News and Features - This Week's Lessons and Introducing Sarah

Sarah,  you have such a lovely accent! It's very rare to hear proper English here in America,  so it was a real pleasure hearing you speak.

I heard about Wuhu. When I was thinking about checking out China and searching where I could study Chinese, this was one of the first result, so I searched a bit about it.

I heard that there's a new mall there that doesn't have much business, since most citizens of Wuhu don't have that much money... is that true?

Yes, that's 芜湖, not whoo-hoo.

Hey alkrasnov,

Anhui province is indeed one of the poorer provinces of China but Wuhu is developing quite quickly I think, partly because it's the home of the ubiquitous Chery car: http://www.cheryglobal.com/

When I was there, a huge mall was built within only a few months (using bamboo scaffolding, mainly!). I left before it had officially opened so I don't know its fate.

Wuhu locals are so friendly and their pace of life is relaxed (slightly too you1xian2 for me!). It's very different to life here in Shanghai.

Whereabouts did you choose to study in the end?

I'm not sure what stuns me more..

The fact that Jenny is going to be a smurf or that John knows how to say smurf in Chinese...

Crazy!

-许尘

can't wait to see a picture of a blue jenny! :D

Try looking up 'smurf' in the glossary! Does anyone know if the sample sentence is from an actual lesson? (Be careful though, I can't seem to get "在那山的那边海的那边有一群蓝精灵，他们活泼又聪明....." out of my head now...)

smurf? what is it mean? 蓝精灵？

在 那(山mountain ) 的那边,(海sea)的那边，有一群(蓝精灵blue Elf)，他们(活泼)又(聪明)....."

the mentioning of Wuhu brought back good memories.. Last year I was learning mandarin there for 6 months and I loved it...The city is lovely, it has many parks and lakes and as much inhabitans as my home-country ..;)

The only problem was that their local dialect is completely different from putonghua, so I had a lot of difficulties in communicating outside the school.

The city is changing sooooo quickly; I couldn´t believe how they were able to build one of the biggest amusement parks in Asia in just a couple of months... A month after the opening some people were stucked in the air on the roller-coaster for hours... but that´s another story..

I wish to be able to go back soon...

zyfjcty - Smurfs was a cartoon featuring little blue creatures  http://www.smurf.com/home-en

I can't wait to see Smurf Jenny!

far as I can tell, there was only one female smurf.  ("smurfete.") Pretty scarry.

^_^I only can remember the song蓝精灵之歌. I almost forget the whole cartoon scene!

It might be a bit surprising, but my generation in China grew up on Smurfs/蓝精灵/lan2 jing1 ling2 and Ninja Turtles/忍者神龟/ren3 zhe3 shen2 gui1. The early and mid 80's saw quite liberal policies in China. Dynasty, Charlie's Angels and Growing Pains were all imported, dubbed and became extremely popular in China.  

你好Sarah
最近好吗。 好听英国人口音。 那里英国你是吗。 我是Hertfordshire(Little Gaddesden)

ni hao Sarah

zui jin hai hao ma? hao ting yingguoren kou yin. na li yingguoren shi ma? wo shi Hertfordshire

lol-core...did that make sense?

Rich

lol-core?  what is it mean?

this sentence

你好Sarah
最近好吗。 好听英国人口音。 那里英国你是吗。 我是Hertfordshire(Little Gaddesden)

you wanna say:

你好Sarah
     最近好吗？ 我是Hertfordshire(Little Gaddesden)，你现在是在英国吗？你英国口语真好听。

right?

Haha oh lol means "laugh-out-loud" but only on the internet and geeks like me add weird stuff on the end for no particular reason (like "lol-zords" or lol-zoids)

There's no real reason for it....in fact thinking about it now it's actually pretty silly =/

Oh ok..what's the difference between kou yu and kou yin? I thought kou yin was "accent" and kou yu was "gossip" or "slander"

& can you say "wo shi london" or any other city or is that just weird? Oh and whoops I added a "ren" where it should've just been yingguo

thanks for helping (^_^)

Jonsnow, wo shi london literally means I am London. wo sho london ren makes more sense although i'm not sure if it is the best way to say it.

你好 Jonsnow,

我 来自Guildford, Surrey.
Wo laizi Guildford, Surrey. Ta bi Shanghai wu liao!

I'm from Guildford, Surrey. It's boring compared with Shanghai!

I have been a member since March and have never posted a comment, though I have been quietly downloading lessons all the while. So, I just want to say 'dajia hao' to everyone and say that of all the courses I have tried (and I have used quite a few), I have learned by far the most here. I think the content and the format of the lessons are really the key tothe curriculum's effectiveness. Oh, and Jenny and John are very entertaining to listen to. That's all for now, but my next comments will be in my best Mandarin...... rut-row...;-)

i think it's spelled 'rutt-row' ...:-))

sashe46,

Forgive my ignorance ,but curious to know what "rutt-row" means ?

Welcome Sarah [ Su1xiao3ya3 ].

This was the funniest N&F yet,esp.Jenny's "I'm addressing our users" in reference to the drinking question.I don't think you'd catch John out like that very often...have to get up pretty early in the morning.

I am really looking forward to blue Smurf Jenny.What a good sport.

Thanks Cassielin for the Chinese smurf video.How 可爱

welcome sarah!

how do you say "all saint's day" and "halloween" in chinese? thanks

ewong,

Halloween is discussed in the discussion tab of the Newbie lesson "A ghost outside" found here.

And Calkins did another great job when he discussed Halloween in his group "Vocab picture of the day" here.

hi bababardwan, 

I haven't studied that lesson yet :) Thanks

hey Changye,

I note Praxis have a job going at JapanesePod.com that they're setting up.I would have thought with your excellent linguistic knowledge [and you're living in China]  that you'd be a perfect candidate.Then we'd all get to hear you as well.

Ahem

"Sarah,  you have such a lovely accent! It's very rare to hear proper English here in America,  so it was a real pleasure hearing you speak"

- It reminds of the time when we were oppressed by the English while they sucked the life out of my country.

BTW Sarah, how was lunch today?

Gulam,

India is independent since 1947.

On the picture, you don't like someone born before 1947, do you ?

Gulam,

I was going to make exactly the same point as Kimiik.Furthermore ,I think Sarah is only in her early 20's meaning she was born somewhere around 1980.I think she can hardly be held personally accountable for history and thus would have thought such a personal attack was totally uncalled for.She sounds like a lovely young lady to me.Surely we're all here to learn Mandarin and to better understand China's  culture.

Gulam,

one of the great things about cpod is that we can rise above world politics and interact as people. This hopefully makes its own contribution to a better world going forward. I urge you to try and participate in this fashion. Here's hoping better days are ahead for you, but I have to agree with kimik and bbbw - surely sarah should not be held accountable for the reasons behind your bitterness. We are better than that. I hope. Take care.

Referring to Jenny's comment on growing up with the Smurfs and Ninja Turtles.. you can actually still catch episodes of Growing Pains on TV! It seems so surreal at times! 

BTW:  A shout out to Sarah :P

欢迎suxiaoya!! 加油！

Do we get to see pictures of Chinesepod staff members Halloween constumes? Maybe there can be a poddie contest to vote who had the best costume.

I was just kidding guys....

Anyways it's nice to know that we have such nice people on board...

Have a nice time ya all :)

I agree; we have a great community here.

xiexie nimen!

Re. Wuhu -- I remember being stuck there with a group of students when we were living in Nanjing in the late 1970s and travelling around China.  It was, unfortunately, such a nothing town that it became a by-word among us for the worst place on the planet.  Glad to hear it's improved!

Did you know it features in a Marx brothers' film (can't even remember the name) where they're flying over China and spot Wu Hu -- they wave from the aeroplane and called out Wu hu! Wu Hu!   Hollywood humour has obviously improved since then.