Seriously, very useful.  I love these lessons.  

关于谈论, how does 谈论的轮 change the formality of the verb; does it become more like the free-wheeling discussion implied by 讨论?  Or is it more like the more formal 谈?

In a similar vein, is 谈话 less formal than 谈 by itself?    

谈话是名词，谈是动词

聊 is from 聊天, which means to 'chat', but can also be translated as talk. For example, your sentence above could be, 'What are you guys talking about?', or 'What are you guys chatting about?'.

告诉 means 'to tell', or 'to inform', whereas 讲 on the other hand, means 'to speak', and also sometimes 'to explain'.

我跟你讲 is translated as 'I'm telling you', given the way the phrase is used, but a direct translation would be, 'I'm saying to you'.

Does anyone have any thoughts on my questions?

Thanks Jason! Now I know how to say : "I'm *telling* you!", should be very useful.

http://chinesepod.com/tools/glossary/entry/聊天

Also, this common expression:

"Chat over a cup of tea"

can be translated as:

一边喝茶一边聊天

yībiān hē chá, yībiān liaótiān

In terms of formality, it's like this:

谈 (tán) > 谈话 (tánhuà) > 讨论 (tǎolùn)

Both 谈 (tán) and 谈话 (tánhuà) are considered "formal" (by Jiaojie), whereas 讨论 (tǎolùn) is not.

You can't really count on individual characters for indications of a word's formality.

"讨论" 强调的就某一问题交换意见（to exchange ideas）。

"谈论"强调的发表自己的看法（to express opinions）。

比如：

我们在讨论一些技术问题。

Wǒmen zài tǎolùn yīxiē jìshù wèntí.

他们在谈论美国总统奥巴马。

Tāmen zài tánlùn Měiguó zǒngtǒng àobāmǎ.

我给你讲个笑话(故事)吧。

Wǒ gěi nǐ jiǎng ge xiàohua (gùshi) ba.

Now I know how to introduce that Man and Dog joke :-)

I told you so! - 我早就告诉你！(is this the best way to say that?)

I said to myself...什么什么, i.e., I said to myself: "I must try it." - 我告诉自我。。。(sounds a little awkward...)

I told you so! - 我早就告诉过你 or 我早就跟你说过。

I said to myself-我跟自已说...

我跟自己说。。。

不可能说我跟自已说...

Thanks for pointing that out!

:)

"干" 和 "千"

"午" 和 "牛"

"体" 和 "休"

^__^ 周末愉快!

"我" 和 "找"

"住" 和 "往"

"万" 和 "方"

"力" 和 "九"

戎 (rong2), 戊 (wu4), 戌 (xu1), 戍 (shu4)

One minute too late to edit my post, so ashamed to admit to 力 and 九! Anyways, we are all friends here. ^_^

One more for the road:

"买" 和 "实"

辨 (bian4), 辫 (bian4), 辦 (ban4), 瓣 (ban4)

市 (shi4), 市 (fu2)

The last pair of characters are rather tricky. I'm afraid I can't show the character 市 (fu2) properly, which is the variant of “黻”, since it's a very rarely used character, but it's not the same as 市 (shi4). 市 (shi4) has five strokes, while 市 (fu2) has four strokes.

市 (shi4) = 亠 + 巾

市 (fu2) = 一 + 巾

拨 (bo1, to dial, push aside)

制 zhi4 (manufacture)

“拔” is "to pull out", but neither "pull down" nor "push up". Here is a good example of the usage of “拔”.

拔萝卜 (to pull a radish out of the ground)

just quickly, please could you confirm the tone for 量in 商量.

It's just that my online dictionary gives it 4th tone, but cpod says it's 2nd tone.

thanks!

In this lesson, it's annotated as neutral tone (shāngliang), but maybe you saw it somewhere on the site as 2nd tone. Some dictionaries list 商量 as shāngliáng, some as shāngliàng and some as shāngliang.

量 has multiple readings and sources don't seem to agree on exactly how to pronounced 量 when it's paired up with 商.

I'd go with neutral tone, as although liáng is occasionally listed as the reading, I don't think it occurs much this way in natural speech.

量 is a 多音字。When means "to measure", it's 2nd tone. When means "quantity, amount, volume", it's 4th tone.

谈论：The things being discussed is less important than the things that need to be "讨论". 谈论天气 谈论XX的男朋友