User Comments - Romontana

Posted on: Bringing the Heat Home

I'll add my voice to the chorus. The new design isn't working at all on Chrome. To the extent that it is working on Firefox, I don't like any part of what I'm seeing. Between this, the huge uptick in typos, and the indifference and lack of response to user comments and complaints on the discussion pages, I am starting to feel silly for pumping my $$$ into this site.

It would be one thing if there any meaningful interaction between staff and users. For example, with regards to the absence of mouse-over annotations, a CPod staff member could post a message explaining why they have opted to do that and asking for feedback, or if it's the case, explaining that it is a bug in the new interface and will be fixed shortly. Unfortunately the "dialogue" continues to be one-way.

If the current CPod business model is to aggravate and then ignore its user base, I think the company will find the approach to be sustainable only to the extent that many of us are locked in for twelve month subscriptions. In the long run, however, I imagine the well will dry up.

Posted on: Personal Finances

Hi Tingyun, thanks for the thoughtful response. That is helpful and you seem to have a discerning eye/ear, notwithstanding your modesty.

Posted on: Publishing a Magazine

Anyone home? I just want to be clear. And the written dialogue still seems to have it backwards.

Posted on: Personal Finances

有没有人可以帮我回答这个问题？ I'm getting different answers from different dictionaries. Pleco, for example, actually says that it's 老实 that has the neutral tone, and 老是 that uses the fourth tone.

Posted on: Publishing a Magazine

So if I understand you correctly, 80后 is for people born in the 80's, and 90后 is for people born in the 90's? Because right now the Dialogue says 80后 is for people born in the 90's, and 90后 is for people born in the 80's, in which case I think both annotations are wrong...

Posted on: Personal Finances

“老是” 的 “是” 是怎么发音的？ Some places on this site I see it as a fourth tone, some places a neutral tone.  Just in this lesson, for example, it's neutral tone  in the written dialogue and on the vocabulary list, but then has a fourth tone in the grammar section. 

I realize that in practice, the distinction between a fourth and a neutral tone can be pretty subtle, especially when a native speaker is speaking quickly.  But I think with this particular word maybe it's important to be precise, since you have three similar sounding words that are all fairly common – 老是，老师，和老实。

(I know at least for me, when I hear the sounds "lao" and "shi" appear amidst a rapid jumble of spoken words, my brain frantically tries to rewind and figure out what the tone was on the "shi" and then piece it together with the context – so I know whether, for example, "lao shi shuo" was meant to be "teacher says," "always says," or "to tell the truth."  And then by the time I've done that, the rest of the sentence has long since passed me by.  What a language.)

Posted on: Publishing a Magazine

Annotations in the Dialogue tab for 八零后 and 九零后 say "people born in 90s" and "people born in the 80s," respectively.  These should be switched, right?  If so, is the "后" used in the structure to indicate that you grew up in the following decade, i.e. 五零后 means people who grew up in the 60s?

Posted on: Lost in the Mall

Obviously did not intend to post this comment twice ... I take it there's no way to delete comments?

Posted on: Lost in the Mall

Yeah I pointed this out almost two weeks ago, albeit on the discussion page for a different lesson: http://chinesepod.com/lessons/for-the-love-of-straight-teeth#comment-264596

Posted on: Lost in the Mall

Yeah I pointed this out almost two weeks ago, albeit on the discussion page for a different lesson: http://chinesepod.com/lessons/for-the-love-of-straight-teeth#comment-264596