User Comments - f.at.lo

Posted on: 语法课程：程度副词

mp3 = D4400, pdf = D4260?

Posted on: Dormitory Drama - Part 7

好久没回来网页 ... but did I already mention that ChinesePod is still an important companion in my everyday struggle to 天天向上 my Chinese? Well it is. Thanks guys! I was wondering: when I search for Dormitory Drama, I only get parts 1 to 6. Why is part 7 not showing in the search results? All the best!

Posted on: Some Food Clarifications

Thanks, and no problem ... isn't this what learning is about? You make your own decisions about the things you hear, read and want to say and see where this takes you? I just love the way you guys are presenting bits and pieces from daily life and turn them into lessons. This is fun! Thanks a million ...

Posted on: The Right Way to 教 (jiào, jiāo)

太好了，这个“请问“课很有用，谢谢你们！
我的ABC词典说：“教他来“ ('tell him to come') 的“教“也是第四声(jiao4).
这个发音是不是当前的国语？

Posted on: Some Food Clarifications

Thanks for this lesson!

By accident I stumbled upon the transcript and wondered if you may want to look at the translation of 那我们尝尝. Shouln't it be "Ok, let's try it!"?

Posted on: The Tea Scam

Mark, you make an interesting point about being treated differently depending on how close you are to the other party. I guess the same happens in western cultures but to a lesser degree:

I recently heard a talk of an "Old China Hand" who tried to explain how eastern and western cultures have a different approach to organise relationships. He used the terms "distance" for western culture (being reserved, being able to look at things from a distance, often emotionally detached, craves personal physical space, looking at events in "snapshots", being able to use the distance and their snapshots of reality to plan ahead, sometimes slow to realise that the reality had already shifted under their feet, ...) and "proximity" for the eastern cultures (comfortable to live in small personal spaces, close emotional bonds to your inner circle to cope with proximity, being able to appreaciate a lot of detail, perceiving events as a movie and being able to adapt quickly, perhaps not so good at planning because the picture of the movie is always changing, ...).

He also pointed out that every human being only has a given amount of energy to spend on relationships. He thinks that people in western cultures distribute their energy more evenly as you progress from family to inner circle to strangers. As you are usually expected to be more distant, there is no big variation depending how well know the other party. He mentionned that some Chinese friends wondered why he would be so polite in the family space ("Could you please pass me the butter?" - "Of course" - "Thank you"). He thinks we have to work harder, because we cannot take our western family bonds as granted ...

He also said that in his perception, people in eastern cultures can take family for granted and therefore do not need to spend much "friendly" energy there when you are dealing with the daily bread and butter. They have to spend a lot of energy in their "inner circle" to preserve the harmony and make sure everybody is safe and treated properly on all the different levels they percive in their "movie reality". And so they are often left with little energy for the rest of the world. Which would explain why you sometimes find Chinese groups that misteriously make it to the front of the line before you and why traffic can be chaotic at times. In these situations, some eastern people do not spend much thought for the others and nobody really expects them to.

I think your observation sustains this model ... if you are within the inner circle, you as a westerner experience kindness and care you do not expect. If you are not, you receive less attention/consideration than you would expect from your western cultural background.

... while this all sounds very logic through my western glasses, I would be very much interested to hear what poddies with an eastern background think about this.

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Just to clarify: I do NOT say that all people in eastern cultures scam westerners because of cultural background. ABSOLUTELY NOT. Every culture has their share of cons. This is just a model to explain some (positive and negative) differences/variations you may experience in treatment which you are not used to when you come from a western background.

Posted on: The Tea Scam

My subscriptions have paid of in a way I would have never suspected. I have been in Shanghai three or four times in the past for business trips. And somehow I always spend some time at the bund 南京路 for a coffee, a beer and to enjoy the busy life and scenic view. So far I was approached countless times to buy suits, watches, bags, ... but there was no tea or art scam.

Yesterday, it finally found me.

The bund was packed, the sun was setting, lights changed, people (me included) got trigger happy with the camera. Two students ask me to take a photo with the 东方明珠塔 in the background, we chat, and then: "we were just going to see a tea ceremony, would you like to join?". I kindly decline and go about my sightseeing business.

Soon after, I met another friendly pair of students (from far away!, 哈尔滨!) who needed their picture taken. They tell me they are just about to see this ethnic performance and tea ceremony just a couple of meters away. European just love ethnic groups, everybody knows that. After about 50 meters my brain kicks in and I kindly said my good byes.

I finally felt a little thirsty and just then I stumbled across a group resting in front of the now dark window of an Armani shop. I could just picture them tired after a long day of exhausting shopping. "Could you take a picture of us?" After a nice chat I was asked what I was up to. "I'd fancy a beer." "What about a cup of tea?". I almost laughed.

While I was sipping my beer on the roof top of the lighthouse, I remembered a (german?) commercial which features some search app. A father who is taking care of his "slightly" grumpy young son uses the app to locate things he can use to cheer up the little fellow: zoo, rollercoaster, ice cream, swimming pool ... whenever he launches a request on his phone, big, yellow arrows appear all over the city to show him where to go.

I looked up and saw the big, yellow arrow hovering just above me which read: "This guy needs some tea!"

Posted on: Playing Mahjong

Thank you very much for this cast and the video experiment!

My parents played Mahjong with us when we were young. Especially during the holidays. Our rules must have been a complete 乱七八糟 as we were allowed to win with pengs, gangs and suits no matter what kind. I am also sad to report loss of dragons. We called 白板 "white dragon" and even had a green one in the set, but I don't remember the character on it. Fond memories ;-)

I loved seeing the dialogue acted out. It helped me to take in the situation much faster.

I liked both the Chinese and English subtitles. But this may be due to the fact, that I am no upper intermediate yet. Maybe there are different preferences for different levels.

I liked seeing characters or words or phrases during the explanations. This way, I did not have to go to the dictionary.

Although I enjoyed seeing you guys record the show, I guess some of the footage could be exchanged with retakes or stills from the dialogue movie. If you decide to minimise subtitles in the dialogue movie, maybe the retakes or stills during the discussion could be a good place to add subtitles and translations.

Thanks again for bringing all this great content to us!

Posted on: A Qing Wen to Our Listeners

First of all: thank you, thank you, thank you for all the incredible useful and entertaining lessons. Being a technical person, I like even the "dry" grammar casts ;-)

I can second this idea to clarify the differences between different chinese translations of an English word. My teacher often came back to me laughing when she finds another "interesting" choice I made in the dictionary during a translation. I will keep track of the words I am looking for over the next couple of weeks and feed the result back to you ...

Posted on: Chinese Names

你们好

谢谢你们的很有意思的 podcast.

我的中文名字是艾拉夫(ai4 la1 fu1).

艾 is the sound of the beginning of my German surname, which is rather long and would probably translate to “oak tree town”。 German “Eiche” being “oak” and its “Ei” sounding like 艾。My teacher suggested  拉夫 as a two letter transliteration of my first name “Olaf”.

OK then： 你们觉得艾拉夫怎么样？

... and please feel free to correct my newbie-ish 中文 ;-)

Best regards and many thanks,

拉夫