User Comments - julia_shanghai

Posted on: Pinyin Section 16

Would anyone from Chinese Pod care to comment?

Posted on: Pinyin Section 16

I've just downloaded the Pinyin chart.

There seems to be one glaring omission - "me" is not included. How about the 'me' in shenme and zenme? My dictionary says this character is pronounced 'mo', but I have never encountered it spelt/pronounced this way - only 'me'.

Also, I'm sure you have used 'lo' somewhere in your lessons. I believe it is the character  咯.

My online dictionary also gives 2 characters pronounced "yo" - 哟 and 唷.

Also, this dictionary gives no characters pronounced 'kei', 'eng', or 'rua'. I checked these because they are not included in the Pinyin chart I have in one of my books.

Any comments?

Posted on: Pinyin Section 16

I think the people who say Pinyin doesn't make sense are still thinking in English. My friend, who doesn't know any Mandarin, but sees Pinyin in words like Beijing, fengshui, Qingdao, always says 'why don't they use this letter instead for this sound'. I have to keep telling him that Pinyin was not devised for English speakers. I think once people accept this, and start learning with a clean slate, you realise how much more sense Pinyin makes that English. In fact, I would say it is the most precise phonetic alphabet I know.

Posted on: Discussing Eating

Thankyou, but I'm afraid that was the answer I was both expecting and dreading. I've heard this response from various people to questions I have asked on the ambiguity of Chinese, and yet very few can give me examples of such context.

So, just say I asked someone at 11:30am, "Where are you going?", and I received the response above, what context could possibly allow me to guess the correct meaning?

Also, could you phrase a question for me which I could ask to help me discern the intended meaning.

Posted on: Discussing Eating

So how does one know the speaker is not saying she is going to eat a Chinese meal?

Posted on: Discussing Eating

Hi,

I was just having a look through your 'expansion sentences'. You have one which says:

我跟朋友到餐厅去吃中餐。

(Wŏ gēn péngyou dào cāntīng qù chī zhōngcān.)

"I go with friends to the restaurant to eat lunch."

I thought 中餐 (zhōngcān) meant 'Chinese food', not 'lunch'. Have you made a mistake here??

Posted on: Going Dutch

mark,

I guess its really not the number of forks, but the expectation that you use the correct utensil with the right dish, otherwise you show a lack of culture. I make a point of eating from the inside out, and leaving my knife and fork pointing in random directions on the dinner plate, and checking for the reactions. Its one way for me to discern who I want to associate with, although I guess I'm engaging in a kind of reverse snobbishness myself. So its not the actual practise of using multiple forks that is snobbish, its the judgements people make about you for not showing their form of ettiquette that is the problem for me.

Posted on: Going Dutch

More than two forks?  Why would anyone need two forks? Seems to me the number of items of cutlery determines the level of snobbery, which is what people mean when they refer to how advanced one's culture is. (Don't worry, not having a go at anyone here - the thing about these discussions is there is no class visible, so I don't know who are the snobs and who are not)

Posted on: I didn’t bring my umbrella

alwingate

You posted exactly the same question on another lesson. I answered it there.

Posted on: Your turn to pay!

alwingate

In bastardised English it translates to:

(This girl's cake) compared to (her father's) more.

So the girl has more cake than her father.

Adding duo1 after a quantity means 'more than' that quantity.