User Comments - dunderklumpen
dunderklumpen
Posted on: 户籍制度
February 2, 2009 at 1:56 PMIn other words, the consonants generated by raising the tongue tip (翘舌音, sh, ch, zh) make the trailing vowel "i" sound a little differently from the "i" located after the consonants "s, c, z".
I've just found that a Wiki article says, if you pronounce the consonant "sh" properly, the "i" automatically (or unconsciously) follows. The same holds for "zhi" and "chi".
Well put changye. So, when the h is dropped, the i is automatically screwed up, and it gets very hard to differentiate southern si from shi. Maybe there is no difference at all. Our brains might tell us there is a small difference, but that might be due to the fact that we can, from context, understand whether the southerners meant si or shi. 哈哈 most of the time I understand very little.
I agree with that Wiki article then. The only difference between the sh part and the i part of the shi sound is that the vocal cords are oscillating in the i part, 是吧。
P/S Should there be a "?" efter the 是吧?
PP/S I played some instruments for 15 years and still don't read notes :/ So there was a great need for good ears all the time. I'm glad I got some of that :)
Posted on: New Clothes
February 2, 2009 at 11:28 AMHi Calkins,
You live in China now, right? I'm curious to know what you think about the learning process before and after moving there. Would you have chosen a different approach to learning the language if you could "live you life again"? More or less reading, more or less listening to podcasts, more or less cPod (hehe, a "sensitive" question) and so on . How useful was the chinese you learned before going there?
Posted on: 户籍制度
February 2, 2009 at 11:15 AMTo me, the "i" in pinyin "shi" is slightly different from that in "si".
To me too. But that only applies when sh is really pronounced sh. In the restaurant where I go to eat (and sometimes to try to speak chinese, hehe) the people are from southern china. They tend to drop the h in sh thus making words like shi and si sound very much the same. (And shuo is more like su.) But there is still a _small_ difference in the i sounds. I don't know how to describe it though.
In the Pimsleurs mandarin course, however, the actors speak in a different way. I guess that's more like the official mandarin accent (if such a thing exists). There, it is much easier to hear all the different sounds. sh is really sh and uo is really uo. Not u.
Well, that didn't make much sense I guess. It is just what my ears told me :)
Posted on: Good Morning!
February 1, 2009 at 10:09 PMHaha, what were the chances? :P
:D
bu4 yong4 xie4, You are welcome.
By the way, what is "My Chinese Coach for DS"?? I have not heard of that before.
Posted on: The Double 了 (le) phenomenon
January 31, 2009 at 4:38 PMHi dubb, I'd guess it's still in the works, but you can see what's ready here.
Posted on: Good Morning!
January 31, 2009 at 4:25 PMOoops, we posted at the same time ^^
My two cents: I don't think 很 (hen3 very) and 多 (duo1 many, much, a lot) are interchangeable. For example:
你有多少钱？ni3 you3 duo1shao3 qian2? How much money do you have?
我有很多。wo3 you3 hen3 duo1. I have very much.
Here, hen3 is used to intensify duo1. source
Posted on: Good Morning!
January 31, 2009 at 2:24 PMHi matt9210,
The first two words spelled ye and duo I encountered as a newbie was 也 ye3 (also, too) and 多 duo1 (many, much, a lot of). Surely those are not interchangeable. I guess you have seen/heard some other words. I don't know which though. My chinese is not too good, hehe :)
Posted on: Good Morning!
January 31, 2009 at 9:55 AMHi matt9210
In the dialogue the woman actually says "ni3 hao3 ma5?", which is a question :)
Posted on: New Clothes
February 2, 2009 at 3:06 PMHi cPod,
I am not sure where to put this question so I put it here...
I'm looking for a general way of saying "Do you want to try it?". I'm not sure that exists in english, but it would work like this:
-Hey, nice car!
-Yeah, you wanna try it? [drive]
-Ooooh, is that a real sword?
-Yep. You wanna try it? [hold]
-Is that a good tea?
-I don't know. You wanna try it? [have taste]
Similarly, is there a general expression for "Go ahead", "Do it" ,"You try it"?