User Comments - chris
chris
Posted on: Pinyin Sections 7-8
July 31, 2009 at 4:43 AMThanks SO much for clearing up the "Ying" pronunciation issues right at the end of the podcast. I'm British, so this is a critical pronunciation for me given it's in the Chinese name for my country (and of course in the word for English). I always think people are saying "Yeung" or "Yeong" instead of "Ying". Good to know it wasn't just my ears playing tricks on me!
Chris
Posted on: Pinyin Sections 5-6
July 31, 2009 at 4:24 AMI love Jenny's pronunciation examples using the first tone - her pitch seems to get higher with each one, to the point that she's positively singing them by the time she gets to "reng"!
Great series.
Chris
Posted on: World Records
July 25, 2009 at 5:16 AMThanks Connie, very well explained. Got it now.
chris
Posted on: World Records
July 24, 2009 at 7:17 AMHi
In Expansion sentence 1c: 他又破世界记录了 is it also possible to use 再 (zai4) instead of 又 (you4)? I am never sure of whether these two characters are totally interchangeable at all times.
Thanks
Chris
Posted on: Yang Jie's Diary: He's Not Stupid
July 21, 2009 at 6:26 AMI've just got round to studying this lesson. I have exactly the same question as Calkins above. Surely a "le" is necessary in that first expansion sentence (wo3 gang1gang1 dao4 shang4hai3) very simply because the sentence is indicating a change of state, i.e. before I was not in Shanghai, now I am in Shanghai. PLEASE could somebody confirm?
Or perhaps stictly-technically a "le" is needed, but in day to day speech it's not bothered with because it's bleeding obvious that there has been a change of state via the use of the word "gang1gang1"?
Many thanks, Chris
Posted on: Chinese Breakfast
July 18, 2009 at 9:58 AMEven though I've been living in Shanghai for over two and a half years now, breakfast is the one area of my life that I just can't go local with. Lunch, dinner, snacks - Chinese-style is absolutely fine, but I just can't stomach (quite literally) a Chinese breakfast. If in a hurry (most days), then it's got to be bowl of cornflakes and milk, a slice of toast'n' marmite and a cup of coffee. If more leisurely, then it's got to involve some eggs and bacon!
Trust me I've tried to assimilate, but this is one area where I admit failure!
Chris
Posted on: That's enough tea
July 18, 2009 at 7:20 AMThanks Changye. However, this isn't quite my question. My question specifically is when we should use "zhen1" on its own and when we need to use it combined with "de5" as in "zhen1de5". To use your example above, can we say 真非常漂亮 and 真很漂亮? Or do we need to use the "de5" because of the presence of "feichang" and "hen", respectively? Hope that makes my question clearer (apologies for getting bogged down in the grammar!). Chris
Posted on: That's enough tea
July 18, 2009 at 6:22 AMGrammar question - I am confused by section 5 of the Expansion. I always thought that "zhen1 de" needed to be followed by a word such as "hen3" or "feichang", etc. And that you only drop the "hen3", etc, if you use "zhen1" instead of "zhen1de". So.... 我真的饱了 (wo3 zhen1de5 bao3 le5) should be either 我真饱了 (wo3 zhen1 bao3 le5) or 我真的很饱了 wo3 zhen1de5 hen3 bao3 le. Please could somebody explain the grammar point here? Many thanks, Chris
Posted on: The Second Tone
August 2, 2009 at 2:07 PMThird tone followed by second tone - do you have to drop to the bottom of the "v" of the third tone again before starting the upwards sound of the second tone? Or do you just continue upwards from the end of the third tone? This is my number one tone issue! thanks, Chris