User Comments - lechuan
lechuan
Posted on: Executive Plan, Newbie Changes, and More
November 18, 2009, 12:56 AMHow about a introducing the concept of "seasons" to some of the levels (like JapanesePod101). This would provide a series of lessons that build upon one another (ie. each lesson assumes that the grammar/vocab in the previous lesson is learned and does not need to be explained again).
This would assist those who want more structure (ie. a newbie season 1 could create a good base foundation for new users, then they can fill in the rest with non-season newbie lessons).
One season per level would may be a good start and could possibly be considered a "ramp-up" to that level.
Posted on: Good Morning!
October 12, 2009, 08:05 PM@seriously. After googling your email, looks like you also have an affinity for japanese, american, spanish, bulgarian, south american, polish, danish, english, thai, russian, hungarian, and ukranian ladies too! :)
Posted on: Cheering
October 06, 2009, 06:57 PM@Asegal, Why do you say that the lesson was bad?
Posted on: All in the Family
September 16, 2009, 07:24 PMThere is no pong2 in pinyin.
the 'e' in peng sounds similar to schwa in IPA/English [ ə ]
Posted on: Chinese for Trekkies
September 06, 2009, 06:11 PMbuy' ngop! (Klingon for 'That is good!'; Literally "The plates are full")
@a1pi2: Picard is the dude that Kirk went horse-back riding with in the Nexus.
Posted on: Pinyin Section 15
September 03, 2009, 10:25 PM@Chris, you are fortunate to have a mandarin teacher who knows how to teach the mechanics of making the basic sounds of the language. Which school was that teacher at? It took me many months until I finally learned how to make the ü sound from a french teacher.
It's quite amusing to hear my friend's say "rang4 wo3men kao3lu4" (let's roast deer) instead of "rang4 wo3men kao3lü4"(let's discuss).
Posted on: Lili and Zhang Liang 10: The Other Woman
August 10, 2009, 08:17 PM@motti,
When learning a language there are many "pillars" one must develop: Reading, Listening, Writing, Grammar, Pronunciation, Writing, Vocabulary, etc.
Most students don't usually develop all pillars at the same pace.
I would think that at the intermediate level, introducing faster pace and non-standard pronunciation will help to develop the 'listening' pillar to an intermediate level. At intermediate level you'll likely want to be able to carry on conversations with other Chinese, many who won't be speaking slowly or with standard putonghua.
If this were a elementary or newbie level lesson, then I would tend to agree with you.
Posted on: Forget It
August 01, 2009, 03:04 PM@pipixiamen:
My apologies for igniting this flame-war. My curiousity got the best of me, and the last thing these board needs is more FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt).
When I first joined I also noticed that a large proportion of the posts are posted by a relatively small portion of the community. What I also discovered was that the active posters were always willing to welcome, help and share their experiences with new members.
Look forward to seeing you around in the community!
Posted on: Forget It
July 31, 2009, 08:34 PMpipixiamen, are you mynash by any chance? :)
btw, if english is your second language I am envious, I hope my chinese can be that good one day!
Posted on: Celebrating the New Year with Visitors
January 04, 2010, 03:44 PMThe shift to Mandarin in traditionally cantonese speaking communities overseas seems to be the trend, at least according to this New York Times Article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/22/nyregion/22chinese.html?_r=1&hp