User Comments - jim_parker
jim_parker
Posted on: Checking out at a Hotel
March 28, 2011, 02:07 AMPerfect timing! I am going to check out of my hotel in Beijing tomorrow morning (4:30am). Hope I can find someone awake at that hour... :-)
Posted on: Lesson Preview, New Team Member
September 21, 2008, 04:42 PMWell, after playing around with it, I see that the CSV file is NOT the way to go. Your approach of XML-to-Excel is DEFINITELY the way to get these lists into Excel.
Unfortunately, this means that I have no idea how to solve your problem. If only there were some way to delete that previous post. Oh well. I told you at the star tthat I'm not a techie...
One thing that MIGHT still be helpful: I did not see any "eacute" references in my export, so it is probably due to a word you manually entered. YOu should be able to track the source down by opening the XML in Notepad and searching for "eacute". I suspect that you will find it inside a <pinyin> tag. Look at the <en> tag immediately following to see what the offending term is (none of the other tags will likely be readable in notepad, but the <en> is the english translation, and won't have any "funny" characters in it. Then, you can go back to CPOD and edit the pinyin for this character.
Or, this won't work, and I'll be wishing for a way to delete THIS post as well...
-jim
Posted on: Lesson Preview, New Team Member
September 21, 2008, 04:12 PMChris:
I'm not a techie (nor a trekkie), and I always output my Vocab list to XML. I have an XSL transform to re-format into 2 columns of HTML that I can print out to study from, and yesterday I finally wrote a java program to read those exported XML files and randomly display them as flash cards.
Anyway, "Eacute" sounds like a BAD way of describing an "E" with a rising tone (if I remember my French correctly). So, it could be something that the CPOD team added to their XML export (or maybe some new vocabualry word that you added manually? I've alway wondered how other people put the tone marks on the pinyin when they add their own vocab...
Lastly, the reason I am writing this post:
Excel will read a CSV file directly. Presumably, that is why CPOD made the CSV export available. I like the XML for the reasons stated in my first paragraph; if you are going straight to Excel, I would think that CSV output would be better for you. This should 'solve' your undefined entity reference, although you could end up with a random "é" where you expect to see a pinyin second-tone "e"...
-jim
Posted on: Making Negative Comparisons
September 15, 2008, 01:18 AMJP:
Thank you for the post. Me found it helpful.
(except, I don't know how to pronounce 比)
-jim
Posted on: Trip to the Vegetable Market
September 14, 2008, 09:13 PMI'm in a "posting" mood, so i'll add my 2 cents here. A lot of people seem to be dissing the videos as "not adding anything," and a lot more seem to be praising with comments like "Amber and Jenny are so cute!"
My 2 cents (granted, I might be overcharging):
Amber and Jenny ARE cute. I don't know that I am a particularly visual learner, but I like these videos because they mimic what I try to do every day: in "everyday" situations, whenever I see something I should know the Chinese word for, I try to think of it. So, sitting outside Starbucks watching the traffic go by, I might see a car, a truck, a motorcycle, or even something yellow, or something red. I guess what I am trying to say is that for me, what the videos "add" is context, and a glimpse of chinese (or at least Shanghai) culture. Amber is almost a distraction. Although, I must admit that I watched the hair salon video about 10 times... :)
-jim
Posted on: Cosmetic Surgery and Mooncakes
September 14, 2008, 08:51 PMI am a complete newbie to chinese (3 or 4 weeks in now), and I, too, really enjoyed the fact that the guests spoke chinese and then Amber "translated". Of course, I didn't understand a lick of the Chinese, but as a learner, I appreciate every opportunity to hear "real" chinese, especially in short bursts where I know the context and at least have a chance of picking out a word or two.
-jim
Posted on: The Expat Show and a Jingle Contest
September 14, 2008, 08:31 PMI was multitasking while I was listening to this podcast, so I might have misunderstood, but did JP actually say that "tool of the week" isn't about "users we don't like" ? I would be surprised if anyone but a native English speaker caught that reference. :)
Of course, if I did misunderstand, then I suppose I just won the prize for this week...
-jim
Posted on: Making Negative Comparisons
September 14, 2008, 08:20 PMSo, can I say
[A] 有 [B] [Adj].
to mean [A] is MORE [Adj] than [B], or does it only work in the negative?
-jim
Posted on: At the Hair Salon
September 05, 2008, 11:59 PMbazza says
6 hours ago
...
走开，王八！;)
Thanks, Bazza. Come to think of it, I've heard that before... :)
-jim
Posted on: Making Comparisons Using 比 bǐ
April 27, 2015, 09:33 PMNice QW. Thanks for the awesome work (although I think everyone associated with this episode is no longer at ChinesePod...).
I've been trying to figure out how to construct a comparison like is about a particular event. So, instead of saying "I run faster than you" as a general statement, I'd like to say that "I ran faster than you". Like, on a particular occasion.
I think all of the examples in the episode were using adjectives as predicates and not as adverbs as I am suggesting. The episode told me how to say "I am faster than you." But, (I think) I know that adding the action verb and using the adjective as an adverb, the statement as a general proposition is something like
我比你跑地快。
wo bi ni pao de kuai.
I compared to you run fast.
So, first of all, if that example is wrong, please advise. :-). Second of all, please advise how to express what I believe would be the past tense (English: I ran faster than you.)