User Comments - Tal
Tal
Posted on: No TV Before Your Test!
July 25, 2009 at 1:35 AMThere's no difference, the 儿 just adds a little R sound to the end of the word, (this is more common in the north of China.)
Posted on: Funny Business 3
July 25, 2009 at 12:47 AMI'm currently working on a transcript of this lesson's podcast which is viewable here.
As I write it is not complete, it's a work in progress. I expect it'll be finished in a day or so. When it is I'll repost it in our transcripts group, and in the appropriate thread, 让你们见笑了。
Posted on: I'm Not Here
July 24, 2009 at 11:13 PMI think it's not really quite right to criticize shenyajin for not including an English translation with her jokes, or for her flippant response.
Although she is a staff member, the joke posts she makes are not "lessons". Any poddie can make such posts, and they are not official Cpod stuff, it's not like lesson content, and it's up to the poster how it's done and what's included.
Obviously many people (relatively) new to Chinese study like to have a translation, but if you want to make real progress there should be times and occasions when you begin to try doing without that, using your own wits and whatever resources there are available (there are so many now) to get at the meaning and achieve understanding.
Seems to me shenyajin is providing a wonderful opportunity to do the above, one that she's most likely putting time and effort into over and above her regular duty. I think she deserves praise for that, not criticism.
Posted on: Dubai
July 24, 2009 at 1:47 AMI only just learned that Dubai is twinned with Detroit, is that interesting or what? And that the city is named after a local locust, the daba. How perfect is that?
Actually quite by chance I came across a few more articles about this wonderful place on another site.
This one is an interview with a guy who recruited some of the unfortunate workers slaves who built the city.
'We need slaves to build monuments' is from the Guardian, the title is a quotation. Have some fun, take a guess at the nationality of the speaker!
Finally this from the BBC News Magazine covers a little of the same ground visited in the Johann Hari article.
Posted on: Drinking Game
July 23, 2009 at 11:42 AMRegarding the earlier discussion re. transcription of this lesson, I'd just like to mention that I'm actually taking a short break from transcribing Intermediate lessons right now. Family responsibilities have kept me busy recently!
I did a string of Intermediates recently (all still available via the group I started) and I think folk looking for practise understanding John & Jenny's chat could study those lessons and soon find most of the banter easy to follow.
I do intend to produce a few more UI transcripts, (time and ability permitting!)
As zhenlijiang says it'd be great to see others having a go and making it more of a community effort. (Imagine how we could proofread each others' stuff and learn from ironing out the errors!) zhenlijiang thanks for being a great poddie and transcriber!
Posted on: Job Interview
July 23, 2009 at 11:17 AM@desluo919 - ha ha! I copied and pasted those bits from the lesson content, looks like I managed to copy over whatever coding CPod uses to make that happen in lesson content! I hadn't even noticed! I agree it would be very neat to have that available on every part of this site, but I doubt they'll tell us how to do it!
Posted on: Job Interview
July 23, 2009 at 8:51 AM业绩 appeared in the lesson A Firing Afoot as well as Trimming the Fat at Wang's Office.
In the first of those two 周俊 asks 朱丽叶 to:
主要说说他们今年的业绩和收入。(Mostly tell me about their salary and performance for this year.)
In the second the word appears in the supplementary dialogue, not in the lesson, but perhaps 周俊 could have told 老王：
今年你的业绩很差！ (This year your work performance was poor.)
I'm afraid I still don't get why people are complaining about the speed of the example sentences, for this and other Intermediate lessons. I keep going back to them and listening again, and thinking: is that fast? I really don't think so! You've got the words of the sentence written down in front of you, you've got rollovers with Pinyin and an English translation, and you're still complaining about the speed?! All this talk of strangers in the street is just a distraction. If you come to China you'll find that Chinese people rarely 'slow down' for you, and Intermediate students should either be used to this speed or willing to listen and listen again until they don't find it daunting, (that's not to say that you will always understand every syllable spoken on a first hearing. You won't.)
I'll tell you what I don't like about the expansion sentences, (and the dialogue and vocab pages come to that.) The page design. The way you have to click on the red triangle thing to hear the recording, then as often as not wait a while to hear the first few words... and then maybe click again so the sound tries to reload again... you can waste lots of lovely time doing this. If the internet wherever you happen to be is running quick maybe it's not so annoying.
Posted on: 谋杀案二
July 23, 2009 at 2:49 AM真遗憾在世界上没有博客奥斯卡，我们中文博客肯定能赢！这个系列又精彩又引人入胜。我觉得现在我们剧本作者作得很好。演出也是太好了！
Posted on: Job Interview
July 21, 2009 at 11:55 AMIf used as a verb 表现 means to show or display.
e.g. 他表现得很热情 - He showed great enthusiasm.
It can also mean performance/perform in the sense of how you do your work, how you behave.
e.g. 新工人表现很好，老板决定增加他的工资 - The new worker performed well, the boss decided to raise his wage.
Posted on: Drinking Game
July 25, 2009 at 2:17 AM@zhenlijiang - an extremely generous proposal! Anyone willing to take her up on it?
Incidentally zhenlijiang, that's a stylish (and topical) new avatar. I feel 'eclipsed'! (开玩笑！)