User Comments - chris

Posted on: Grab Some Veggies From the Store

Well, I'm slowly catching up with current lessons (have now completed my mammoth exercise of every Newbie, Ele and Intermediate lesson from start of CPod up to end Aug09!!

Just to follow up on some of the earlier comments above regarding measuring weight.  How do Chinese tend to measure human body weight?  In the UK we do it in stone and pounds, elsewhere I know it's common to do it in kilograms.  Do Chinese do it in half-kilos?

And would the correct Mandarin grammar be "I am {insert weight}", "I have {insert weight}" or "I weigh {insert weight}".

Thanks, Chris!

Thanks, Chris

Posted on: Manila

Another bug - for the dictation exercise in "pinyin" mode, the system requires you to enter "abundant" instead of "feng1fu4" and "to court" instead of "tan2 lian4 ai4".  Presume there's some glitch internally that is picking up the english instead of pinyin for those two words.....

thanks, chris

Posted on: Moving In Together

I agree with putao, or at a minimum include grammar links in each lesson that redirect you to the relevant section of the 'grammar guide', which would then expand on the point and provide examples.

Posted on: Celebrating the New Year with Visitors

I'm British, but been living and working in SH for just over 3 years now. I too read about this UK government announcement with great interest while I was visiting the homeland for xmas/new year, since historically our British kids, to the extent they even bother learning a foreign language, have limited themselves to French, German or Spanish.

Sadly, on reflection, I've reached the conclusion this announcement was just a gimmick by a government who many say is on its last legs in an election year where they will say anything to deflect attention away from the bigger questions of how to sort the financial mess the country is in.

Posted on: Why Are You at Home?

Gloria, this is something I always struggle with! When should I use wei4shen2me and when should I use zen3me, when trying to say "why"?

Perhaps a useful QW episode, if not done already.....

Posted on: Lao Wang's Office 12: A Dodgy Opportunity

Many thanks, Connie.

Posted on: Lao Wang's Office 12: A Dodgy Opportunity

Hi all,

A grammar question with respect to using "fēngxiǎn"

In expansion sentence 4b, we have "yǒu" connecting "chǎogǔ" to "fēngxiǎn".  Literally, "playing the stock market HAS risk".

In expansion sentence 4c, we have "zhège shǒushù fēngxiǎn dà bu dà".

Does this mean that in sentence 4b we could also have said "chǎogǔ fēngxiǎn hěn dà"?  And in sentence 4c could we also say "zhège shǒushù yǒu fēngxiǎn"?

Thanks, Chris

Posted on: Audit

Hi Cpod,

Just wanted to draw your attention to several "you're" vs "your" and "they're" vs "their" typos in the PDF.  Let me know if you can't find them!

Thanks for a good lesson.  I'm actually an external auditor, so this was useful stuff!

chris

Posted on: 练书法

RJ

You're a star for providing the pinyin!

thanks, Chris

Posted on: Lao Wang's Office 11: Wang in the Doghouse

I don't have the energy to go through all 240 or so posts(!) to check if this has already been discussed, but this lesson is the first time I've come across:

得到 (de2dao4) "to get"  (in one of the expansion sentences)

The phrase "to get" is used extensively in English in all sorts of various constructions, e.g. "do you get it?", "I'm going to get very drunk tonight", "Can I get your support?", "Let me get that for you", "I'm going to get fired", etc, etc.

Is it similarly used in Mandarin? I suspect not given I've studied pretty much all the newbie, ele and many intermediate lessons now and I really can't recall coming across it before.

thanks, Chris