Dont neglect the elementary lessons.
douglasboyle
September 25, 2013, 11:08 AM posted in General DiscussionHey guys. Just thought id mention. Ive been trying to force myself to be intermediate.
But recently ive been listening to sooo many elementary.
There is sooo much gold there in the elementry im loving it.
Wish i had of explored it earlier before i tried to launch into intermediate...
As in i like to orally practice speaking along with them.
The intermediate ones most times the dialogues are too fast for me to orally practice with.
As far as listening practice goes chinese radio and whatever else. But for oral speaking practice lovin the elementary lessons...
I wish i had of explored them more thoroughly before. I feel that if you mastered those lessons it would be adequate enough for just about all of your daily life conversations.
Legless
September 25, 2013, 11:48 AM'Had' not 'had of'
Right-Wingnut
This is a common error.
Firstly many people erroneously believe that when they hear "could've", "should've", "would've" that they are actually hearing "could of", "should of", "would of" instead of "could have", "should have", "would have". It really irks me when people write 'of' here.
But a further problem occurs with the contraction I'd've, which of course is never written down that way. A lot of people don't realise that it means "I would have", as in "If I'd've done that" = "If I would have done that". They think that the 'd means 'had', and then add the irksome 'of'.
But as you say, there is no need to write the full "If I would have" - "If I had" suffices.
douglasboyle
Legless......
I wish you had of told me this before.
You have changed my life with this absolutely brilliant
correction.
I now feel like a complete human being.
You are so wise.
Feel free to follow more of us around like this
and go ahead and presume we must wish to aim to be a linguist
one day as a prerequisite before posting.
As one can not feel free to post without the fear of such petty uninvited observations.
Please correct more of my grammar and spelling mistakes in the future.
I can pay you if you want. You are so amazing.
Legless
Fine, hold on to your "provincial" language. Yeehaw ...
adamrichards
September 30, 2013, 03:06 AMHey man, congrats on moving on up. But really, you're making it sound like once you've gone Intermediate, you can't go back to Elementary. They're still incredibly valuable lessons, no matter what level you've placed yourself in.
I only joined ChinesePod very recently, starting at Intermediate, but I've often checked Elementary too. I don't always listen to the full lessons: just reading the dialogue is enough. And as an ego boost I'm always testing myself in Elementary because in Intermediate, I frankly don't score that high!
Anyway, keep at it man.
douglasboyle
If thats how it sounded mate. Not my intention. Was just trying to say i neglected elementary and tried to think the lessons were not hard enough for me. But in actual fact i overlooked them. The last month studying them has been great and helped my conversational skills massively. I suppose its like i was trying to do calculus but my algebra was shoddy.
adamrichards
In that case, I feel the same. I just can't listen to them all the way through, in the way I can the higher levels. So maybe to keep your math analogy running, it would be like me forgetting a principle of algebra, but not wanting to sit through a day at primary school (except for recess, OBVIOUSLY) to get the information.
Anyway, after this conversation, I'm thinking I might check a few of them out tonight.
douglasboyle
Haha.
But I know what ya mean.
I have downloaded about 400 elementary dialogues put them on me phone.
I just loop them. Let them soak in. I go for a walk
and practice speaking along with them.
Doing this has really been helpful.
I would say apart from conversing with Chinese people
this is helping my oral speaking.
As far as listening practice goes yeah I would much rather listen to
intermediate or Chinese tv or radio.
RJ
September 25, 2013, 11:38 AMMy feelings exactly. elem lessons are solid gold.The format is perfect. Three repetitions, complete translation, further analysis of the language, and 3 more chances to grasp the meaning. These are great for listening and speaking practice.