User Comments - jill348
jill348
Posted on: Public Speaking Tips
October 11, 2008, 08:14 PMChris, 热烈的祝贺 (re4lie4zhu4he4). Please tell us how the speech went! You are brave!
Jill
Posted on: I want to buy this one
July 12, 2008, 04:35 PMWelcome, Aaron. :) I'm also a big fan of this site. It's so nice to have the small, simple lessons at Newbie level that let us work through a little bit of new material every lesson, while the other levels help to work up to more and more challenging dialogues. Explore and enjoy!
One thing to be aware of, though, is that often the discussions in these older lessons are not as active as the newest lessons, so don't be discouraged if you post a question and no one answers. I often find that the answers to my questions from one lessone are already covered in other lessons, too.
Posted on: Internet is Down
July 12, 2008, 04:14 PMGorgui, welcome! At the bottom of the page is a link to subscriptions, where you'll find all the information about what is available for free, and what is available with different levels of subscriptions. Here's a link: http://chinesepod.com/help/subscription
This is a great place for learners of all levels. I'm really a Newbie/Elementary learner, but I've recently realized I can "stretch" by trying to follow along with the Intermediate lessons as well.
Posted on: Sneezing
July 07, 2008, 12:31 AMJosh, (I hope it's ok that I'm repeating a message I posted somewhere else a little while ago...)
I found a really GREAT book for learning to read and write Chinese characters. It's published by Tuttle Publishing, and the title is Learning Chinese Characters, Volume 1 by Alison Matthews and Laurence Matthews. Ken, you'd really love this book, because it is all about mnemonics; in fact, they provide a mnemonic for every single character in HSK level A (the first section of the vocabulary list for the Chinese Government’s Language Proficiency Test), in the form of little stories about each character. They help you learn the pronunciation by including an archetype (for example, a surly dwarf represents the 4th tone) in the story so you’ll know which tone to use, and “soundwords” that give you a close approximation of the pronunciation (only the first syllable of the soundword they provide, the idea is to trigger your memory about how the word is pronounced.)
For example, my favorite little story so far, is the one for the character 太 (tai4), meaning “too much” which is composed of the character 大 (da4), which means big (and looks like a person "throwing his arms wide" saying "it's THIS BIG"), plus the drop stroke. Here’s their story. The first part before the / tells the construction and meaning, and the part after the / tells how to pronounce it:
The fisherman throws his arms wide to show how big the fish was, but a drop of sweat falls from his brow and his friends know he is lying – they’ve seen too much of this in the past. / The dwarf says disdainfully, “Are you sure it wasn’t a tiger?”
I think anyone who wants to learn to read and write Chinese characters would enjoy these little stories, as a supplement to the great lessons here at CPod. ;-D
Posted on: Best Friends
June 28, 2008, 09:15 PMOn my first trip to China I was treated as an honored guest at a dinner with about 40 Chinese colleagues, and every few minutes one of them would stand to offer a toast to their American guests, and of course, everyone was expected to "Bottoms up" their shot glass. I don't (normally) drink at all, but of course I didn't want to offend anyone, so decided the safest course was simply to follow the lead of everyone else around me. We drank a *LOT* of bái2 jiu3. As much as I loved everything else about my trips to China, this was almost (almost!) the thing that made me not want to go back again. I finally decided I was being too uptight and should just accept it that at least once on every trip I would just have to drink a lot and that I should just go with it. But I really wished I knew when it would be ok to say I'd had enough. On several subsequent trips I never figured this out, though I tried several different ways (filling the cup with water, taking only tiny sips from the cup...) I really didn't want to fool my way out, what I really wanted was to be able to tell them I'd had enough. One person told me I would be insulting all of China if I refused to drink that 20th drink he was trying to serve me (no, really, I've had enough, thank you very much. Really, no, I don't want any more.)!
Posted on: Instant Noodles
June 22, 2008, 06:40 PMSideshowBob, take heart! While it's true, there are many synonyms in Chinese (words that sound the same but have different meanings), the huge advantage of learning the language via ChinesePod is that you will learn the words in nice manageable lessons, in the context of their common usage, as whole phrases, rather than just learning the words and trying to figure out which one goes where.
And since you said "sort it out conversationally," I'll point out that when you say "ta1" no one will ever know if you were thinking "他" "她" or "它"
;-D
Posted on: When is the meeting?
June 19, 2008, 04:55 AMWhen I bought some souveneirs while I was in China, I managed (after a whole LOT of haggling!!!) to get the price down to 250 RMB. When I told my Chinese friends that I had paid 250, they told me it was sort of like an inside joke amongst the sellers at the market, when they can get a "foolish foreigner" to pay 250. But honestly, they had started at something like 2000, so I was really proud of myself that I got them down so far!! And I'm still happy with my purchase -- it was worth the 250 to me!
Posted on: Dealing with Praise
June 16, 2008, 03:39 AMBillm, Thank you for the response and providing another way to deflect praise. Very helpful.
Posted on: Dealing with Praise
June 14, 2008, 11:05 PMI learned how to say a few things in Chinese, and always received great compliments. Little did I know that this is a big cultural difference between Americans and Chinese, and I took them literally (translate: I may have gotten a little overly impressed with myself ;-)...)
I believe another common phrase that deflects praise is nali, nali. At least, it always delighted my Chinese hosts when I used it. Now I'm dying to know... what exactly was I saying?
Posted on: No Walking on the Grass
October 20, 2008, 12:48 PMI went to a park in Beijing, and it was a lovely peaceful day, the sun was shining and the park was not at all crowded. A couple of ladies asked me if we could trade taking pictures standing in front of some of the beautiful roses (which were breathtakingly beautiful, by the way, and some were as large as my fully open hand!). I stepped on the grass to get closer to the flowers, and instantly, from waaaaaaaaaaaay over on the other side of the park, I heard (I'm assuming this is what they were saying, since I didn't speak much Mandarin at the time...) "Get off the grass!!" They were definitely talking to me, with lots of arm waving and gestures. I was amazed -- it was as if they have pressure sensors all over the park to tell them if someone has stepped on the grass!