from your website thank you so much for this nice & usefull lesson I hope just to pronunce good the words Thank you
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FredDecember 31, 2006
I had the same reaction as a few of the earlier posts... this to me was not a lower level intermediate lesson. I think you should consider classifying lessons by the amount of English explanation that you provide, and by that measure, this would be an upper level intermediate! (BTW, by what standard do you judge intermediate lessons to be upper or lower level?!)
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FredDecember 31, 2006
Oh, and I should also add... Happy New Year! :)
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RajatFebruary 3, 2007
I find the elementary lessons too easy, but I was totally lost on this one. Argh, isn't there a happy medium? I need more english before I can understand all-chinese dialogues.
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StacieFebruary 5, 2007
I totally agree with the above posts. Elementary are a bit too easy for me, but the all-Zhongwen discussions in the Intermediate keep me totally in the dark! And I find I learn more from the discussions than I do from the actual lesson dialog. It would be great to have some English in the Intermediate lessons - go all Chinese in the upper intermediate. Just my 2 fen...
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Mike in EwshotFebruary 9, 2007
Hopefully some people may find this useful – ie some of the vocabulary from the discussion. I hope it is correct. The majority of the look ups is from the MDBG online dictionary one at http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php. 数量 shu4 liang4 amount / quantity 酒量 jiu3 liang4 (n) / capacity for liquor / one's drinking capacity 形象 xing2 xiang4 image / form / figure (imagery) 提到 ti2 dao4 mention 流利度 liu2 li4du4 fluent – quantity of fluency 单独 dan1 du2 alone / by oneself / on one's own 善良 shan4 liang2 good and honest / kind-hearted 有线 you3 xian4 wired / cable (television) 有限 you3 xian4 limited / finite 限制 xian4 zhi4 (impose) restrictions / to limit / to bound / to restrict 丢脸 diu1 lian3 humiliation (lose face!) 典型 dian3 xing2 typical 嘲笑 chao2 xiao4 jeer / mockery / scoff / sneer / make fun of / laugh at (derogatory) 详细 xiang2 xi4 detailed / in detail / minute 硕士 shuo4 shi4 master's (degree)
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fsdFebruary 19, 2007
交通银行,因为刚开始中国人水平不高,翻译错了.现在将错就错. 本来应该是"BANK OF TRANSPORTATION". 是中国人犯了错误,害的外国朋友搞不明白.
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tomasApril 3, 2007
Jennie teacher, Aggie teacher Are there a way for me to talk on line with some poddies to improve chinese language? Practise. thanks
man2toe says
勤能補拙 我跟希望這成語是真話:)May 4, 2007
man2toe says
真希望oppsMay 11, 2007
user30288 says
I agree. There is too much of a difference between elementary and intermediate. Ken and Jenny, can you please put something in between these two lessons. P.S. Otherwise keep up the good work.January 25, 2008
salvador says
June 17, 2008
Caracters in the exercises tab are REALLY small! Can't something be done about it? Also, the fill-in-the blanks exercise isn't working properly. I drag the words, but they move pretty awkwardly, and I score nothing. Is it my computer or the exercise?
phettu says
June 17, 2008
well can i just say that if the person in this lesson thinks they have a problem , I am seriously in trouble, because my chinese is no where near this good and i thought i was doing ok ! lol :)
keep on practicing i guess is the key xx
Phill
chinakaren says
September 30, 2008
When I checked out the vocabulary practice, about half the spoken words didn't match the written ones. Did anyone find this?
mikeinewshot says
September 30, 2008
Chinakaren
Yes I just checked this. Only the first and third sounds are correct in the vocabulary section
khal09 says
September 30, 2008
do u know chinese
helandou says
November 13, 2008
khal 09 ??