User Comments - frances
frances
Posted on: More than 50 kuai!
May 19, 2008 at 9:18 PMlight487, they were talking about only using this construction for numbers that are a multiple of 10, 100, 1000, etc... Because the number is an even multiple of 100, but not 1000 you know that the variance is 100, not 1000. I think of the 多 in this instance as meaning "plus". 一百多块 (yībǎi duō kuài) is like "100 plus kuai". If the actual amount were 234, that would seem wrong - it should have been "200 plus". I think in English there are no steadfast rules about the range of possible values represented by "100 plus", but after stating a price as "100 plus" a shopkeeper would have some nerve to try to charge me 1000!
Posted on: Pearl Tea
May 15, 2008 at 5:01 PMHigh calorie beverages seem to be getting blamed for obesity all over the world (at least in places where people are getting fat). The idea is that people don't think beverages feel like "real food", so their calories must not matter. This is similar to the mom rule, where food you make for your kids is automatically calorie-free. 珍珠奶茶 defies the definition of beverage as it is. If you took away most of the water and were left with tapioca balls in a tea-flavored sugar syrup, no one would have any difficulty identifying it as a high-calorie desert. High-calorie deserts definitely have their place, but they should be recognized as such.
Posted on: Pearl Tea
May 15, 2008 at 1:58 PMBoran, I was thinking the same thing. The lesson introduced a couple of good vocabulary words, but no grammatical constructions. And, as you said, it was short. On the other hand, some of the Intermediate lessons are starting to be more like upper-elementary. CPod may have decided that the leap between levels was too broad and are re-calibrating all the levels to a slower pace. If so, the advanced students might miss out, but my Chinese is not nearly good enough yet to know. I'm sure that the addition of the new language sites has caused them to spend a lot of time thinking about instructional design, so I can hope that any changes they're making are based on good theory. And they've added the Media section, which is pretty advanced.
Posted on: Lo and La （咯 & 啦）
May 14, 2008 at 9:43 PMtvan, I think you're right.
Posted on: Lo and La （咯 & 啦）
May 14, 2008 at 5:13 PMI heard an interesting talk recently about plural you in English. It was said that in some parts of the US the expressions "you", "you all"/"ya'll" and "all ya'll" are used to distinguish between addressing a one person, small number of people, and a large number of people. This strikes me as really clever. If only it were a little more standard!
Posted on: Lo and La （咯 & 啦）
May 13, 2008 at 12:28 PMI agree. I think attaching "eh" to the end of a sentence is more like 吧 (ba). It adds a level of suggestion that might be interpreted as a question, based on context. For example, "She's beautiful, eh?", "Let's go get dinner, eh?". These questions don't really demand answers in all contexts. On the other hand, a strict yes/no 嗎 (ma) question always needs some kind of response to avoid rudeness.
Posted on: Souvenirs and Strange Statues
May 9, 2008 at 3:29 PMIf archaeologists of the future do come across the Optimus Prime Statue, how will they know that it was not originally surrounded by some kind of bamboo temple? I'm sure they can come up with plenty of fun theories. Of course, he's plastic right? Maybe they'll just destroy him to reclaim the fossil fuels which will be worth more than gold by then (ala burning Egyptian mummies in train engines).
Posted on: Chicago
May 9, 2008 at 12:21 AMI wonder why some better transliterations of the names of American cities couldn't have been made. Chicago would have sounded so much more similar to the English as some variant of shikagou or chikagou. One of Chicago's nicknames, Chi, is pronounced exactly like the pinyin "chai". 为什麼不用？
Posted on: Diet Coke
May 7, 2008 at 5:37 PMCalkins, I have this problem too. I hadn't had a diet coke for a year. Since this lesson came out I've had four. I'm stopping this right now, though. I don't need any fresh chemical addictions in my life!
Posted on: More than 50 kuai!
May 19, 2008 at 9:22 PMSimilarly, I infer from the lesson that 一百四十多快 (yībăi sìshí dūo kuài) would have the range 140-150, because 140 is an even multiple of 10 but not of 100.