User Comments - chris

Posted on: 一下，一会儿，and 一点儿

I am very guilty of throwing "yi xia" into everything in a vain attempt to sound more authentically Chinese!  There was an additional function of "yi xia" that you failed to mention in the lesson but is of utmost use to the struggling Chinese learner and that is the way it helps you buy some time to formulate the next part of the sentence in your mind!  If I haven't quite recollected the word I need, I can buy an extra half second by throwing in the yixia...

Posted on: Chinese Dialects (Part 2)

I agree that dialects in Fuijian are probably the furthest removed from standard Mandarin - totally incomprehensible to my ears!  My wife and inlaws are from there.  My biggest issue is that they speak Mandarin with such a strong accent that I can't even understand that, let alone the minnanhua local dialect!  I must say it is rather depressing, just when I think I'm making good progress with Cpod intermediate and upper intermediate lessons, to suddenly feel like a complete Mandarin beginner again when speaking with my family...  Do any other poddies struggle with understanding Mandarin spoken with a southern china accent?

Posted on: Buying a Book

thanks John, that certainly helps.

Posted on: Visa Issues

Thanks John. There certainly are a lot of these sandwich patterns, "shi...de", "suiran....dan", "chule....jiushi", "kuai....yao le", "ruguo....dehua" all immediately come to mind. It's the omission of one part of the pattern that is the problematic part, since it makes it more difficult to then determine if the pattern is still there, particularly with the "shi...de" pattern, I find. The others are a little more easy, particularly the "if" pattern.

Posted on: Visa Issues

Thanks John, got it.

Posted on: Measure Words for Animals

in fact, thinking about it, I don't think this can be a V+O word since 小 is not an object, it is simply an adjective. The plot thickens....

Posted on: Measure Words for Animals

Not directly related to the lesson, but there was a great sentence during it, as follows:-  他出去胆子就很小.  I wonder if anyone can shed light on the grammar here.  I have come across the word 胆小 to mean 'cowardly'.  Is this another of those Verb+Object words, like 睡觉 (sleep a sleep)?  If so, is this why you can separate the Verb and Object and insert the 就很 in the middle?  Why does the 胆 then need a 子?

Posted on: A Chinese Bachelor Party

I'm fine with this practice of dropping in the English word into the Chinese sentence and vice versa, but as long as the Chinese/English translation of the word is also given. Maybe this is too much of a crutch for some learners' sensibilities (I guess if a chinese word is spoken during the lesson that I don't know I should go and look it up in a dictionary and vice versa if an english word is used that i don't know the chinese for, but if Jenny drops in the translation mid-sentence I'm not complaining, it saves me a precious few minutes going to look it up ;-) ).

Having said this, I do take the point that in day to day conversation these crutches are not often given so listening to cpod lessons can give a false sense of security...

Posted on: Buying a Book

Expansion sentence 1c, first part:  这么多年没见了.  I thought I was just getting the hang of "le", but this sentence has confused me.  I thought when using "mei" to negate a past event, we should not use "le"?  Or is this a case where "这么多年没见" and "这么多年没见了" have different meanings?  I guess the first example is "I have not seen him/her for many years" whereas the second example is "I had not seen him/her for many years until now", which leads me to believe this "le" is a "change of state le"?  Any confirmation of my understanding would be appreciated.

Posted on: Buying a Book

Can this use of 讲 be used to mean "about" for other things or is this use restricted to talking about books?  I often struggle with this concept of "about", e.g. what's this movie about?  what's this presentation about?  what's this lesson about, etc.