User Comments - Tal
Tal
Posted on: Sorry and Thank You
March 4, 2009 at 2:41 AMI'll second you there baba. I'm confident though that our hosts are wise enough both to know the difference (between constructive criticism and negative personal comments), and not to care about the latter.
Posted on: Saved by the Gong: Cutting Open a Frog
March 3, 2009 at 3:05 AM@judy76
In fact the upper intermediate lessons stretch me too, but I do think that's a good thing in language learning. One must come out of the 'comfort zone' sometimes!
Speaking only for myself it's useful. I teach English to medical students and it's occasionally very handy to know how to refer to internal body organs, anaesthesia, (and even 晕血!) in Chinese.
Posted on: Sorry and Thank You
March 2, 2009 at 2:31 AMhey bill, you gotta 打网球 not 大网球！;-)
Indeed I want to add (should have said so really!) that this show's (brief) discussion of the 对得起 issue was interesting and useful, and 长夜's contributions here (as ever) were instructive, supportive and felt like part of the lesson proper.
Pete, Jenny and Connie are fine and brilliant people who give their best to us, let's never forget that! But it's up to us as learners to give them useful and positive feedback.
Posted on: Newserino
March 1, 2009 at 9:37 AMWell matt, you sure talk a good game, you should work for the company. Oh wait, maybe you do! Oh, what am I saying, forget that. Anyway, I've never been that keen on mobiles myself.
Posted on: Newserino
March 1, 2009 at 6:11 AMYep, I cannot stop myself voicing 100% agreement with all that calkins says here. Pleco is worth every cent of its purchase price, and it would be the coolest thing since sliced bread (nng, how un-Chinese a metaphor is that!) if CPod designed stuff to work with it.
And like who the hell has heard of the Android mobile phone? Or will buy one just to run a CPod flash card app?
Posted on: Sorry and Thank You
March 1, 2009 at 4:22 AM@judy76 the answer I guess is yes, as well as elementary learners.
However, I think it's true to say that in the past the majority of QWs offered something of interest to intermediate and maybe even upper-intermediate learners.
Since Amber's departure I think the CPod team isn't quite sure what to with QW. The hosts are now people whose Chinese is so far ahead of people in the earlier stages of Chinese learning, that they can't intuitively identify those language areas which are quirkily interesting, or tricky, or apparently simple and well-known but in fact a little puzzling for those lacking tons of practice. So what they do is either go 'back to basics', ("well, this stuff is for newbies and ellies after all! Ho ho!") or serve up something which will interest folk of their Chinese level and which they assume must interest everyone else, ("well, what shall we do this week? Oh I know, Bernie from Brisbane can ask us about internet slang in Chinese!")
(Please note: the above is intended as constructive criticism only.)
Posted on: Sorry and Thank You
March 1, 2009 at 3:25 AMLast week it was Vanessa in Vancouver who popped the question, now we're lucky that Molly in Moscow's enquiry found its way to the top of the postbag. I can't wait to hear from Leo in London, Patricia in Perth, and Quentin in... err... Qatar. ;-)
Posted on: Hungry Traveler: Inner Mongolia
March 1, 2009 at 1:58 AM@mmgalitz
Google Pinyin might be what you're looking for.
Posted on: Sorry and Thank You
March 4, 2009 at 3:15 AM"it would have taken me a half hour to write those last two paragraphs all in Mandarin"
Only half an hour? Way to go, blue! Those 2 paragraphs might have kept me busy for an afternoon! ;-)