DRIVEL COFFEE SHOP

@calkins

Interesting point about the payback being in the backend. Didn't realise this possibility before and certainly gives me more incentive to continue with the doodling even perhaps when the novelty wears off.

@RJ,

I guess every aspect of learning will help in some way in the odyssey of learning Chinese. However, I've the sort of mentality that looks at amount of effort vs extent of payback and hope to take the shortest pathway possible, although sometimes it is difficult to know beforehand what is the shortest route.    

I listened to the American Pod ... funny podcast, however not familiar with who JP is and why he is infamous, I don't think I understood any implications although I did like the interesting voices of JP and Catherine. An old QW featured a JP showing Amber how to do eye exercises. Is this the JP you're referring to? it says that JP is with Praxis, same organization of Cpods, although I can't imagine there is really an American Pod.

Talking of Amber, I've been keeping track now and then on the podcasts her outfit is producing. The recent videos featuring different topics (eg. parts of the body) are quite well done and useful... sort of the Rossetta Stone approach to learning a foreign language. Have a look at these videos if you haven't done so.     

If you havent heard it, here is a tongue in cheek recording of "American Pod." Here is a lesson on how not to record a podcast, Starring the infamous JP:

http://studio.openlanguage.com/2009/04/21/what-not-to-record/

Paul,

I have found its all related. Back and forth between reading/writing, and listening/speaking takes me on a back and forth odyssey, each leg of which is accompanied by a spurt of vertical growth - the ultimate goal. Learn Chinese.

Paulinurus, I personally think it's better to learn how to write...not because it's necessary to communicate, I just think that the additional time put in on the "front end" will pay off in the "back end".  What I mean is that it's definitely more time consuming in the beginning, but I actually think that learning to write characters will make it easier (and less time-consuming) to learn new characters, vocabulary, grammar, etc. later on.  And once you have say 100 or 200 characters under your belt (and you've learned the basic stroke order rules), learning how to write new characters is fairly easy (I use that term loosely...nothing is easy with Chinese!).

But definitely, if you don't have the time to dedicate to it, don't sweat it.  I think the point for 99% of us is to be able to communicate.  Like you said, it's not necessary to write Chinese to communicate. 

As long as you're having fun using Skritter, and have time for it, keep going.  I have a feeling the novelty will wear off eventually...it did for me when Skritter came out.  It was fun for about a month, but it was just too much to ask to have to always be at a computer to practice writing Chinese.  It's a nice supplement, but I don't think there's any substitute for a good old piece of paper and pen.

Well, I've been playing with Skritter a few times this week and it's been more fun than I had previously imagine about learning how to write Chinese characters. The fun is not that I'm trying to learn how to write Chinese but rather the feeling of drawing something with a water color brush. It's been a zillion years ago back in childhood days when I last drew pictures with a brush, so it is a bit fascinating that I'm now stroke painting weird looking characters but which have real meanings to them.

Now, either my retention memory is bad or that I'm just copying the strokes and not really paying attention to the characters that I'm finding I cannot remember the characters each time I log anew. So, I'm not sure yet whether Skritter will turn out to be a long term activity for me. 

Will I lose the fun aspect if I start to focus on memorizing the character strokes?

Which is a more efficient way of learning how to read: (a) writing out the characters one by one using Skritter, or (b) by just listening to the Cpod dialogues while reading the chinese text at the same time? 

It consumes a lot of time to learn how to write Chinese. And, as I mentioned before, I don't really need to know how to write Chinese. My goal in learning Chinese is to be able to understand what is being said in conversational Chinese and to be able to talk at a conversational level. Reading is just a bonus. Handwriting is not required. When I wish to write, I can just use pinyin and have the computer translate into chinese characters .

However, at this time writing on Skritter is quite a fun thing to do. So, I guess the verdict's out for now on whether I should learn how to write Chinese.  

I myself lag badly behind with my writing skills but am currently heavily focusing on it. OK, my most important motive is that I want to break my personal Skritter highscore.

Besides that, there are two additional reasons:

1) It helps me to distinguish details - when reading! In fact, my reading feels a lot more solid since I practice writing more intensively.

2) As has been mentioned above, writing is crucial for looking up unknown characters. And I am not talking about paper based dictionaries. This summer in Beijing I frequently consulted the character handwriting recognition of the iPhone (together with a dictionary app) - with success. The more experienced you are with writing, the more efficient the iPhone input becomes.

And yes, this time in China I again encountered a frustrating number of unknown characters.

zhenlijiang,

I knew that's what bodawei meant,but your question has made me curious.Don't Asian women also make this claim?

When I hand-write characters, they sing little tunes to me! Of course that's 'cos I'm a virtuoso on the kazoo, so there's my musicality factor coming in.

It didn't take me 10,000 hours to master the kazoo, but that figure reminded me of this fascinating article by Malcolm Gladwell I read not long ago, (originally in the Guardian, but now only available online in the tiny text version I link to above, CTRL+ it, why don't you, it really is worth reading I'd say.)

Personally I believe that most people could master almost any skill in time. And there as the Prince of Denmark put it, is the rub. Time. By the time you know what to do with it, you're running out of it. *sigh*

@pete

Thanks for the tips.  Looking up characters in the dictionary isn't really what I have in mind, no, but of course there is a connection. My dictionary does list the characters systematically based on whether the first stroke is: dian, heng, shu, pie, hengou,.. but I have never used this for looking up characters.  I don't think that failing to apply the system ever prevented me from finding a character.  It is sometimes challenging to identify the appropriate radical that tells me where to look in the radical index.  Actually this is the kind of thing that could perhaps be in the 'resources' section as a ready reference?

I was hoping to get some guidance on using/talking about dian, heng, shu, pie, hengou,.etc. to communicate about characters, when the 'spelling' convention fails.   

@zhenlijiang

I was being self-deprecating - allegedly men are unable to do more than one thing at once, unlike women who are good at multi-tasking.  It's not scientific. :-)

? ? Did I miss something?  Bodawei what's the significance of maleness here??

Hi bodawei,

As a matter of fact, there will be a lesson shortly on looking up characters in the dictionary. It doesn't cover all the ground you've mentioned regarding types of strokes, etc. but I think it's a good start.

It doesn't always work, but you can often type the name of the full character of a radical in order to write the component, ex. the 扌, which represents 手 as in 提手旁 the "lifted hand radical," you can type "shou" and cycle through till you see 扌. But as I say, it doesn't always work that well. 

Hi rj

Just as learning music helps you learn Mandarin, Mandarin helps you learn music. Native speakers of tonal languages including Chinese and Vietnamese have perfect pitch at tens of times the rate of non-tonal speakers.

And sadly I haven't been practicing much lately, so scratching is about the size of it...

 I just realsied that I am in the drivel coffee shop anyway; didn't need to worry. 

RJ

I heard someone talking about the special attributes of the 'musician'. This commentary suggested that the playing of most instruments (singing I don't know) involves doing more than one thing at once, successfully.  [Eg. engaging the left and right hands on different tasks simultaneously.]  So, that puts male musicians in a special class of their own.  :-)   Male musicians have been observed to be more creative than men who are not musicians, even in fixing someothing broken around the house.  A 'musician' is defined as someone who has studied an instument intensively for at least eight years and reached a high level of competence.  This may alll be related to the '10,000 hour rule', which may be relevant to the study of Chinese.  (There, I just managed to make this on-topic and escaped the drivel police.)  Which all leads me to pose a question: is it possible for a non-native Chinese to simultaneously be a musician and reach a high level of competence in Chinese?  [Pete is our test case - we need a few more people to create a valid sample.]  Supplementary question: if they do pass the test, and spend at least 10,000 hours on each pursuit, do they have any time for anything else?

I agree that hand writing characters is extremely beneficial.  It definitely reinforces the vocabulary and like Pete says builds muscle memory.

The problem with typing in Chinese is that we are not really thinking of the character makeup, we are thinking more in terms of pinyin (or BPMF).  This of course has the benefit of of reinforcing pinyin, but it doesn't really help in terms of thinking in Chinese.

The same can be said for inputing Chinese on a cell phone.  When I moved to Taiwan, I learned BPMF mainly so that I could text message in Chinese (no pinyin input phones here with traditional characters).  The problem with this is that I remember the phone digits more than I do the BPMF symbols.  我...oh, that's "number 5...left arrow"!

There's something powerful about being able to hand write an entire sentence in Chinese.  It forces our thinking out of our western brains and more into a Chinese brain.  It's initially not easy for us, but I think it's essential if we want to thoroughly master this language...in about 20 years ;)

Pete

Good way to put it - "muscle memory", but you lost me on the "scratching" sound. Maybe you are getting it mixed up with your violin practice? ;-). And all you musicians seem to find Mandarin easier. I guess I missed the boat on that one.

Last night my new landlord wrote out his details for me to take to the paichusuo, working on each character meticulously (seemed to take great pleasure in it). As soon as he left I realised that I couldn't pronounce his family name - forgotten in just five minutes!  My dictionary and electronic dictionary do not recognise this character.  I went to nciku this morning and found that it is an archaic form of another familiar character 谈.  Not unsimplified, archaic. This reminded me of a request for CP - I would love a lesson (or series like the pinyin series) on talking about characters.  I would like to be able to describe any character I meet in words, particularly complicated or unusual characters (such as some family names!)  heng, shu, na, pie, ti, dian, zhe etc, and how to put them together, heng gou, heng zhe, shu gou, shu zhe, etc. What order do I use in talking about how the character is written? Or has this already been done - is there a reference you can point me to?

And BTW is there a way of representing these parts of characters using the computer?  My Windows input system does not seem to do the job. 

Hi all,

I would say that a big reason to learn to write is to build muscle memory. A character sticks better in my mind if I can write it. I have often seen Chinese people tracing characters on their palm etc. after hearing an unfamiliar name or word which they must remember. I even find the scratching sound of writing the characters helps each one stick in my head.

That said, I recognize a lot of characters that I can't write, and that's even more true for traditional ones.

And Paulinurus, the real test of whether you have truly mastered a character is whether you can write it very slowly and deliberately. It's like any eye-motor coordination task, certainly it's true for me and the violin. You can blast through a character (or bit of music) without necessarily knowing each stroke well.

I've been practicing my English handwriting on this lovely sunny and warm Sunday evening, and it occurred to me that the reason why my writing is so bad now is because my brain gets SO IMPATIENT and is running ahead of my hand speed. Writing with the hand is so much slower than typing on the computer!! When I tell myself not to get impatient and let my fingers produce the words in their own time, my hand writing improves. Seems like I should take that purple pill to chill out whenever I write.     

Tablet PC. Wonderful invention. Wacom tablet if you don't have a Tablet PC. Cheap graphics tablets can be had for under $100. Wait for Apple's tablet if you're absurdly biased against Microsoft.

I have Chinese coworkers who have forgotten how to write because IMEs are so much easier to use. But all of their parents want tablets so they can use the computer to write email.

changye

somehow I dont mind using the mouse. Its a part of my hand now :-)

Despite the amount of time needed to learn how to write a character, it seems somewhat faster than just trying to learn to read it.  At least I recognize one even if I forget the first stroke at a later date.

Hi rjberki

I agree. I hate most drawing something with a mouse. It's just irritating.

Paul

might I also add that learning characters by writing is faster than flash card work since they stick in your mind much better by writing them. At least I find this to be the case.

Same goes for native chinese:

In China, Computer Use Erodes Traditional Handwriting, Stirring a Cultural Debate

http://www.wiedenhof.nl/ul/chtk/nieuws/handwrit/

Paul

I think all of us can read more characters than we can write, but I have found the best way to learn to read and recognize characters is to write them. If I learn to write a character I may forget in time how to write it (unless I constantly review or have "over-learned" it) but I will seldom fail to recognize it. My main motivation for writing characters is to learn to read them, and if I retain them well enough to write them, even better.

Hi paulinurus

Thanks, I always love listening to a good plausible excuse for not practicing writing Chinese characters, whether handwriting or mousing. Actually, the same is true for me. I also have a lot of Chinese characters that I can read but can't write, and still have no plan to practice writing them.

Mourning of the Death of Handwriting (TIME)
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1912419,00.html

Hey guys,

about Skritter and writing chinese ... how important is it to know how to write?

i signed up for the trial period at Skritter this morning and doodled away for about an hour. Not bad for practicing writing, but how important is it to know how to write Chinese for those of us not taking exams? Why learn how to write? Isn't being able to read and speak Chinese good enough? There is only so much free time... spend it on learning how to write when we don't need to write Chinese... wouldn't that be a wasted endeavour?

Another thing I've noticed about Chinese... I can read more characters than I can write! In fact, I guess that out of 100% of the characters I can read, I probably can write only 1% or even less. Do you guys find this same thing in your Chinese learning?

Also, I think there is a lot of benefit to write on paper rather than use the computer mouse (no worries about trees.... with recycling plus good forestry management there will remain plenty of them ...imo talk of green, green, green is way over blown ) 

With all these years of using the computer my  English handwriting has gone to hell... I've lost a lot of the muscle memory to write legibly and am now making a conscious effort to write something every day. So as for writing Chinese, seems to me best to write manually rather than use the computer 你们说呢。

Don't be disheartened Paul, it was a fun idea. It'd be nice to see more quizzes/contests/games like that. I think it also shows just how few people use these boards as part of their CPod experience. CPod may have lots and lots of subscribers, but very few it seems are interested in participating here.

Here's the results to the survey.

Only seven people responded.

Five got it right - Charles De Gaulle, president of France in the sixties

One said Hitler

One said I don't know.

A bit of consolation for me since I was not the only one who thought the pic was Hitler.

Other comments included in the responses:

"I think your survey is flawed. Most folks that dont know will not respond. Why would they?"

"my first impression was that Pete was taking a shot at you. A younger person would not know Degaulle."

"I confess I did have to look it up.... at which point I got the joke! 哈! De Gaulle 的 gall! Pete is a funny guy."

Can you recognize the person in this photo here?

I'm curious to know how many poddies can or cannot recognize this person which was posted by Pete in my study group East Brain/West Brain.

Please pm me and tell me whether you can or cannot recognize the person in the photo. Do not post, otherwise you'll spoil the survey. Simply pm me and tell me the name of the person, or simply say "I don't know".

I'll post the results of the survey early next week.

Hi mickey,

The riot squad is restless

They need some place to go.

No bullies here. Drivel on!

Hi mickey,

Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot

Are fighting in the captain's tower...

Hey Pete, So who at Cpod has the "license to kill" discussion posts? Hope you haven't got a "neighborhood bully" there :-)

Keep on Keeping on...

There may a plug, but no hand can pull it out really.
A hard rain's a gonna fall! Hmm... how about Dylan with Pete? Man, what am I doing wasting time here, hard habit to break. See ya.

Hi tal and paulinurus,

Knowing that the plug is there is the first step.

Here's another Dylan lyric for you, Paul.

Now, they take him and they teach him and they groom him for life
And they set him on a path where he's bound to get ill
Then they bury him with stars
Sell his body like they do used cars...

Now he worships at an altar of a stagnant pool
And when he sees his reflection, he's fulfilled.

Hey Pete,

Sentence's too long to fit in Dylan's song.

How's this:

How many lifetimes will we waste 'fore we pull the plug

pete, the Earth will be 'pulling the plug' on us before too long, and it'll serve us right too! ;)

Hi paulinurus,

I didn't actually say that TV is as bad as the atom bomb, but rather that it's one of the worst three inventions of the 20th century. Obviously TV doesn't (directly) cause mass death or global warming, so it's a good deal lower on the scale. But its downsides still far outweigh its benefits.

You're not the first person to point out this or that educational program in defense of TV. Of course there are some educational shows out there. But you could get the same information, without commercial interruption, from a book or magazine. These materials are free from your library, and encourage you to engage with the material rather than passively absorbing it.

TV has created spectator societies, where people are giving up creating things and engaging with their neighbors in favor of passively ingesting flim-flam from mega-corporations, mega-politicians, and mega-opinion-makers (and often, these are like one and the same. In this, and in their lack of taste or nutritional value, they are like 雀巢3合1- the Nescafe "cream"+"coffee"+sugar that is all the rage in China).

In my previous comment I defended hypocrisy. And I freely admit that I've enjoyed Star Trek and the Simpsons. But such diversions are ultimately hollow and self-defeating. We and Mother Earth would be far better off without them. No amount of Animal Planet can wipe away the literally trillions of person-hours that have been sacrificed to the TV over the last 50 years. It's as if a mid-sized nation that could have produced art, science and love was simply vaporized-- or aborted.

How many lifetimes will we waste before we pull the plug?

Hi tal,

Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water! Despite his obvious hypocrisy, Jefferson was way ahead of his peers in the human rights department.

The more important point is that humans are a stew of admirable and disgusting traits and behaviors. Hitler was a teetotaling vegetarian, but that didn't excuse his monstrous acts.

I also liked your old avatar, which brought a touch of mischief to the discussion. Like Changye, I'm a sucker for monkey-magic.

Well changye, if 真 can exchange the whole Earth for a diamond ring (lol) in the name of a new hair-do, I think it's time for a change too! Tal is actually (part of) my real name and I feel comfortable being addressed that way. 'A change is as good as a rest', that's what my mother used to say!

Changye if you're asking that last question seriously, you really weren't paying attention to what went on in the Forget It thread mess and up here about 21 hrs ago when Raygo became so sick of being treated unfairly he said goodbye--causing me to burst into tears because that was just not right (plus of course because it was my fault in the first place).  (then I noticed he had a new avatar and name--returned as Tal--so stopped blubbering, before you came in here to admonish me).

I'm surprised, that you saw his posts in the last hours of Forget It and didn't see that they were earnest efforts to bring goodwill and humor and value to the thread, not ironic.

I'm in no position to criticize Matt, but he did arbitrarily (as in, the policy--new or old--does not justify it) delete.
So, yes, as Tal has said, the new policy is actually that whatever CPod feels fit to delete they will. I guess that means 'whatever will put a newcomer off' according to CPod.

Thanks for the laughs Tvan. The drivelers' blood for liberty I take it, is referring to my bleeding heart.

Hi raygo (tal)

OK, I got it. One of my English dictionaries also says that "ass" has another meaning "donkey". I apologize for my remark caused by igonorance. I'll try to find an opportunity later to use the word in my postings.

Incidentally, why did you change your avatar and ID name?  I liked your monkey-magic avatar very much.

Thomas Jefferson? Didn't he own slaves? Excuse me if I don't take his views on 'liberty' too seriously. Anyway tvan don't fret, my blood won't be splashing on to the roots of your liberty tree just yet, it'll still be toddling around this place learning Chinese and sidestepping your 'manure', it just won't be wasting time playing these tiresome little games any more.

I'm English changye, and we say 'arse' where quick-on-the-draw yankees like tvan would say 'ass'. If I thought you were an 'arse' I'd say so believe me. A connoisseur of words such as yourself should be able both to appreciate the difference, and not to get hung up on it. Hey we all get knocks in life don't we, some of them are deserved, maybe some of them aren't.

Changye, you've nailed me a couple of times over the years for my bad Chinese, but I've never thought you were pompous or an ass... however, if you were/are, you're the most knowledgable, most helpful, most-repository-of-weird-Chinese-arcana-iest pompous ass on the boards here.  And, of course, I know that you and I have never gotten off-topic...

zhenlijiang, fear not!  As the ancient Daoist philosopher, 汤玛斯傑佛遜, said:

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of drivelers and forum moderators.  It is its natural manure."

Changye, fyi 'ass' in pompous ass is not 'buttocks' or 'anus' if that's what you thought. It's not vulgar or indecent, it's informal.

Hi Pete,

I was intrigued that you considered tv an invention as bad as the atom bomb, maybe a tongue in cheek expression? TV, its good and bad, just like the Internet (lots of good, but lots of bad too) is really up to the individuals (and parents of young kids) to make responsible choices. There four new cable channels here which I watch - EQUATOR all about travelling,  OSIS - nature, TREASURE - art, and RUSH - extreme sports. Without EQUATOR I would not have seen and known about many obscure  and off beat places and customs in China, such as the one about Arjin - Tibetan Secret Land.

Changye, please--'pompous ass' is not indecent, not such a bad term, and said by Tal tongue-in-cheek.  It's a colloquial way of saying, well, pompous, though of course it doesn't mean you have to like being called that. Please ask Pete maybe, for his insights.

Criticism for what I did I will take. Paul--I don't want to say this again. I had no business accusing Matt, no excuse (even though I did have a good 'friend' cheering me on all the way, still no excuse).

I just didn't appreciate having someone walk all the way over here to Drivel Cafe, open the door and step inside just to say "Enough already" when I was already done emoting, as I said up there. I was done.

Hope that's clear.

Tal  反正，我哪儿不直接？
I am dismayed that you are being accused of anything, and understand why you're angry. You did not, as Paul points out, participate in our sleuthwork, you did not insinuate anything, you in fact kept at your efforts to make the mood there light, in fact contributed very witty and lesson-related posts--which no one can see now because they've been arbitrarily deleted.  Again, I'm sorry. Because I made Matt upset enough to do that to you. (please--no one argue with this)

Hi Changye,

Tal didn't deliberately post with malice after the first wipeout. He posted two cartoons and Chinese dialogues joking about "dibble" which was a subject that was created from my mistyping of "dribble" which was my involuntary reaction to the pic of Lukeskywalker.s mum, which was one of the persona Zhen could come back as should she decide to leave 'creepy Cpod'。I think he was trying with good intention to get the board back to normal, and maybe too fast after the first rampage, and was subsequently wiped out。。哈哈！

Hi raygo (or tal_)

I'm very sorry. To tell you the truth, I completely thought that you deliberately posted them yesterday with ironic intent. Looks like I need to learn not to doubt other people's goodwill.

Also, I thank you for teaching me the convenient word "crass". It seems that declaring yourself "crass" can justify criticizing someone by use of "not so decent" words such as "ass" in a public place.

I learned a lot today.

Hi Guys,

It's a public holiday today for me, sun's shining, air's fresh, temp's about 24, and besides some gardening chores and few tv programs to watch (shhh.. don't mention to Pete that there are many channels these days that are not weapons of mass destruction) I have time to simply drivel. 

Yes Tal, I thought you were mistreated yesterday. The irony is that throughout the whole thing when some of us were playing detectives, you in fact remained impartial and was simply joking on what personas Zhen may assume if reincarnated. After the first mass deletions, your subsequent dibble chinese dialogues were not only funny but also perfectly relevant to the 算了lesson topic and should not have been deleted. Perhaps as a consolation, I would refresh your memory that my posts were deleted even before the policy was in effect 哈哈 but looking back now, maybe quite appropriately. Deletions are sometimes appropriate and sometimes not, such as in your case which then only reflects poorly on the person rather than on you.  

re Changye's remark, I have no problem with it...every one is entitled once in a while to say "I told you so" or to assume a parental role and scold a bit. So we played detective instead of learning, we went on a tangent, but so what.. no big deal, but remember it was triggered by his judgment to broadcast the new policy to someone who is clearly an imposter.    

Zhen, 200% guilty means you have to come back twice,  first as ? and then as ? . I am not Japanese so of course I wouldn't understand the Japanese culture but based on the circumstances that led you to play detective you're not even 100% guilty. It's the delay (from this week to many weeks) and all the apparent cloak and dagger stuff with mynash and other imposters that went on in implementing the new policy that made us play detective.   

Well, being a crass westerner, lacking all that Oriental indirectness and 'grace' you two are so good at, I'll just be blunt and say don't worry zhenlijiang. Actually it amuses me when changye purposely lets his mask of avuncular gentility slip to reveal the pompous ass beneath!

Anyway changye if you're trying to suggest I was in any way involved in this past weekend's witch hunt, you are mistaken. If you and other users could have actually seen all the posts that were made, I think you would been able to get through it without wrinkling your delicate nose, and might have even felt that the situation was actually resolved now, and that we had got back on a teaching and learning track as well. But our good product manager could not have that of course, he had to wade in as the Alpha Male, deleting every single word I tried to post, even when it was obviously related to the lesson content. As you should be able to tell from paulinurus' comments above, some of the posts involved creative interplay (using Chinese) beween active and interested users, (no need to worry about them of course if there's a potential newbie on hand in any shape or form ready to hand over some cash.)

Although you and I are both Japanese we're not really in Japan here. I do think you know this but it's usually better (in the English-speaking world), if you're going to make a valid criticism, to make it very direct.
I am able to take this criticism well. I know I was 200 percent in the wrong.
On the other hand joking or making cute references is actually not helpful, as you will come across as mocking the other person.

But again, I suppose I deserve that.   我情愿坐牢

Don't worry, you're not misinterpreting me. I readly admit that I'm a bit teachery today. However, a teacherly attitude might be slightly better than a "detective-ly" attitude here in Chinesepod, a place people teach and learn languages. Just a joke.

Changye although I'm sure I deserve it, for once I'm finding your teacherly attitude a bit disagreeable--just being honest here. And if I'm misinterpreting you I'm sure you'll be kind enough set me straight, and I shall have to apologize yet again.

Hi zhenlijiang

You are very right. And that is the reason I posted the drivel here.

Changye please let me remind you this is Drivel Cafe, not a lesson thread.

And I was done.

Please allow me to repeat the phrase deleted together with some other comments in "Forget it" lesson thread.

我已经够烦了。 That's enough already.

(:_;)

(・o・)

(;_;)

(;O;)

Hi raygo,

CPod wouldn't be the same without you. On behalf of us here in the office, here's hoping you decide to stick around.

Don't let post-modernism get the better of you!

I posted this certain to be deleted post elsewhere, it's a partial swan song, so to make sure folk see it here it is again:

But I never drink coffee! How can anyone? (Don't worry, I'll be stopping by. For a minute or two.)

Yeah seems like the new policy is actually delete anything that isn't sanctioned by the "boss" - even when it does actually use language from the lesson and is trying to be creative and fun. Yeah, I get it now. Relax, you'll all be seeing a lot less of me on these boards from now on.

Go ahead... delete in 1, 2, 3... 

bye bye

P.S. Good work pete, don't think that was even up for 5 minutes on the 算了吧 thread! Good luck working for CPod in the future, you'll need it!

Hey raygo, I was in a hurry for an outing this afternoon (Sunday here) and unfortunately didn't save our Chinese dialogue on the dibble tool which I thought had the potential for a future screen play, maybe becoming even bigger than the Jersey Boys.

Too bad they were all deleted, but no worries bro, it's been said that raw talent rises above raw deletions :)

Zhen, imo, no need for multiple apologies my friend.... there were many coincidences that led us to think that there was a staging process in the introduction of the no drivel policy, especially the long delay in making the announcement and then the reply to the imposter at the time of the announcement.  

But... that's all in the past... let's drivel!   

Tal--我不好意思。 mi dispiace.

I don't know my Star Wars too well actually (would this be akin to confessing that I don't know my times table or something?) ... will study your kind suggestion for my comeback persona and promise to consider it well.

哈哈！Cheers dude! I was quite pleased with that Top Cat one. Star Wars in Chinese is a bit more challenging of course.

I'll have a few things to say about all this in due course, right now I'm 'bushed' - late night trying to persuade Matt not to delete every post in sight unless posted by him, zhenlijiang or putative new arrivals, and now up early again to feed a hungry baby! *sigh*

Raygo, too bad I couldn't reproduce Lukeskywalkers mum's pic.

I thought I saved some of the dialogues before they were savagely deleted, but somehow I lost them, or maybe not, somewhere in my computer.

raygo says 

Officer Dibble:  诶，怎么回事TC? 听说你和你的没用的哥们儿在骗人呀！

TC：Dibble 警官，没事儿，没事儿，就算了吧！