Comments on: Where Do You Live?

By: light487

light487

Your place is a mess? Didn't make your bed this morning? Get those dirty clothes off the floor and stack those dishes you were leaving for the Ayi.. Hrmm.. are you guys psychic or something?? :) I know that lessons can be listened to in any order and the whole point of ChinesePOD is to NOT listen to the lessons in order, I still thought I'd throw these lessons in here for somewhere to go from here (no pun intended): http://chinesepod.com/lessons/where-are-you-going http://chinesepod.com/lessons/where-ya-headed Thanks for the lesson guys.

By: hitokiri6993

hitokiri6993

多謝課程! 我住在菲律賓,拉古娜省(Laguna). :)

By: wjefferys

wjefferys

My usual take on bu2cuo4 不错 has been "not bad." But in this lesson it is being given a much more positive spin. I would have said (having been to Suzhou with a friend, many years ago) is that it is not just 不错, but actually 美丽. But I now learn that bu2cuo4 不错 is really much more positive that I had thought. So, I have learned something new here.

By: hitokiri6993

hitokiri6993

For Newbies: 不錯 could be "cool". Not the adjective cool(eg.: Tai4 ku4 le5太酷了!). It's something like: A:Is this your house? B:Yap. A: 不錯(cool)

By: dammoon2008

dammoon2008

URGENT thank you guys for ur effort but i really want to have your attention that there are some lessons can not be downloaded so plz try to solve this problem on newbie pages right from page number 10 ..... SO PLEEEEEEEEZ HELP ME as soon as possible...

By: jdubbiking

jdubbiking

Ken and Jenny recording this lesson. hearing the lesson brings me back to Shanghai. Thanks for the opportunity to photograph the lesson.

By: jdubbiking

jdubbiking

Take 2

By: changye

changye

Hi guys, I don’t want to confuse newbie learners, but let me tell you that how to use “住” properly always gives me a headache. This verb is not so easy to handle. Firstly, which is correct? I guess that (1) may be much more commonly used in China, but I’m not sure weather or not (2) is also correct (or natural). (1) 你住在哪？ (2) 你在哪住？ Secondly, are these all correct and natural? I think that (2) is probably most commonly used. Is (3) only used in the context such as “我在上海住的地方是～”？ (1) 我住上海。 (2) 我住在上海。 (3) 我在上海住。 Lastly, I’ve found two examples in one of my dictionaries. They are, at least, grammatically correct, but I’m not sure both are natural and commonly used. (1) 我住在上海三年了。 (2) 我在上海住三年了。 As far as I can see on the Internet, it seems “住在上海” is more prevailing, but I would like to know if “在上海住” pattern is also appropriate (or acceptable). I would appreciate your advice!

By: pituitaryadenoma

pituitaryadenoma

Dear Changye, Your examples are all correct. Both 住在上海 and 在上海住 are equally common, both are also equally natural. It is more of personal preference rather than regional. (1)友達に会いに東京へ行きます。 (2)友達に東京へ会いにいきます。 It is just like the above Japanese sentences.

By: texastochina

texastochina

jdubbiking Thank you for the pics of Jenny and Ken. I hope that we can see more.

By: amichal

amichal

Dear friends, This is Newbie lesson and newbie discussion, so please be so kind and use pinyin, otherwise we (newbies) are not able to read and understand you. So your posts have no sense.

By: suburbanite

suburbanite

@amichal, FYI -- there is an addon for firefox ChinesePera-kun, by Dave of CPOD. If you hover over the hanzi, it will give you definition (broad range) and the pinyin. This will help a little with learning characters too. Thanks to Dave for this great tools, and to executer who put it in a post I happened to read.

By: jdubbiking

jdubbiking

Hi Texas to china. more pics from Chinese pod studios here. http://picasaweb.google.com/jdubbikin/PraxisLangageChinesePodStudios

By: texastochina

texastochina

Hey, thanks very much.

By: texastochina

texastochina

What a nice looking bunch!

By: bazza

bazza

This isn't downloading in itunes either.

By: auntie68

auntie68

Dear amichal, we're all only human, so Chinese characters will creep in occasionally, or we will forget to "hanyu-pinyinize". Please try not to be put off by that. Re-reading all the posts in this thread before yours, the ones which you were reacting to, I realized that your friend "changye" actually took the trouble to use only Chinese characters that appeared in the PDF. So apart from the 三年了 (san1nian2le; "3 years already") -- which is pretty basic, you would hit this kind of vocab very early on, if not in this lesson, then maybe the next -- in his last example set, you could figured it out without having to look up a dictionary or install ChinesePeraKun. And his point was a valuable one. In fact, even the intimidating "Chinese-only" post by hitokiri6993 could have been a way to test your grasp of the lesson: He used the exact construction "我住在..." taught by the lesson, so it could be inferred that everything which followed was some place name. Okay, you might not recognize the first chunk of text (多谢课程), or know how to read the Chinese characters of his hometown (Laguna - he provided that info, btw), but that's the way Chinese is. Even for advanced learners, and even native speakers sometimes, we will come across strange characters that we just have to guess at. Hope you didn't get offended by anything I just wrote, and thanks for your patience with this LONG post.

By: lilywhytelegs

lilywhytelegs

jdubbiking: Thanks for sharing your photos. Must have been a fun visit!

By: user23777

user23777

I am surprised that Ken and Jenny would deliver the lesson standing up. Surely they could be seated while giving us their knowledge. I for one listen to them in bed.

By: light487

light487

It's so much easier to write in Hanzi (Chinese Characters) when you know how than it is to write in English because in English you need to define everything over and over, as well as add all these extra words for the sake of grammar and getting your point across. I guess this is why so many people tend to so easily write with Hanzi so readily and forget that it is a Newbie level lesson.. hehe.. :) I know I have done it on several occasions and my Hanzi skills aren't all that great. Writing out the pīnyīn kind of defeats the point of the ease of writing Hanzi.. but still, at this level it would be nice if people posting would considering making the effort if it is a educational post that they are making.

By: alwingate

alwingate

Here are a couple nagging problems: First, the links to vocabulary section in the Supplemental Vocabulary are broken. Not all. Secondly this has to do with the reproduction of sound or reciting sentences from the instructor. This sentence is problematic for me. 你在哪里工作？ The particle ma is present but the reader takes it up slightly though at times it doesn't feel right to me to go that direction. My question about "ma" Does ma remain a neutral tone when spoken? And how is it affected by the word before it? Also, in the western pattern of questioning there is inflection. "Are you going?" which affects the entire sentence. Now in speaking Chinese do we give the western inflection when asking a question? Any help is appreciated due to the fact that I confuse easily. It is a learning obstacle. P: Also, just cut and pasted Chinese characters and have no idea what the pinyin is - sorry.

By: alwingate

alwingate

A consideration C-Pod. Since high frequency language is your style I am wondering if it is possible to have high frequency chinese characters. You know, like the ones that can be seen on the street? It would be great to have such a resource since I drive around on my scooter lost most of the time - overwhelmed by the number and size of the characters.

By: alwingate

alwingate

One more: I am so happy to hear Aric the producer once again creating tags for C-Pod. I must tell you that one of the reasons I was attracted in the first place was because of those funny tags. Thanks Aric. Let me assure you. I am not letting anyone else use my account; I have to confess though that I do access CPod at work and at home at times. Therefore, two different computers. Perhaps Web 2.0 isn't that smart after all.

By: light487

light487

+++ To the Hi-Freq Characters thing. I also see a lot of Chinese characters in Sydney.. I'm sure every city in the world has them on the sides of Restaurants, Temples, and other places... Also.. regarding the particle "ma". All particles are neutral tone, always. In regards to the inflection thing.. as far as I can work out, there is no rising tone for a question when speaking in Chinese. I've wondered this myself but like I say.. I've never heard a Chinese speaker do the same thing.. It is my assumption that the little particles (and other things) that make the particular phrase into a question, rather than a statement, is what "replaces" the English inflections. So where we would naturally have a rising tone/inflection to denote a question, the particle is used in Chinese in its place..

By: alwingate

alwingate

Amichal, I believe that a lot of the posts are from people who cannot easily create the Pinyin. They cut and paste the charcters from the lessons and ask their questions. Though I agree it would be nice to have the Pinyin. But you have to ask why these people have questions in a Newbie lesson? I try to get some understanding on that too?

By: alwingate

alwingate

Change, Don't worry about confusing me. I am a newbie and when I see a post like that I just don't read it. It is none of my business.

By: alwingate

alwingate

I think everyone should post in BuPuMuFu. hehe

By: light487

light487

A pīnyīn IME can be found here: http://www.chinese-forums.com/showthread.php?t=13005 It's Windows based though.. not sure if one exists for Mac sorry.. This is the one I use.. It's easy enough to install it and use. The message at that link explains how to do it I believe.. You still need to know your pīnyīn though.. I mean.. you need to know which tones are what etc.. It doesn't do the work for you, it just allows you to accent the letters easier. If you know how to write pīnyīn, then you almost know how to write 汉字 Hànzì too because the input for the Hànzì is the same as for the pīnyīn..

By: auntie68

auntie68

Hi alwingate. I can only answer for myself, okay? My take on this is that CPOD somehow manage to produce such useful content that there is something useful for everybody, at any level, even in a Newbie-level lesson. That is my only explanation for why more advanced posters can be found lurking -- or posting -- in the lower levels too. In a way, I like that. For one, there is no "caste" system based on ability, and for a Newbie it can be confirmation that they are learning something worthwhile (rather than "baby" stuff). Also, this ethos also encourages relative beginners to feel completely uninhibited in entering higher levels just for a look-see. Eg., light487 has only been learning Mandarin for less than 3 months. Yet I see him posting -- and having fun -- in Intermediate levels or higher. That's great. I don't have problems typing characters; if I forget to pinyin-ize, that's because it's not natural to me. Like double the work. So as long as I am posting in characters which are well within the vocab of the lesson concerned, I won't bother to pinyin-ize everything. Guess this is a philosophical question. In the Newbie levels, is it such a no-no (or politically incorrect) to use Chinese characters? Character recognition comes so much more quickly and easily than writing characters, that I wonder: Is it so completely ridiculous or elitist or inconsiderate to imagine that this can begin in the Newbie levels? One last thing to consider, if anybody is willing, is that Mandarin is very different from English. That's another reason why even the more advanced learners find it worthwhile to visit the more elementary/newb lessons; it's not so unusual to have an "Oh!" moment thanks to that. And people like me (or changye) sometimes post some tips -- usually along the lines of something that we wish we had known when we were first beginning Chinese --, you can always ignore them. Sorry if it irritates anybody.

By: chenggwo

chenggwo

If a newbie wants to learn Chinese, he must learn the characters. Also, one must skip over any part of the discussion he does not understand. It is true that even the Newbie level offers good, short examples of realistic Chinese. It is a benefit of ChinesePod that we learn the natural language, not stilted, artificial examples.

By: changye

changye

Hi, pituitaryadenoma Thanks a lot for your helpful advice, which always makes me feel relieved and confident. It seems Chinese sentence structure is more flexible than I imagined. Hi auntie68, As always, thank you very much for your effective “covering fire”. If I had tried to write the similar thing in English, it would have taken me a very long time!

By: light487

light487

You don't need covering fire by the look of your scary dog with big teeth! :)

By: changye

changye

Hi light487, Come on! My gentle (and chubby) dog even gets beaten up by cats!

By: perle

perle

I use Chinese pera-kun with Mozilla- a free add on. I am a newbie, but I still cruise even advanced with pera-kun-a mouse over the character gives several suggestions as to english translation. I try recognizing some characters and divining some by inference and others I really just don't understand, but I see where I have to get to. I don't mind characters thrown in. I am too cautious yet to do too much of that myself.

By: alwingate

alwingate

Auntie, I agree with you one hundred percent. We all pay our dues here and there is no caste system. I don't think that anyone should have to use pinyin. Like I said before if it is such that it is not useful for me, then I just skip it. And, I for one have a legitimate question about characters and cut and paste a sentence; but for me to change to pinyin is more work; I don't want to do that. You won't find any argument from me whatsoever. The only irritation I find in life is me.

By: alwingate

alwingate

Sorry Chengwwo, but I don't have to learn characters to learn "Spoken Mandarin." Don't get me wrong, but I don't have time to learn them. And for me Chinese is a very difficult language, so I spend what time I have on listening and speaking. I am not sure the posts with characters would be worthwhile or not worthwhile for me. Just don't know, and don't have the time to find out. Just the way it is for me. And you know, these posts are directed to specific people usually anyway. So, not my business. But, I can see where an understanding by the Newbie is important since the Newbie is challenged anyway buy things other than the characters. So, perhaps some understanding is due for the sake of the person just starting out. I would hate to think that someone my be put off by all of this, but some Newbies might be overly sensitive not feeling they have any place to go; seeing characters in a sentence and such might create the feeling that this is beyond them. On the other hand, I would hate to see the more experienced users not take part in discussions since they can help we who are everything Chinese Language challenged. Well, that's my two cents.

By: auntie68

auntie68

Hi alwingate. I hear you, okay? Another CPOD "Auntie" -- ie AuntySue -- has helped to express the heartfelt feeling -- pretty eloquently -- that Newbies will feel "crowded" in their space if (slightly) more proficient users persist on "getting their jollies" from croding newbies in what should be a "newbies-only" space. In my humble understandinbg, "getting their jollies" is like saying that more advanced learners get their rocks off "showing off" (in some way), at the expense of newbies. I'm really sad if that is how newbies view the participation of non-newbie users. You already agreed iwith me, alwingate (thanks!), so I think you don't have any problem with the idea of users getting their rocks off at the expense of newbies. I just am not like this. But I guess the proof is in what impression people get of my interference. Guess the question is: What to do with the "other" baggage on the part of newbies? Seriously, this is a CPOD site and only CPOD can (or should) sort this out. Please just accept my response, if you can, that it is

By: auntie68

auntie68

The "other baggage" on the part of newbies is not my problem, nor is it my concern. That is for CPOD to sort out. No?

By: chenggwo

chenggwo

alwingate, I am a Newbie and I am not studying the characters right now. I am only responding to research that indicates that people who do not study Chinese writing never become fluent in spoken Chinese. Well, I believe that very much. For one thing, I want to sort out when homonyms are really different words or when they are the same word used in different contexts. So I pay attention to what the more advanced students are saying even if I don't understand it all. Believe me, that is what language learning is all about. That is what makes it so frustrating: Paying attention to what you cannot understand fully. Eventually we all catch on just through the exposure, even when we think we are not learning much. What I did is I googled 'stroke order' and found gif animations for the most common characters. It goes like this, writing even just a few of the characters helps you recognize them when you see them better, reading them helps you sort out homonyms, sorting out homonyms helps you speak more confidently. Also, if you ever go to China, you want to read some of the signs, don't you?

By: jwosmun

jwosmun

If one reads the contents of the comments from the start of CPod the issue of the use of pinyin in Newbie and sometimes Elementary lessons keeps repeating, with true Newbies expressing frustration when it is not provided and some of the more advanced users contending that it should not be necessary, for some of the reasons enumerated above. I suspect that occasionally this has led some to give up on CPod. Earlier a consensus was reached to always provide pinyin in Newbie lessons. If this was not done the writer either apologized for the inability to do so or faced the consequences by being chastized. Another user would frequently provide the missing pinyin. This position seemed to have been supported by the CPod staff. Of late this has been forgotten, and I recommend that the pinyin rule be kept in force at least for Newbie and possibly for Elementary. Another aspect of the problem is that new users do not have an easy way of finding out what the best tools are and where to find them. They are found usually by stumbling upon them from old comments or by a following comment triggered by someone's frustration, as done in this lesson. What is missing from the CPod website is an easily accessed repository of links to the best tools and of links to other websites that enhance the learning process in CPod, ultimately making the use of pinyin unnecessary.

By: patp

patp

alwingate, try this site to copy and paste the Chinese into, it helps me. http://www.xuezhongwen.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=translate Cheers Pat

By: jackfrombelgium

jackfrombelgium

Hi, On the picture "na3 li3" should be "na3 li" I think so. Greetings Jack

By: chenhuihui

chenhuihui

我住在中国.青岛~ 我是中国人~ I live in Qingdao city, China! I am a Chinese ~ I want to find a friend to learning English and teach Chinese in Qingdao~ Have anyone in Qingdao? contact me : Chenhuihui38@163.com Thankyou~

By: alwingate

alwingate

You know Chenggwo, you make some very valid points. I just figured that at age sixty two I didn't have time to learn the characters. Anyway, thank you for the insights and I have notice that when I drag my cursor over character I have begun to look at the character and the meaning...just a small thing.

By: auntie68

auntie68

alwingate, 62 is NOTHING. You are great. Simply great. I enjoy all of your posts (your personality?), and I hope you will keep me/us posted as you acquire Chinese characters. Careful -- it can be addictive. Just ask light487...

By: chenggwo

chenggwo

Making a small effort learning to write the characters resulted in a large improvement in reading. Helpful things that I learned were 1) There are only about thirty basic stokes that make up all the characters. 2) There are 215 radicals from which (together with some of the stokes) all other characters are formed. Know this makes the characters look more like letters of the alphabet if you will and less like cute little drawings. All the characters have been abstracted into a limited number of strokes and this helps both writing and reading the characters. Knowing a few things about the language that any native speaker would know helps fluency with speaking the language as well. In my case, I am learning more than one dialect. So I trace when the characters the Cantonese use for their spoken language is the same as Mandarin and when it is not.

By: AuntySue

AuntySue

All you need to remember is that each and every Newbie lesson is a lesson for someone who has never encountered Mandarin before, much less decided whether to learn characters (which are not taught in this course), and that as a first lesson attender their computer resources are probably lacking. Just know where you are and who the primary audience is. Then it's up to you to decide for yourself whether you are being selfish or helpful or simply executing your CPod-given rights. Your attitudes towards Newbies, the majority of CPod users, will become apparent from your actions. The more the beginning Newbies like what you do, the more they will stay and participate, or quietly vote with their feet, so you have immediate feedback if you look for it. But it's up to you as the more experienced participant to judge for yourself, because we all have different and very conflicting standards. All I can ask is that you do look, you do think, you do ponder outcomes, and you do care about those who you cannot hear.

By: alwingate

alwingate

I don't believe for a second Auntie 68 that more advanced students are getting their jollies through their exercises. I suspect those who think so are merely projecting their own personality on someone else. At any rate, I welcome more advanced students and as you pointed out they have every right to be here since they are learning things from these initial lessons. These artificial boundaries people create is nothing more than a mind that exists within a siege mentality. You know, for them there is never enough to go around. But, I do appreciate anyone who makes a point when they write in pinyin, although I must confess that even then I seldom read those posts. I just don't have time; I really don't. But, I believe we can all learn from each other. And I must also say that I have a self interest here. What if the intermediate folks began to object to my presence amongst them. I don't want that to happen. I mean I would hate to see the levels ghettoized in such a fashion as to exclude anyone for more or less ability. I am anarchic on this point. The more the merrier. If an advanced person says something I don't like or don't understand or whatever my objection it is now my policy just to skip by it. I don't have to control the behavior of other people in order to be happy.

By: changye

changye

Hi Chinesepod! > What is missing from the CPod website is > an easily accessed repository of links to > the best tools and of links to other websites > that enhance the learning process in CPod, I sincerely hope that you guys would seriously consider jwosmun’s reasonable request unless it would harm your business. Just putting the link to, for example, Firefox, Chineseperakun, and pinyin-converter would be harmless to Chinesepod. I would also like you to add a note such as “Put pinyin, if you please (or as much as possible?)” on newbie and elementary lesson pages. I believe that it would considerably save poddies’ time and energy. As jwosmun says, it is always going to be this way.

By: bpeacock

bpeacock

Is the difference between naer and nali just a regional preference or is there a conotational difference as well?

By: amber

amber

Hi bpeacock,

It's personal preference/regional distinction. There is no difference in meaning.

By: thestudnt

thestudnt

For some supplementary words for this lesson, a window appear and says : NO DATA.