User Comments - chris

Posted on: A Chinese Take on Language Learning

For any poddies that are interested, I've set up a new thread under the "Transcripts with Tal" group for poddies to collaborate on a transcription of the Mandarin part of Ivy's interview.  I'll set up shortly the usual 30 second slots to make it easier for Poddies to dive in wherever they fancy.  Thanks, Chris.

Posted on: Reserving a Taxi Cab by Telephone

For large address numbers like in this lesson ("2452"), John said we can say either 二四五二号 or 二千四百五十二号.  Can we also say the equivalent of "number twenty-four fifty-two", i.e. 二十四五十二号?

Posted on: Renting an Apartment through an Agent 4

wangqiu makes a good point - we essentially have the situation now in SH whereby MNCs are simply driving the rental costs up (on expat flats) by competing against each other, since they are part of the expat packages. I know of very few people that pay this price range out of their own pocket. For some reason, MNCs still think that sending one of their employees to China is a 'hardship' and the expat package (inc rent) needs to be generous to attract the employee to relocate. I actually think that MNCs are missing a trick here - it may have been a hardship to relocate here 15-20 years ago. However, these days I suspect there are plenty of staff that would love the opportunity to come here and would not demand the 24hr driver, 50k flat, etc, etc. In fact, for the more developed places like BJ and SH I would venture that it's actually easier for an expat to live than in their home countries these days. Consequently, I suspect we may be reaching a tipping point where expat packages for China start becoming less generous. Hopefully, this will also help take the sting out of the ever escalating rental costs as well.

Posted on: A Chinese Take on Language Learning

I feel a transcription coming on, Cinnamonfern! ;-)

Posted on: An Introduction to Chengyu

Pleco is a pretty useful addition to CPod when it comes to flashcards. Pleco is a more specialised flashcard appliatio than CPod and I found the spaced-repetition function very useful. However, to get full, optimal use for it there are a couple of points to note:

(1) The self-scoring mechanism is more complex than just right or wrong. If you get it right, you have to rank your "rightness" one of three options. Likewise, if you get it wrong you have to rank your "wrongness" one of three options. Selecting the most appropriate level is difficult to judge sometimes.

(2) You have to be very discipined and do the re-tests at the appropriate time. Otherwise, the "spaced repetition" algorithms breakdown a bit.

Chris

Posted on: How Did You Learn Chinese?

If, like me, you're pretty inquisitive of grammar structures and ask lots (and lots) of questions, take it from me it can put a strain on your relationship if you have a Chinese other half! My advice would be to keep barriers. Speaking Chinese together is fine, but don't turn every conversation into a lesson ;-)

Posted on: Cold Cucumbers in Sauce

Hi shanghaichanges, in the "Conversations" section at the bottom of your "Home" page, there should be a tab called "replies to me". Just click on that and it will list all replies to your comments. However, a word of caution, sometimes people might reply to your comment but not link it to your original comment properly (I keep doing this myself actually). So the list might not be complete.

Posted on: Which Hilton?

Avoiding naming names, Jenny, but I can think of several hotels that deserve both adjectives ;-)

Posted on: Which Hilton?

My particular favourite: Westin = 威斯汀 (wei1si1ting1). Literally, "powerful sandbank"!

(sorry, edited "sandbag" to "sandbank")

Posted on: Checking out at a Hotel

Thanks John. It's funny, I've spent more time than I care to remember at various airports around China the last few years, but I've never really given this much focus!