User Comments - chris

Posted on: The Various Guises of "Until"

I know what you mean watyamacallit. I'm not too old yet but the brain does take a while to absorb things, so I always have my cursor over the pause button during QW to give me a few seconds to read and digest the PDF written version of the sentences before the team has moved on to the next one!

Posted on: The Various Guises of "Until"

I've said before on the site that the example sentences are by far the best bit of the CPod learning experience for me - in particular the "Expansion" tab on all the lessons. Having given my language learning experiences a lot of thought recently, I've concluded that once you're past the basic building blocks covered in the newbie lessons, then it only really takes a very short time to teach a key new point be it in QW or a lesson (in this QW it's simply a few variations of how to express "until") - the real learning value comes in seeing the taught point in actual practice, i.e example sentences. Admittedly, there is little point spending a lot of time going through all the possible examples in the lesson itself, rather the student can spend their homework time on it once the key point itself has been taught.

Posted on: The Various Guises of "Until"

tvan, I was thinking the same thing - I never know when to use 再 and when to use 又 in these situations! Posting a reply here to bump your query.

Posted on: Switching Seats on a Plane

jimijames, in your sentence above re the school being next to the library, shouldn't the "shì/是" in fact be "zài/在"? Or if the "shì" remains, don't we need to add a "zài" immediately after it? I remember having lots of fun and games trying to learn all the Chinese ways of indicating relative positions a few years back, with one of my main memories being the need for "zài" somewhere in the sentence.

Posted on: Leaky Pipes and Faucets

I know this comment is over a year old now, but going back to usēr1695's original attempt at the sentence above, I believe he was trying to create an example of the structure discussed by John and Jenny in the lesson rather than trying the "bǎ" structure. I appreciate the "bǎ" structure is a more natural way in Chinese of translating the sentence, but....would the grammar also be appropriate using the structure in the lesson, e.g:-

nà tāngchí néng wǎng shuǐcáo lǐ rēng

那汤匙能往水槽里扔

Is the above grammatically acceptable to a native Chinese and easily understood? Also, could a native chinese confirm which is more natural - jjinfrance's sentence or my one above?

Many thanks, Chris

Posted on: Buying a Shirt

Thanks lujiaojie. I've also realised that I should not have been reading the "fa1" character in isolation. It is actually co-locating with the following character, in both the expansion sentence and your example above, to create a new, distinct word.

Posted on: A Special Christmas Gift

Thanks Connie.

Posted on: Buying a Shirt

Hi, is it possible to have some guidance on the following words in a couple of the expansion sentences:-

1. 弄 (nòng): 别摸白色的衣服会弄脏的 - Don't touch the white clothes, you'll make them dirty.

2. 发 (fā): 我觉得腿脚发软一点儿力气也没有 - My legs feel like rubber, they've got no energy at all.

The mouse-over translates nòng as "to make" and fā as "to become".  I always thought fā was to send out, as in send a letter, etc.  I've never come across this "to become" usage before.  I would expect something like "dāng" 当了.  Also, whilst I do vaguely recall coming across this "nòng" in the past, I can't say it's something that I'm that familiar with.

Would it be possible for a native chinese to provide some further example sentences using "nòng" and "fā" in similar contexts to the above?  Many thanks, Chris.

Posted on: Which is better: China or the USA?

Hi Bodawei. I usually alternate between MSN and Skype, depending on whichever has the best streaming connection at the particular time of day I'm using it. Can't say I've tried the gmail app - will take a look. To be honest, the potential skype block wasn't the individual thing that finally convinced me to take the vpn plunge - it was just the icing on the cake of the increasing number of frankly innocuous sites that seem to be blocked these days. Chris.

Posted on: Which is better: China or the USA?

Hi xiaophil, this is what prompted me eventually to purchase a vpn this new year. Best purchase I've made and can't believe i never got round to it earlier in my stay here - not just that i get better access to sites, but rather the connection speeds are so significantly up. Don't know how that works though, some sort of 'booster'?!