User Comments - christine

Posted on: The Kindle

yes please re kindle friendly material :)

它是我的最爱！

Posted on: The Kindle

I love my kindle!

Last visit to China earlier this year, I didn't actually try downloading, but had no problem using free 3G to access the amazon store, so I think it would have worked? Also, the free 3G allowed me to check email, and also got through the great firewall to see facebook... all at a remote village on the plateau at 4200m while I sat round a yak dung stove! Amazing.

Will have to learn how to convert chinesepod's pdf's...

Posted on: Chinese Baijiu and the Best of the Worst

Good grief, I am thinking of friends who know each other well. Mostly, I'd like to say to others 'my turn to treat you!'

I reckon the dialogue phrase is a special guy buddy thing. :)

Yes, a friend of mine accepted a drink from a passenger on a plane, 'local tea' and next thing we found him wandering drugged in the arrivals lounge minus his hand luggage...

Posted on: Chinese Baijiu and the Best of the Worst

is there a female equivalent of xiongdi (brothering someone, or treating them to a drink)

how would a gal say to a chap it's his turn to treat her, or to a girl to say to a girlfriend it's her turn to treat her???

:)

But on baijiu, I'm on the 'bu neng he jiu' strategy...

Posted on: Adjusting the Temperature

thank you!

Posted on: Regional Accents Part I

wiggin and sophie, 谢谢你们， 我刚才学习生词也练习念汉字。 我也觉得cpod很厉害! : )

Posted on: Ping Pong Nation

哈哈! : ) I have tried my friend, I have tried.... and my friends find my efforts so funny at trying to adopt an American accent and say 'What's up?' correctly that they have videoed my efforts! (And no, I am NOT posting them on chinesepod!) I personally find 'what's up?' a bit like 'ni chi guo le ma?'; I am never quite sure what to say in reply! It always catches me out!

Posted on: Regional Accents Part I

Re Xiamen.... I was lucky enough to visit there recently, really recommend it for a hol... anyhow, I found that it was much easier than Chengdu when talking to shopkeepers/taxi drivers/older people... although they had (to me, an incomprehensible dialect!) they seemed much more likely in my experience there on holiday to understand and use putonghua. I had a fun time having tea with a guy from the Phillipines who was tracing his ancestry (could speak English and the Xiamen dialect), a Xiamen guy who could speak Putonghua and Xiamen-dailect and me, speaking English/putonghua. We had a fun 3-cornered chat of combinations of English/Xiamenhua/Putonghua and translating for each other. Bizarre experience me translating the Xiamen guy's putonghua into English for the Phillipino Chinese!!!!! :) Oh, and I discovered the joys of Oolong cha! Fantastic.

Posted on: Taxi Conversations: Small Talk

hi, just stumbling by... mervyn - i like 'Reading and Writing Chinese; a comprehensive guide to the Chinese Writing System'. william mcnaughton,tuttle, isbn 0-8048-3509-8 sadly, NOT usually found in China, but available on Amazon. carlosmentos - just checking, and this may be a VERY stupid question, but are you a premium member? or trying the premium trial? otherwise you can't access this content i don't think. as i say, forgive me if you already are, and you have some other problem! and lastly, taxi drivers rule. when i'm having a down day about my chinese, i love hitching a taxi and can usually expect them to cheer me on!

Posted on: Regional Accents Part I

Wow, lucky you Danjo. In the UK, most regional accents are easily understandable (and we have a lot of different accents for such a small country!) but sometimes with my Scottish Glaswegian friends, they might as well be talking Chinese... and eventually I say 'uhuh' when really I just haven't understood! I used to describe Sichuanhua as 'like a Glaswegian talking Cockney rhyming slang' to help my UK friends understand what I was going through! :) Am enjoying being in Beijing and finding the kouyin less of a problem!