User Comments - alexlexilu

Posted on: A Visitor and Progress Tracking

And here in Canada, when I read Chinese newspapers or speak with Chinese people, they are always throwing chengyus everywhere and then trying to explain them... I usually have to look it up in my little eiffel tower electronic dictionnary (French-English-Mandarin) or later on MDBG because they can never explain them in a way that I understand. I guess chengyus are not high frequency in daily activities, street talk but they are very high frequency when you start discussing deeper subjects, opinions... which are very common topics when you meet the educated Chinese people living outside China... they love to discuss culture, religion, and other such topics with foreigners... they sure love their chengyus and even more so teaching them to us... but I still can't manage to use a whole lot in my speaking because I have not been able to assimilate them yet... that's really my only thing about chinesepod... I wish there was a place for chengyus, without being upper-inter or advanced level yet... if we started from the beginning hearing some simple ones... then we would become more familiar... everyone on this site does not all live in China.... sometimes I feel they really only point to that market. Although I love the whole going to the hairdresser lessons, I will never use them here. The Chinese here are educated and we enjoy dicussing life topics more often then daily activities. But that doesn't mean that my Chinese is advanced... I just try my best with what I have...

Posted on: Too Many Food Allergies

WOW I always wonder about this as well... this would be a great QW or intermediate lesson!!!

Posted on: Dancing in Public

Seemed like the actor's voices were new... enjoyed them!

Posted on: Dancing in Public

Here in Montreal there are hundreds of couples who dance outside all summer long... we have these huge dance floors outside in the park and in the evening couples stream from all over town to come and dance!!

Posted on: A Visitor and Progress Tracking

YOU SEE JOHN!!! Chenyus are common... Thanks Xiaoliang for once more pointing that out. John is convinced that Chengyus are not high frequency so we don't need to learn them until Upper Intermediate level... but the community is asking again and again for Chengyu shows because we keep hearing them and we want to understand and use them... since the QW on chengyus, I dont know how many times I've heard 胡说八道. I loved that show you produced on QW but there were too many chengyus in one show... therefore I only retained 2... maybe chengyus should be incorporated more slowly with other stuff... but the way they were presented and explained was great... only need not to throw them all together in one show... it would be more beneficial to have one a week then 4 every 4 weeks.

Posted on: A Visitor and Progress Tracking

I would be glad to test the Progress tracking since my current one doesn't work anyway... I studied too many Newbie lessons so it wont show anything... I wanted to review Newbie stuff very quickly because I've been learning Chinese on my own for 8 years and I wanted to see what I had missed from low level common Chinese... I still learned quite a bit of stuff. But I don't want to delete the lessons out of my Studied ones because I still want to be able to identify the ones that I never looked at.

Now I am pretty much done with doing the full Ellie lessons as well so I plan to do the same by just reading the dialogues of the other Ellie lessons to see what few new things I might find. I am now quite comfortable with Intermediate lessons, even doing a few Upper intermediate... when I think that 6 months ago when I started ChinesePod I was really at the Ellie level, finding Inter too hard... I can't believe how fast I've been improving with you guys!!! Special thanks to Connie who I really love cuz she works mostly in the shadow but she does an awesome job!! I always love hearing her on QW!! I got my friends hooked up to ChinesePod now and they love her too!!!

Posted on: Utensils in the New Kitchen

I am sooooo excited!!! I've been wanting this lesson for so long and never told you but now it's here!!! I am always so confised with all the cooking words...

I haven't even listened to it yet but I wanted to be the first one to write a comment cuz I'm so happy!! :-)

Posted on: Reserving a Taxi Cab by Telephone

By the way, what's up with this: 欢迎你进入外星球！expansion sentence??? How is that useful? Understanding Chinese Star Treck?

Posted on: Reserving a Taxi Cab by Telephone

I have a question about the last sentence the company lady says. She mentions that they will reply within 5 minutes. Does she mean that they will call her back within 5 mins or that the cab will come within 5 mins?

I don't live in China so I don't understand what that implies. Here, in the Western world, after you call the cab just shows up, therefore you must be ready and wait for him immediately if you called for him to come now. Is it the same in China?

When I visited Taiwan we often called for a cab as they would give you a discount that way. But in China, I didn't know you could phone so we always went out on the street hoping for one to pass by soon... and hoping to be the first ones to grab it... like in the elementary lesson... what a pain!

Posted on: Keeping and Leaving

WOW you are awesome. Yes I was there in November last year. And you are right... I had no idea about this terrible event... now it makes more sense since I never heard this anywhere else... Maybe they said it in Chinese too I don't remember or I didn't understand it... Check this out... at least 27 died....! and 74 injured... everyone was trapped on the bus... aweful.

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90776/90882/6674120.html

and for those who are not disturbed by graphic pictures... but BEWARE... you can see the victims

http://www.chinasmack.com/2009/pictures/chengdu-bus-9-fire-videos.html