User Comments - changbiyuan

Posted on: The Person Component

I think the Queen is using ChinesePod and has called herself wchan. ("We are not amused" would have fit well with the tone of most of these comments...)

Posted on: The Person Component

Yeah... high school class sort of thing... I think that's what was endearing about it. I suppose that made it appeal only to those of us who haven't outgrown that kind of humour.

Posted on: The Person Component

Reading over a post of John's above, I see I should have said 偏旁piānpáng rather than 部首bùshǒu.

Anyway Marco, I hope you're also taking in the numerous comments here that are in support of this show, including some suggestions as they may be!

Following belatedly from almostwinter's overly callous remarks, asking why he would "be interested in knowing you guys": I think the personable element is a definite part of ChinesePod's charm. The lighthearted note of many of the lessons, as well as of Dear Amber and Qing Wen, makes listening enjoyable and almost like you're learning from a friend. And that's really important in maintaining motivation when studying something that takes as long to learn as a language does.

The new video channels are great at providing more varieties of opportunities for learning, and this one is no exception.

John, I really hope you'll reconsider the decision that this show will never see a second episode. All the negative (and other) feedback has come within the first day of this being available which means it's surely coming mostly from the keener breed of listener, i.e. the type of person who's accustomed to the existing forms of content and may be a little less inclined to take to a new format (especially a beginner-level one like this).

Posted on: The Person Component

Good observation, Changye. Surely an explanation of the distinction between "radical" and "component" is ideal material for a future episode!

Posted on: The Person Component

joshuars, sorry for misspelling your name in my last post.

leeht, if it's not to your liking, just don't watch it. No one's forcing you to. (I think it might be time to get over the tragic loss of your five minutes. Though surely it's up to ten or fifteen now once you count the time you're spending bemoaning it publicly.)

Like I say, if it were to include a couple more radicals per show, as well as some supplementary vocabulary like bùjiàn (along this vein we could get 部首bù shǒu—assuming that's correct; I haven't learned it yet and just looked it up—and then perhaps even the stroke names 横héng, 竖 shù, 撇piě, 捺 nà, etc.), then it's certainly more than 20 seconds' worth of lesson.

People on ChinesePod are here with a wide variety of existing and target levels of Chinese, as well as different learning styles and general desire for what they get out of their time with these lessons. I may be outnumbered but I'm not alone in finding some amusement in the admittedly somewhat juvenile format here, so surely it's a show worthy of consideration for adaptation rather than cancellation.

Posted on: The Person Component

Thanks, jushuars (I was fearing I'd strayed a bit far toward the negative again, as is my wont), and good comments. I agree 人 was a bit simple, especially being the only focus.

I also liked mikeinewshot's comment about the contorted handwritten forms that arise... That would be a worthwhile subject to address in this show as well.

I should add too that I also liked the repetition of the metavocabulary in 部件; I may have learned the word before at one point but it's definitely stuck a little firmer in my brain now.

Posted on: Traffic

I love it! I'm looking forward to watching the other five now.

On that note, I noticed that they came out once a week for the first six, and then apparently halted (on October 3). Are there any plans to do more? (Apologies if this has been asked already; I glanced at this comments page and the one for the latest Vocab Tour and didn't see any mention.)

Posted on: The Person Component

Amen, chas.

Posted on: The Person Component

Somewhat curious that I'm posting here after gulam... I'm guessing he's the CP employee who's had to field my numerous criticisms, most of which have to do with the plethora of English mistakes around the site that have allegedly been passed on to the "academic team" and hence ignored indefinitely (e.g. the "pour" that should be "pore" on the tour, which I pointed out a month and a half ago).

Just when I'd though I was developing an unhealthy trend of being overly negative in all my posts here, for once I had something good to say and it seems that everyone else disagrees! I thought this show was quite entertaining, albeit a little lacking in content. Of course my voice is being drowned out on this particular front but I'll still say that the format doesn't need to be abandoned entirely, and if you were simply to pack in one or two more radicals into each show then things would be fine.

user19008 says that education should never take a back seat to fun here, but I think people who have that opinion are taking themselves to seriously. As has been said, this is geared to a Newbie level, and if you can learn two or three radicals in five minutes through repetition and a bit of silly humour then where's the problem?

The funny thing I've found about some hardcore language learners is that they often aren't really as intelligent as you'd think they'd have to be to have so much linguistic success (i.e. much more than me). And dumb people who think they're smart are unsurprisingly reluctant to get off their high horse to appreciate a little simplistic humour.

Posted on: Characters in the Desert and Chinese Kitchens

The assertion that it's always gas in Chinese kitchens isn't necessarily true. Sometimes (this is from experience) the gas in a building gets arbitrarily shut off for many months.

Anyway, there's an awesome alternative to gas that many Chinese have picked up on: induction! Apparently this is something that most of the world knows about, the exception being the whole of North America. For those that don't know, it's a type of electric stove element that heats up as quickly as gas and gives pretty much the same amount of control.

Something like this.

One other comment I have about all the Chinese kitchens I've seen is that their counters are painfully low. And I'm not particularly tall.