User Comments - jwhitson

Posted on: The last news and features of 2009!

Sort of random question-

I find myself correcting people, especially for the benefit of my Chinese professors, on how to pronounce certain Chinese words. For instance, it's Dr. Wang with a soft a sound not Dr. WAng with a hard a sound. However, I've often noticed on ChinesePod and elsewhere that, while in the dialogues Shanghai is pronounced with the soft a, when speaking in English people tend to pronounce it ShAnghai with the hard a. Is there a reason for this? I've also noticed a similar thing with the pronunciation of Beijing from a Chinese j to a French j. Shouldn't words like Shanghai always be pronounced properly?

Posted on: Wrapping a Gift

Does anyone have any suggestions for making the leap from elementary to intermediate? More and more I've found that I can understand almost everything in the elementary lessons except very specialized vocabulary, but I feel totally lost with these intermediate lessons.

Posted on: Skiing, Not Ice Skating

Could someone give me a quick explanation of the difference between 想 and 觉得 when meaning 'to think?' Thanks!

Posted on: A Thanksgiving Phone Call

Also, that really doesn't sound like ren2. It sounds more like zhi or chi or something. I didn't recognize it at all until John was giving the translation.

Posted on: A Thanksgiving Phone Call

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,I know of no reasonWhy the Gunpowder TreasonShould ever be forgot.

Posted on: Finding a Seat at the Movies

@svik

My teacher is also from the north so I'm partial to nar3 as well. I know the two are essentially the same. I was just wondering if there was a reason that ChinesePod, located in Shanghai, decided to use nar3 when I've only ever heard na3li3 on this website before.

Posted on: Finding a Seat at the Movies

This is the first time I've seen 哪儿 used instead of 哪里 for 'where' on chinesepod. Any reason why?

Posted on: Pinyin Section 9

I second kujira's comment!

Posted on: Do You Know That Girl?

I've always known about na/nei meaning the same thing, but this is the first time I've actually heard nei used. I didn't even recognize it until I looked at the dialogue!

Posted on: Why Are You at Home?

Hey everyone,

This podcast actually made me wonder about asking questions in Chinese. I've learned that, in English, we raise our voices at the end of sentence to indicate a question even if we haven't used a question word such as "who." On the other hand, in Chinese words like "ma" and "ne" are used whenever asking questions and the voice is not raised (as this would change the tone of a word).

However, it appears that in this podcast the mother raises her voice and does not use a question word when she asks "wu3jie2?" I know it's second tone, but it still sounded slightly raised compared to the other speaker who was simply stating "wu3jie2."

Does this mean that in certain circumstances raising the voice without a question word is acceptable in Chinese, or am I just misinterpreting the situation?

Thanks!