User Comments - chris

Posted on: Lesson Brainstorming

I assume the team are aware of Pretz's post in the "general discussions" section that must have several hundred lesson topic suggestions on it by now, if not thousands :-)  Probably worth a trawl if the academic team really are short of ideas.

Posted on: Negotiating a Deadline

I have a set process that I apply to each lesson, broadly as follows, after which I tick the lesson off my list as "done":-

- handwrite the whole dialogue in pinyin and hanzi (no english)

- handwrite all of the vocab and supplementary vocab - this time hanzi, pinyin and english

- listen to expansion sentences

- handwrite every expansion sentence in pinyin and hanzi (no english)

- review the grammar tab

- do the exercises

- review the discussion tab in case there are any relevant points there (normally this is more for fun since language comments/questions are few these days)

Once I've done the above, the lesson is "done" for the purposes of me marking it as studied. However, is it really, truly "done"? Probably not. Unless you can listen to a lesson and first time through understand everything 100% perfectly (dialogue and lesson itself) and would be able to handwrite on a blank sheet of paper the entire lesson transcipt in hanzi, perfectly first time (including the expansion sentences), then I don't think the lesson is truly done. Perhaps this is setting the standard too high, although having said that I could now do this for newbie and eles. I would struggle for Intermediates, although they are getting easier. I enjoy studying UI, but these are certainly a challenge.

Just my thoughts.

Posted on: Thank You and Sorry

I'd always thought you were from Amesbury near Salisbury in the south of England, George. I stand corrected!

Posted on: Sobriety Check

Is 贿赂 the noun and the verb for "bribe"?  My pop-up dictionary only says "bribe" which leads me to believe it's only the noun.  In which case, what is the most natural way to express the verb?

Posted on: You Smell Terrible!

Thanks Vera. I agree, it is best if I just remember the 多久。。。了 pattern rather than try to over-analyse the "le"!

Posted on: You Smell Terrible!

@question:  I always thought that when we use 没 we should not use 了.  However, in several of the expansion sentences we have the question structure:-

多久没什么什么了?  Is this breaking the standard rule above or is it actually that the 了 has nothing to do with the 没, rather it is linking with the 多久 in a 多久。。。。了 grammar structure?  I think this was kind of touched on in the lesson, but just wanted to double-check.

Posted on: Planning a Film Project

John, thanks for asking all those grammar-related questions, e.g. in this lesson around the use of 一切OK vs 什么都OK vs 一切都OK.  I've noticed you doing this quite a bit in the Intermediate lessons lately and they're exactly the type of thing I wonder when I'm studying, so thanks for that.

Posted on: The Quick, Smooth 马

@question: with reference to the recent London Olympics opening ceremony, could we say:  伦敦奥运会的开幕式是天马行空的, i.e. the London Olympics opening ceremony was very vivid and creative?

Posted on: The Quick, Smooth 马

Sorry to raise again, but any chance we can go back to the old-style PDFs - it's been quite a while since the technical problems that caused the change were flagged.  The issue is the size of the file more than anything - they are running at about 1.8mb now compared to the old 0.2mb which was far more manageable.  If there is no longer any intention to change back, please could someone at cpod just let us know and I promise not to raise again ;-)

Posted on: Manly Beards or Pretty Boys?

Personally, I like to use 哪里哪里 for deflecting compliments but, knowing that it often, as you say, marks you as a complete newbie fresh off the boat/jet, I then go to great pains to establish the fact that I'm a bit more advanced than that!