User Comments - christine
christine
Posted on: Ping Pong Nation
April 22, 2008 at 3:50 AMah, 'jennyzhucallme' (hmm, interesting name choice..) why do Chinese English speakers say table tennis and not 'ping pong'? I'm afraid it's us Brits you have to thank, and the textbooks the Chinese are learning to use English. We Brits mostly DO say 'table tennis' and not 'ping pong'. I often hear poor Chinese folks having their English 'corrected' by well meaning US friends, when actually they're speaking perfect Brithua! Coming to China, I have now learnt an awful lot of Meiguohua as well as Putonghua.... and learnt what Yingguohua is generally not understood by my cousins across the pond....
Posted on: Regional Accents Part I
April 22, 2008 at 3:00 AMI forgot to say... in my experience, most Chinese people are VERY patient with us mangling their language and failing to understand their kouyin! I have great respect and warm feelings towards the taxi drivers of chengdu, who were also some of my best teachers and encouragers. I am now enjoying getting to grips with Beijinghua... any weblinks to help me anyone!?!
Posted on: Regional Accents Part I
April 22, 2008 at 2:57 AMHi there. I used to live in Sichuan... I think my ultimate challenge was an elderly Yeye, with no teeth, clenching a pipe in what few teeth he had and speaking very thick Chengduhua... It used to make me sad I couldn't communicate well with older persons. :( I also found something interesting and here is my theory. People could often understand my putonghua but seemed unable to speak it themselves! I think this is maybe because they regularly hear putonghua on the radio and TV? So, I would regularly have funny conversations where the person would say 'shenme shenme' and i would remove sounds, and add sounds based on my poor knowledge of chengduhua and come up with a suggestion of what had just been said in putonghua! They would then say 'yes, yes!' or 'no, no!' and try again. All part of life's rich tapestry! And whenever I could come out with some SIchuanhua, it always caused a lot of amusement! Ni suo saaaaaatze? (Ni shuo shenme?) :)
Posted on: Train to Beijing
April 15, 2008 at 6:07 PMWow, great to hear about the transmongolian trip, Daixiong. Sorry you had such a bad experience of China trains. My one trip in hardsleeper was great; recently from Xiamen to Beijing, around 33 hours. I could have flown and it was almost as cheap... but felt I wanted to see more of China's countryside and baohu huanjing (save the environment!) a bit more. Am so glad I took the train. The carriage was great, very clean and not too noisy. I was on my own and the only waiguoren on the train, but everyone was so friendly and I had lots of lovely chats and learnt a lot about different peoples' lives and culture. Everyone bedded down quite early and it was very quiet, also no-one smoked. I wonder if things have changed a bit or if I was lucky?The first day of travel from Xiamen was particularly beautiful; mile upon mile of hills and valleys, rice paddies and rivers. Really recommend it. Nothing like lying on your middle bunk, hands cupping your chin watching the beautiful scenery slide by, sipping your oolong, occasionally watching the progress of the card game below, intersperspersed with wee naps and chinese pod.... ahhh. must book another trip. :) I have had friends who have done bus sleepers and thought they were ok....
Posted on: Train to Beijing
April 15, 2008 at 3:12 AM嘿！哇，你回答这么快啊！我发现以前是我写错了。。我写了春天。。我的意思就是春节！谢谢。 ：） a! wa, ni huida zheme kuai a! wo faxian yiqian shi wo xie cuo le...xiexie... wo xie le chuntian... wode yisi jiu shi chunjie！ xiexie.
Posted on: Train to Beijing
April 15, 2008 at 2:59 AMHi there, I'm new to using chinesepod forums, but if I have time, i might write in pinyin as well as hanzi, as I have been a slow hanzi learner (still am) and i well remember the frustration of not being able to read quickly/easily... have just heard of a firefox plugin that will help.... hei sophie! hei, de da bu fen wo zhen juede zhongguode huoche liaobuqi a! keshi chunyun deshihou, wo tongyi, hen kongbu keneng! maipiao de shir mafan si le! (keshi wo hai juede chunyun zuo huo che zhen shi yi ge tanxian, hen hao de jingji) (wo yong tanxian dui bu dui? dui wo shi yi ge xin de ci) ni de wenti shi 'he2 mou3ren2 zou3san4 le' yong yingwen zenme yong? keneng shi 'i lost myself in the crowd' or simply 'i was lost in the crowd'? wo ye bu tai qingchu. sophie, ni xiang zenme shi dui de? qitade poddies ne? xiexie sophie!
Posted on: Train to Beijing
April 15, 2008 at 2:49 AM嘿sophie! 嘿， 的大部分我真觉得中国的火车了不起啊！可是春运的时候，我同意，很恐怖可能！买票的是儿麻烦死了！（可是我还觉得春天坐火车真是一个探险，很好的经历) <我用‘探险’对不对？对我是一个新的词。> 你的问题是“和某人走散了”用英文怎么用？可能是 'I lost myself in the crowd' (trying to hide maybe?) or simply 'I was lost in the crowd' (describing your experience of being in a big crowd)? 我也不太清楚。Sophie,你想什么是对的？ 其他的poddies呢？ 谢谢Sophie! :)
Posted on: Train to Beijing
April 12, 2008 at 5:24 PMOk, just to boast... wondering if I am the most lihai (read foolhardy?) train traveller here... 44 hours in hard seat class during Spring Festival. It was an experience! And actually, one I was very glad I took... right from the interesting (but long!) experience of getting the ticket to the journey itself. Why I was on this 'slow train' from Chengdu to BJ is another story. A month later, going by hard sleeper for 33 hours seemed positively 5 STAR. Amazing. Am now addicted to Chinese trains... Hmm. Where shall I go next yi bian ting chinesepod yi bian ting the clicketyclackclicketyclack?
Posted on: 钻石
April 22, 2008 at 4:03 AMlight487, thanks a lot for your post. I installed pera-kun last week too, and like you, I am finding it a huge huge HUGE help in my learning and enjoyment. Like you, I want to recommend it to everyone struggling to learn characters. I think we all learn differently. Thanks Henning for your input; some folks will find it unhelpful, but others of us will find it a really helpful learning method, and not just a short cut. won't go on here as to why i find it helpful for me... I think it's good we all try different methods and see what works for us personally. I didn't know about the shift key function! Thanks a lot for telling us light487!