User Comments - frances

Posted on: Changes on ChinesePod

A nice compromise might be to allow owners of premium subscriptions to have access to all languages at a level similar to what free access used to be (no transcriptions). If your spouse wants to seriously study a different language, you'd probably want to buy a Praxis Pass, but if you just want to look around and maybe participate in discussion about your native language you'll have sufficient access for that.

That plan requires an extra level of access between free and basic, which might not be easily implemented. If that's too difficult, an alternative might be to allow basic access to all languages for anyone with a premium subscription to one. This would probably be a very small number of lost sales for Praxis, as anyone who has already decided they want and can afford premium access to study one language clearly values the premium services and is not completely broke. Even with basic access, they're quite likely to get the Praxis Pass upgrade if they (or a spouse) want to make serious study of another language.

Posted on: Pretty Clothes

Bababardwan,

There is a tendency to do the same thing in Chinese as we do in English, that is, raise the tone at the end of a sentence to indicate a question. This has to be balanced with the tones of the words themselves, so it's a bit trickier. I find that the question intonation tends to be a little lighter, higher and/or more tentative. I looked around for some lessons that might be good examples.

If you listen to this recent newbie lesson, Morning at the Office, you'll hear that the last two lines have the same words, but one is a question and the other a statement. It's a good way to hear some contrast.

Each of these newbie lessons has a pair of lines ending with the same word, one is a question, and the other a statement. Try listening for how these words are pronounced differently. I noted the tone of the ending word which is up for comparison in each lesson.

• 1st tone: So Tall!, Key Card, A Present from Santa Claus
• 2nd tone: Black or Green Tea
• 3rd tone: Cold Beer, When is the Meeting?
  
• 4th tone: What Meat is This?, I Have Class
  
• neutral tone: Ice Cream, Time to Go

Posted on: Pretty Clothes

orkelm,
Yes, that's one the major ways we deal with compliments in America. It's also common to frame the thing complimented as being less praiseworthy than it might appear:
-Good job on the new site.
-Thanks, now I just have to get it to actually work!
Also acceptable, but slightly dodgy, is minimizing the value of the thing complimented:
-Nice shoes!
-Thanks, they’re five dollar knock-offs from Payless!
This one makes the shoes sound less impressive, but will also be interpreted as slight bragging about your ability to bargain shop.

If you can't provide a logical reason to deflect the comment, a simple "Thanks" is appropriate. If you deflect a compliment without any reason (e.g. "awww, shucks!") you're going to sound either a little stupid or unnecessarily argumentative. Actually, responses like "You're too kind!" or "You're so sweet!" will work if not over-used. They may make you sound a little superior, though.

Posted on: Changes on ChinesePod

I'm curious about the Cantoneasy program too.

Posted on: Pretty Clothes

Jenny, does that mean that the whole sentence would be "A比B有什么不一样？/ A bǐ B yǒu shénme bù yīyàng?" I feel like there should be a 的/de at the end of that.

Posted on: Pretty Clothes

changye, if that's seventy cents for what amounts to hours of tutoring, then good job! I wonder, though, whether it would be safe for me to go to a salon in China. I doubt the hairdressers have much experience with my kind of hair, and the Chinese hair is all so beautiful and obedient. Even in the US, many hairdressers can't figure out what to do with my hair.

Posted on: Changes on ChinesePod

My feed did something weird too, but it doesn't want to re-download the lessons themselves, just the related materials (PDF, fix audio). I think it means that CPod changed their URL patterns for the supplementary materials, and for the lessons that I have still have bookmarked iTunes is no longer recognizing the links. Now I think I'm going to have to manually delete the duplicated entries from my iTunes if I want to keep them from actually re-downloading.

Posted on: Changes on ChinesePod

@mattwhyndham:

Since no mention was made of personal feeds, it did sound like Ken was saying that advanced lessons would only be available through the site from now on. I hope that most users who are fans of the convenience of the podcast format will come to the site and learn otherwise!

@Henning:

Your Engish has reached the level where you make fewer errors than the average native English speaker. Among native English speakers who chat online, you are far, far ahead of the curve. You do seem to avoid the errors that I recognize as common among Germans speaking English. Maybe I should make more use of Google myself!

Posted on: Changes on ChinesePod

Of all my fellow students here on CPod, I'm most cautious about learning from those who seem to be only a little more advanced than myself. The less advanced, I can usually tell whether their Chinese is correct. The much more advanced, and I would be doing well if I could mimic their errors... I probably couldn't anyway. The students only a little ahead of me... I can follow what they're saying well enough not to be able to tell whether they know something I don't or are making some horrible grammatical error.

Auntie is very advanced, and I doubt that she would do well to learn from most of her fellow students at this point.

Posted on: The 80/20 Rule

I wasn't familiar with the 80/20 rule, but it reminds me of the 90/10 rule of project management. Specifically,

"The last 10 percent of a project will take 90 percent of the time and effort."