User Comments - chris
chris
Posted on: This Coffee is a Ripoff!
April 4, 2015 at 6:58 AMReminds me of all the Chinese airports up to about 4-5 years ago when Starbucks/Costa finally started making inroads. I never thought I'd say these two are reasonably priced, but compared to the local operators that used to have a stranglehold on the air-side market, they are positively cheap!
Posted on: Extracurricular Activities
April 4, 2015 at 6:48 AMI was at an education conference in SH a couple of years ago at which various overseas universities from US, UK, Canada and Australia were promoting themselves to Chinese parents. Huge interest in the event - at least 300-400 attendees. One priceless moment was a particularly sharp-elbowed set of parents dragging their 11 year old son around the networking event at the end of the conference, pushing up to the lead rep from one of the US Ivy Leagues and asking for advice on what their child should be doing. The response? The rep bent down, eye level with the boy, and said whilst studying hard is important, remember you must also have fun while you're still a child - university is still 7 years away. The look of fury in the mother's eyes was remarkable! I do think that kids are pushed hard here - much more so than in the west. I guess a lot of that is bred from the sheer competition for uni places/good jobs here as well as the be all and end all of the gaokao, but it is sad that there seems so little room for kids just to be kids.
Posted on: Stuck in the Elevator
April 4, 2015 at 5:54 AMI've always thought of "jiu" as referring to the help one needs when in a perilous situation, e.g. "save me/help me" whereas "bang" is more for day to day assistance with things, e.g. "please help me put my bag in the overhead" etc.
Posted on: Stuck in the Elevator
March 30, 2015 at 1:24 AM"to go down" vs "to come down". Other examples include 上去 vs 上来 and 回去 vs 回来
Posted on: When To Use “不” bù and “没” méi?
March 29, 2015 at 8:38 AMI think I am correct in saying that one should never use a "le" together with "mei" when referring to the past. Is this correct? Many of the examples in this QW lesson used the "le" in the question, but dropped it when responding with "mei" in the response.
Posted on: Touch Your Toes
March 29, 2015 at 8:04 AMYou mention 腹部 in the lesson as being 'abdomen'. How would we say the colloquial "abs", i.e. when referring to a washboard stomach for example. Would it be 腹部肌肉? I think this might be too formal a construction, perhaps there is a similar colloquial term in Chinese?
Posted on: How to use WeChat
March 28, 2015 at 5:49 AMIn my experience, most expats in China use both Whatsapp and Wechat. I certainly do.In terms of functionality, Wechat still has quite a lead on Whatsapp. But I suspect Facebook will eventually beef up Whatsapp. I should add that I lean more towards Ryan's view - I'm not an avid user of either. They're great as efficient ways of reaching a lot of your friends in one go if you've something important to say, but in the same way as facebook feeds get cluttered with a stream of consciousness, these apps can also get that way. Suspect I'm just showing my age! I'm an old fart before my time.
Posted on: Online Bidding
March 23, 2015 at 7:10 AMGreat lesson guys. I know others have commented similarly, but these recent Elementary lessons are easily on a par with the Intermediates of yesteryear. I guess this is intentional given the recurring comments about the Ele-Inter bridge being difficult. Might be worth flagging this lesson as a useful 'bridge' lesson, e.g. call it "upper elementary" or "lower intermediate".
Posted on: Let Me Sleep a Little Longer
March 22, 2015 at 4:38 AMThanks for that link Pretz, great video of Fiona's background. I thought there was a hint of a Scottish accent from listening to a few lessons now since I re-registered on the site a couple of weeks ago. Glad to see my ears weren't deceiving me!
Posted on: Anyone for Cricket?
April 6, 2015 at 5:02 AMHaha, very good... I cling on to the memory of that outstanding summer of 2005! I've never seen the country get behind cricket so much. Very rare to use the phrase "cliff-hanger" in the context of Test cricket, but that summer was something special.