User Comments - Jerry@ChinesePod
Jerry@ChinesePod
Posted on: 66 Enjoyable Characters with Joy #6
March 28, 2019 at 2:36 AMHi Alice!
Yes, there are several things to learn. I would suggest:
First, learn the stroke order. I believe learning to physically write characters by hand is an important first step.
Second, focus on components. Once you've learned how the individual strokes work, you should then learn how pieces work together. For this, you'll need a good dictionary that specifically focuses on etymology, such as the Outlier Dictionary. I really wish I'd had that when I started learning characters.
Third, if you're going to make huge strides in memorizing large numbers of characters, you may want to start developing your own memory tricks. There's a great article about that here.
Mixed in with all this, you'll likely benefit from some kind of spaced repetition flashcard software.
Hope that helps!
Posted on: Veteran movie fans 资深影迷—最爱电影
March 28, 2019 at 2:25 AM十部电影？那么多！其实，我上高中的时候，一到暑假我就会不停得看电影，最少一天一部。
Posted on: Characters - The New Co-Worker
March 28, 2019 at 2:20 AMThanks Jasmine! That's a helpful way to remember it.
Posted on: 疯狂富豪和现实生活 Crazy Rich Asians & Real Life
March 28, 2019 at 2:19 AMThere is a version of this video on YouTube with subtitles.
Posted on: 66 Enjoyable Characters with Joy #3
March 28, 2019 at 2:14 AMThere's actually a very good reason for that: Suppose you sign a contract with someone and agree to pay 100 元, written 一百. How hard would it be for the other person to alter the paper contract by adding two little lines, turning "一百" into “三百"?
Posted on: Making Apologies
March 27, 2019 at 10:07 AMI had an American classmate who liked that phrase so much that, even in speaking English with other Americans, he started saying "on a horse" instead of "immediately."
Posted on: Asking Questions Politely
March 27, 2019 at 1:37 AMIt's definitely not wrong to use duìbuqǐ when asking for something. I know some other language-learning programs teach it early on as a way to start a question, but in real life it's not too common. Duìbuqǐ tends to be much stronger than a simple ordinary qǐngwèn.
Posted on: Chinese Idioms - Lower than a pig or dog
March 27, 2019 at 1:35 AMI believe you're right. I've reported it as a mistake. Thanks for catching that!
Posted on: 4 Tones of Zhu
March 27, 2019 at 1:34 AMGlad it was helpful! I agree that the tones are the most difficult part of Chinese.
Posted on: The Key to Closing a Deal
March 28, 2019 at 2:38 AMHi Alice!
For learning pronunciation, I'd suggest focusing on the Dialogue recording itself, along with the buttons in the "Dialogue" and "Vocabulary" tabs. Various hosts will have different ways of speaking (which I think is great for listening practice), but the dialogue file and the individual one-line or one-word buttons on the "Dialogue" and "Vocabulary" tabs set the standard to imitate.