User Comments - JamesEarlGrey

Posted on: Kindergarten

These lessons with the slightly slower speaking speed are great. I could understand about 80% of the lines before the translation :) 

Somehow I just could not catch the number in front of the 小朋友, even though I was guessing there was a class count from the '个'. Need more experience listening to numbers I think!

Posted on: How Old Is Your Brother?

哈哈，一些人要结婚自己的手机。

希望这个信息帮你。

(Still working on my grammar so I hope it's right!)

If you haven't already done it, add 'Chinese PRC' to your keyboards in the control panel (Region & language, Keyboards & languages, 'change keyboard' and then 'Add'). I prefer the 'Microsoft pinyin new experience style', it seems the most intuitive, and tracks your most used characters too, really handy. You can switch from English to Chinese input really easily then.

Posted on: How Old Is Your Brother?

Hi Alf, congrats, when you first start to understand the lessons before the translation it's great isn't it? Your first conversation with Chinese people in Chinese will be 100 times better. Esp if it's in China too.

When something is closely belonging to you, you don't use 的, as it makes it a little impersonal. You would say '我妈妈' or '我姐姐'. If you add the 的 it creates emotional distance from the thing. So if you want to talk about your mobile phone, 我的手机 etc.

Same as saying '谢谢' to Chinese friends when they treat you to a meal, you'll hear 不客气, which in context means stop saying thankyou. It creates distance. You can express your thanks in a different way by taking them out for meals when they visit you.

I'm sure other people with more experience than me (only about 6 months Chinese) will have more info.

Posted on: Where Are My Socks?

哈哈，这个课我真享受的。“烦死了！”，太好了。。。

Posted on: No TP

also be careful of the locks, on a sleeper train I was next door to a squat loo that had been 'well used', the lock had broken and some poor girl was trapped in it; we were woken up to a desperate kicking and banging on the walls as she tried to escape.

She should have paid more attention in kungfu class, then she'd have been able to splinter the door open, strike a dramatic tai-chi pose and then calmly exit.

Posted on: What's Your Name?

great explanation, thanks for that, I have wondered about the same thing too.

Posted on: Do You Want to Go Together?

Thanks these little conversation snippets are great, especially with naturally using/hearing verbs with either 'mei' or 'bu' prefixes and also the is/not is structure. Repetion is good in this case, it's starting to sound natural hearing some of these phrases and also it's a great feeling when you pretty much understand a lesson before it gets to the translation part.

Just out of interest are there any newbie or elementary Chinesepod lessons with hao ba, hao de, hao le and plain old 'hao' in? I still get confused between the differences; in conversational settings they'd be easier to place.

A friend said you could express it in punctuation; 'ok?' 'ok!' 'ok' and 'good' respectively but I'm sure it's more subtle than that.

Posted on: Buying High-Speed Train Tickets

hi, just want to say thankyou thankyou thankyou Chinesepod!

This lesson saved my trip when I turned up at Zhengzhou station at rush hour to find no english anywhere (written or spoken), luckily I had listened to this dialogue a few times, so when I finally found the right queue I was able to be understood!

I accidentally bought a first class ticket (didn't know the Chinese for that, just nodded) but it was fun and still very cheap (plus air conditioning in first class !! A relief for Henan in October).

After being inspired by this, my Chinese friends in Luoyang were impressed with my very basic Chinese, mostly learned here at Chinesepod, because back in May when I first met them I only knew nihao.

After a week in China being immersed hearing the language all the time I had the most amazing experience in a cable car in Singapore. I was in with a large Taiwanese family who didn't speak any English, I thought I'd try 'da jia hao' like Jenny says at the beginning of the lessons.

After that icebreaker they started chatting to me; I was amazed when the Chinese just started coming out, some words even with the right tones! I could just about hold a lovely conversation with them all. They were all so warm and friendly, rather than looking at the scenery we just chatted in Chinese. It was an experience I'll never forget that I'd never have had without you guys... First time in my life I've had a conversation in another language.

I cannot thank you enough!

You are great to listen to, you guys all have really good chemistry together, whoever is paired with who, makes it a lot of fun.

Posted on: Terracotta Warriors

no one mentioned Henan! so much history there. The Shaolin temple is great, especially if you can get a private lesson from the monks. The Grand Shaolin Zen performance is not to be missed either. They use the Songshan mountain range as the stage... Breathtaking - but make sure you hire one of the army jackets, it gets freezing up there esp after the show starts.

Also Longmen Shiku in Luoyang, and the historical feel of the whole Three Kingdoms area. Without a good tour guide you'll miss out on all the really good stuff. I really enjoyed my time in Henan.

Great lesson too, thanks!