User Comments - mark

Posted on: Shopping in China

I remember the kind of stores you are talking about, but from the Soviet Union. I think they were called beriyoshka, or some such. There wasn't much that was appealing to us tourists in the local stores. So, it was very nice to be a privileged person, even if it was only because we had access to "hard" currency.

Posted on: Detective Li 1: The Bath House Murder

The best explanation I have thought of so far is that the murder weapond was a sharpened grape popsicle.  That the assistant then melted in the tea pot.

Posted on: 康熙来了

I'm afraid I have given the miss-impression that my difficulty is with understanding dialog that I don't have a transcript for. That is not it at all. I try to do that all the time.

I simply find it very useful to have a transcript and a recording of some level appropriate material every week. This helps me consolidate a body of vocabulary, in context. I can get a native speaker to listen to me recite (朗诵） the transcript and correct my pronunciation. And I have structured a number of other weekly activities around this kind of material. Before I found Chinese pod, I used to pay a native speaker to make recordings for me from whatever Chinese text I could get my my hands on.

My problem with the video based media lessons is two fold. One, they don't provide the kind of study material that I feel I need, as just described. Two, even if the video clip is useful study material, it is difficult for me to use it. It requires always-on Internet access to use. I don't have always-on Internet access for most of the time that is available to me to study Chinese (on a train that goes through tunnels). There are also bandwidth issues with using youku videos in the US. I have to spend a lot of time pre-fetching them for them to be at all listenable/watchable and that effort has to be repeated each time I restart my browser.

It is the format of the lesson, not its content that I have a problem with.

Posted on: 康熙来了

John,

I would like to make one clarifying point. To date, I have based my formal study program on Chinesepod. This does not mean that I don't augment my study with unstructured material. I can't use these format (transcript-less) lessons as part of my regular study routine, and they are taking the place of a weekly lesson that I value very much. Cpod is just not providing enough lessons for my current level. I am able to use the media lessons that are based on print media, because I can locate the portions of the articles that are in the voice clips, and I can use an audio editor to extract something resembling a lesson dialog, but these lessons that just point to a youku video are beyond the level of effort I am willing to put in to make a DIY lesson out of.

Sincerely,

Mark

PS to Jenny, thank you for the congratulations.

PS to Tingyun, thanks for the tip. From the way the discussion is going it looks like I need to branch out, as you suggest.

Posted on: 康熙来了

My special difficulty may be that I have studied all of the existing advanced lessons, and the UIs are getting a bit simple for me. So, I rely on the new lessons every week. Another point is that youku videos are not easy to watch for me. I either have to wait half an hour, or so, for them to fully download, or the sound is very intermittent.

Anyway, I gave you my considered opinion after five years of study with CPod. I really hate this lesson format. I'll be nice and not bring the topic up again.

Posted on: 康熙来了

The subtitles really don't help that much: a) there is no complete text to study at my liesure, or discuss with others;  b) I can't watch the video clip in my usual study environments, because I have to have a reliable Internet connection to do so, and the places where I study don't have a reliable Internet connection.

So, I gave the lesson a low rating for lacking the usual supporting study materials, most specifically, a transcript of the core dialog.

Perhaps, other podies don't have the same study needs as I do, and I will just have to shut up and make do, but this kind of lesson really doesn't seem like it belongs in the core lesson series to me.  It would be a fine BST, or other special program, and I would have a very different opinion about it in that context.

Posted on: 英国皇室婚礼

谢谢你的回复。虽然你写的有道理，但是我还有不同的概念。我住在美国，所以我觉得对我一直进步来说有一个固定的学习日程很重要。除了中文博客以外我没有其它的课程，而且找到用中文的视频或者电影不难，而是难的是找到适合我的学习资料。每次你们的高级/媒体课程只是一部没有笔录的视频我有很多麻烦搜索能替代的资料。我很喜欢BST，Qingwen那种随便的节目，但是觉得他们都不是课程，那种媒体课程好像是类似的。这就是我一个人的看法。

Posted on: 英国皇室婚礼

On point number one, the lesson is useless to me, if there is not a transcript of, at least, the audio clips that are included in the lesson. It also seems to me that a native speaker could transcribe them without too much difficulty. So, I ask that you either stick to media lessons that are based on printed material that is electronically available, or solve this problem. Sorry, but now that media lessons constitute half of the advanced lesson, these style lessons are really making me feel I am getting less than I used to out of Chinesepod.

Posted on: Signs in China and Mistranslation

I think it is all good fun. I make similar mistakes in Chinese, that are worth a laugh when pointed out.

My favorite odd translations were:

Attention your head! - posted on low hanging objects.

Prepare for getting off - I didn't think the subway ride was quite that much fun, but whatever floats your boat.

Posted on: Discussing Eating

虽然我七岁的时候开始用筷子了，但是我太太的家人一直给我叉子用吃到至她的奶奶赞扬了我用筷子的技术。那时我已经结婚十多年了，所以我认为对华人来说他们很难相信我们老外会用筷子。