Learn ChinesePod Lessons on AIChinese.com
www.aichinese.com
October 09, 2010, 10:00 PM posted in General DiscussionDear ChinesePodders,
AIChinese.com has now been online for a month! Hundreds of ChinesePoders have since used our interactive online platform to practice speaking Chinese, benefiting from our market leading speech technologies as well as CPod's market leading learning contents. Many users have also shared their valuable thoughts and feedback with us, several of whom suggesting that we can together learn one CPod lesson on AIChinese.com everyday! We think this is an exciting idea and hence would like to use this thread to take the lead of learning ChinesePod lessons on AIChinese.com. In complementary to AIChinese's speech recognition and tool analysis tools, we will also have language experts readily available to answer your specific questions on pronunciation and tones!
So join us now, learn one ChinesePod lesson a day and spend another half an hour to hone your pronunciation and tone skills on AIChinese.com!
www.aichinese.com
Thanks for your nice comments! We're pleased to see you find it useful. Do keep practicing and hope you'll master authentic Chinese shortly!
Anyone can speak IMPRESSIVE Chinese!
RJ
Well whenever I import files from Chinesepod there are always several audio files in the list that do not import.. Just the audio portion is blank. Please work on that.
RJ
This is fixed by the way. These guys were very responsive, and working with Cpod, they did get it fixed. Thanks for that.
I am surprised that there isn't more visible interest in this tool. Maybe I just needed it more than most, or maybe it just appeals to the engineer in me, but feedback on pronunciation is a valuable thing. Especially if you dont have a human partner to talk to. Even if you do, this is a good start, since repeating over and over until you get it right will test the patience of anyone, however dedicated to helping you they may be. Thanks again.
www.aichinese.com
November 02, 2010, 11:46 PM
Upper Intermediate: An Invitation to the God of Wealth
Two words are very popular amongst Chinese with the reference to God of Wealth.
1st of all is of course the God of Wealth himself
1. 财神 - God of Wealth
Welcome the God of Wealth in NEW YEAR. 新春迎财神。
2. 红火 - on red fire, which means going on very well.
His business came on very well.他的生意非常红火。
The paper seems to be thriving.这家报纸正办的红火。
In “财” and “神” there are “c” and “sh”. c is pronounced like ts as in ""hats"".
while sh is pronounced like sh as in ""shop"", with the tongue curled back somewhat.
xiaojing191919
October 26, 2010, 07:31 AMThanks!
www.aichinese.com
October 26, 2010, 07:32 AMHelp calling a cab
This lesson tells how to ask for help reserving a cab in Mandarin Chinese.
叫车 means to call a taxi.
帮 means to help. We may use this structure : 帮 + someone + V. So we can say请帮我叫（一）辆车 (Please help me call a taxi).
Please remember the saying : 请帮我+ V (Please help me…) . It is very formal and polite.
In this lesson we learn the two words “一会儿” and “哪儿”. They are pronounced as “yí huìr” and “nǎr” respectively. This is what we called “儿化”. In Chinese the final “er” sometimes does not form a syllable by itself but is attached to another final to form a retroflex final. A retroflex final is represented by the letter “r” added to the final. In actual writing, “儿” is added to the character in question. So “儿” in “一会儿” and “哪儿” does not have specific meaning.
www.aichinese.com
October 30, 2010, 10:15 AMChinesepod lesson - 闪婚 (advanced)
马拉松恋爱，马拉松 means Marathon，Because it takes a long time to finish a full marathon, Chinese tends to use this to indicate a relatively long terms.
Another examples would be:
马拉松谈判，long long negotiation
马拉松会议，long long meeting
马拉松 pronounce as ma3 la1 song1，it is actually translated purely by pronunciation. If you look into the phrase literally:
马 - horse
拉 - pull
松 - pine
So it means horse pulling pine. :)
In Chinese, there are a lot of phrases translated by pronunciation.
咖啡 ka1 fei1 - coffee
沙发 sha1 fa1 - sofa
Try to find some yourself and share with us! Have a nice weekend!
www.aichinese.com
October 30, 2010, 08:02 PM
Elementary - Fasten that Safety Belt
We learn 系 in this lesson as a verb.
系 can also be used as a noun and when it is used as a noun, it should be pronounced as xi4. It means department, faculty, division in a system.
For example:
工程系 Engineering Department
系统 System
www.aichinese.com
October 25, 2010, 01:05 PM
Taxable Salary
“规定” is used as a noun in this lesson。However, it can also be used as a verb. It is normally used in government ruling out policy. For example: 英国政府规定，年收入低于6000英镑的不需要缴纳个人所得税。
“外籍” means with foreign passport. 籍 is used widely in Chinese. For example,
“美籍华人”: Chinese American
“英籍华人”: Chinese British
“籍” initial: J and final: i.
For a lot of people, j is a difficult sound. They would normally produce something like zh.
ji is an unaspirated voiceless palatal affricate. This sound is pronounced by first putting the tip of the tongue against the lower teeth and blocking the air with its front part against the hard palate, and the dropping to release the air. The vocal cords do not vibrate.
www.aichinese.com
November 01, 2010, 03:12 PM
Elementary - Trick or Treat!
We learnt 万圣节 in this lesson.
万 wan4 actually means ten of thousands
圣 sheng4 means saint
节 jie2 means festival
So all together literally it means ten of thousands of saints' festival. :D
Chinese tend to use 万 to indicate a lot but not necessarily mean ten of thousands. For example,
万人敌 - to indicate strong and skillful fighter
万箭齐发 - to indicate a lot of arrows shooting at the same time
RJ
November 01, 2010, 11:07 PMThanks for the tips AI. Personally, I find AI great for doing the new vocab list. This way I can master the characters, the tones, the pronunciations (initials, finals, and tones) , and the meanings, all at once, as one combination, right from the beginning. I usually open two tabs, the other so I can do Cpod's "Skritter light" for each new word as I use the AI tool to develop the correct pronunciation. Works great. Thanks Cpod for all the great tools. Learning Chinese in the 21st century! Way cool.
www.aichinese.com
Thanks for being supportive! We would release a new version of AIChinese at the end of November and hope to deliver a few surprise (hopefully good ones). Feel free to let us know how you think then. It's a pleasure to have you as our user. :)
www.aichinese.com
November 02, 2010, 11:56 AM
Upper Intermediate:4S Dealership
The following two words are very common in Chinese day-to-day conversations and we recommend you remember them:
1.气派
The piano gives the room a touch of style.这架钢琴把房间衬托得很有气派。
He had a stalwart figure and walked with an air.他身材魁梧，走起路来很有气派。
2.售后服务
This firm provided a back-up service free of charge.这家公司免费提供售后服务。
Complaint is piling up about the after - sale service.人们对售后服务抱怨日益增多。
Some pronunciation tips:
In ""馈"" and ""斩"" there are ""k"" and ""zh"".""k"" is pronounced like k as in ""kite"", but is accompanied by a stronger puff of air than in English.""zh"" is pronounced like j as in ""jam"", with the tongue curled back somewhat."
sebire
November 02, 2010, 08:38 PMHey guys, it appears AIChinese doesn't like Linux. Couldn't get it to work using Firefox or Chromium. Would like to give it a spin otherwise.
www.aichinese.com
Hello Sebire, well, AIChinese is designed as web-based. It shouldn't matter whether or not you're using linux or windows given that you're using the internet browsers! Err, would you mind giving us a bit more information about what it is like when it fails to work? Thanks!
sebire
Hi AI Speech,
When I tried doing one of the example lessons, it loaded up a grey screen, and popped up with prompts about the microphone, but then it didn't load up any characters, and it comes up with the screen that says "total score", and the forward/back buttons etc, and I can't get it to do anything else.
I have heard other people say that it doesn't work in Ubuntu, but does in Windows. I haven't tried that.
www.aichinese.com
Hello Sebire, thanks a lot for your help! Based on that, the team has successfully re-constructed the situation you've encountered. That means they can now working on to tackle the specific issues directly! This really help accelerate the process of finding and solving the problem. We would keep you updated on the progress hopefully very soon! Again thanks! Please keep an eye on this post.
www.aichinese.com
October 31, 2010, 11:00 AM
Intermediate - Reserving a Taxi Cab by Telephone
We learnt "强生" in this lesson and know it is a company name. Actually this is another example of pronunciation-based translation in Chinese.
Next we would like to present some examples of other famous “foreign” companies' translation in China. Try guess who they are:
飞利浦
康柏
西门子
劳斯莱斯
惠而浦
Answers：
Philips
Compell
Siemens
Rolls-Royce
whirlpool
You're welcome to add more by replying to this post!
RJ
October 08, 2010, 11:14 PMI do find AIChinese useful. Getting the tones right is fairly easy now, but getting the tones plus the initials and finals on each word can be a challenge. It is a great way to learn new lesson vocabulary. A great way to learn the hanzi, definitions, and tones all right from the begining.