User Comments - bodawei

Posted on: Christmas in Chinese

香港是不是中国？

12月26日是香港公众假期， 称为 “圣诞节后第一个周日”。这天在香港又称为 “拆礼物日”，有说法认为 圣诞礼物 要待到 这天才 可拆开。当天也会 举行赛马活动。（http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%8A%82%E7%A4%BC%E6%97%A5）

Posted on: Christmas in Chinese

'Boxing Day is observed in Canada'

My 2012 diary does not list Boxing Day as a public holiday in Canada - is it known as Boxing Day without being an official public holiday?

Posted on: Focus and Specialization

'perfectly enunciated robotic voices.'

ChinesePod is not robotic but it is almost perfectly enunciated. It is way short of real life Chinese. It provides some hand-holding, and I like it for that. It does not substitute for listening practice in the real world.

BTW agree with your comments on transcripts - writing a transcript does not improve your listening ability, but it is probably a useful tool for expanding your vocabulary and writing skills. And as the proponents say here they probably pick up on points that others miss because they go over it with a fine tooth comb.

Posted on: Focus and Specialization

This is a most interesting discussion, thanks very much.

John's comments on differentiating Intermediate from UI in particular. Is that saying ChinesePod cannot help you into the UI level? In that by definition everyone specialty is different and ChinesePod cannot help individuals develop language skills to work in a professional environment.

The material at UI, Advanced and Media level is all what I would consider 'general interest' - it gives you material to function in society, without going into any great technical depth. I don't think it tries to, or should try to.   

I am not disagreeing, it is what I believe: to move to anything beyond general functional Chinese you need to seek other methods and other sources to complement the general role of ChinesePod lessons.

For these reasons, I can say that as an Intermediate learner I find the UI lessons an esential part of my learning here. (Intermediate are not much challenge - I can listen while playing freecell and learn just a couple of new things each lesson, and re-learn a couple of other things.) 

UI are all about general functional Chinese. They are not sufficiently difficult to put me off, and always offering something to learn without a huge amount of effort. (That doesn't mean I consider myself more than Intermediate - I will probrably roam the Intermediate space for life like Neo in some kind of matrix.) 

Similarly I listen to the Advanced lessons if they grab my interest. I try to listern to all of the Media lessons - sometimes with a native speaker so I can discuss it and get more out of it.  

Comments about finding someone to talk about the language with also rings true - it is not that easy. It's great when you find that person. 

I think I'm an intermediate level learner with hobbies. A current hobby is reading and understanding the 三字经 and 'writing it up', exploring the stories behind the stories. A hobby on the horizon is reading novels. A third hobby is reading comics.  Finally, using Chinese productively in the classroom, mainly for confirming the meaning of key terms and for general discussion. 

Posted on: Focus and Specialization

I agree ouyangjun - its small format makes it look less daunting. :)

It also has those cool little diagrams that I find fits my learning style

You can use it as a reference book or if you are keen work through chapter after chapter. It is marked as 26 RMB but I bought it new on 当当网 for 19 RMB ... About A$2.30 - good value. I bought two books and they were delivered to my home free to me. Great value.

Posted on: What to Expect

Hi polyglotwannabe

I am not encouraging you to learn your pin yin using the nursery rhyme in preference to John's chart, I am commenting on the photo attached to this lesson. The photo represents a typical Newbie learning process where the pin yin is written adjacent to the character (above the character in this case.)

But it is not a bad idea to take some material that is as familiar as nursery rhymes - it could supplement more mechanical learning material.

'Is audio available somewhere?' - Yes, do an Internet search and you will find lots of audio versions to sing along with. But note that there is more than one version.

Posted on: Visiting the Hospital with a Fever

现在我是换尿布的专家，很多经历。。。

Posted on: Visiting the Hospital with a Fever

糖尿病的尿是肾脏产生的意思。英语说'urine'.

尿从尿道排泄出来的液体。

Posted on: What to Expect

Oh we have had this lesson photo before, but don't ask me when.

People can practice their pin yin, their tones and even their character recognition (I needed to look up to check all three for a few of these characters.)

The first time I saw this I posted the 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' version that I guess is on the board. This is deja vu ...

I think that this one goes:

一闪一闪亮晶晶

yi1 shan3 yi1 shan3 liang4 jing1 jing1

满天都是小星星

man3 tian1 dou1 shi4 xiao3 xing1 xing

挂在天空放光明

gua4 zai4 tian1 kong1 fang4 guang1 ming2

好像许多小眼睛

hao3 xiang4 xu3 duo1 xiao3 yan3 jing1

一闪一闪亮晶晶

yi1 shan3 yi1 shan3 liang4 jing1 jing1

满天都是小星星

man3 tian1 dou1 shi4 xiao3 xing1 xing

Posted on: Boxing Day

'Bodawei could you please define what is an Australian family or Australian culture??? Boxing Day is Cricket ! Oi ! Oi! Oi!'

Fair question - I guess you are asking me to defend my view that Boxing Day is as I have described (largely a family day akin to Christmas) and not a day dedicated to department store sales.

Culture is an 'average' concept - it answers the question how do the majority of this society behave. So yes, there are sales, but limited to a few stores and a few localities, and yes they are quite busy but not as busy as before Christmas. Maybe 1% of the population go shopping - still a significant number of people and it's important for those retailers. But the vast majority of people laze around at home or wherever they are having their holidays. I live near the centre of Sydney and Boxing Day was dead quiet, as was today, Boxing Day +1. The roads are deserted, no traffic. Most shops are closed. It is even hard to get a coffee in my suburb which is a centre of coffee culture. So the reality is that Boxing Day is primarily a day to blob in front of the TV with your mates or your family watching the cricket (Oi!Oi!Oi!) or the Sydney to Hobart.

Family - Australia is a big multicultural and micro-cultural mix like most European countries and the US. Certainly the nuclear family of mid-last century is a minority. Some of my happiest Christmas/Boxing Day memories have been hanging out with friends rather than blood relatives.

See http://www.aifs.gov.au/ (Aust Institute of Family Studies) for studies of what Australian 'family' is about, although it does tend to focus on solving problems.