User Comments - mattahmet
mattahmet
Posted on: You're late again!
November 26, 2008 at 8:00 AMAre 正好 (zhènghǎo) and 刚好 (gānghǎo) interchangeable? In the vocabulary, they're translated as "just right" but in the expansion sentences they seem to be quite idiomatic and require different translations. Any more examples how they can be used? Thanks!
Posted on: You're late again!
November 26, 2008 at 5:53 AMJust an FYI: This lesson is listed under NEWBIE, but, as they say at the beginnng of the lesson, it's elementary and "borderline intermediate". Great lesson though!
Posted on: Leaving Luggage with the Hotel
November 19, 2008 at 10:54 AMHi Dunderklumpen,
There's a good, recent newbie lesson with the Chinese word for "matters/affair" (事 shi4), and there are example sentences with it and the measure word 件 jian4 in the expansion section.
Posted on: Last and Next
October 21, 2008 at 12:07 PMSo what's the difference between 周 zhōu and 星期 xīngqī？ Are they interchangeable? Can I say 星期末 xīngqīmò for weekend and 上(个)周 shàng(ge)zhōu for next week?? (Sorry for the very newbie question!)
Posted on: Last and Next
October 19, 2008 at 8:09 AM
Here are notes I took while listening to the show. Hope they're accurate!
上 shang4 = last
下 xia4 = next
上(个)月 shang4(ge)yue4 = last month
下(个)月 xia4(ge)yue4 = next month
上(个)星期 shang4(ge)xing1qi1 = lastweek
下(个)星期 xia4(ge)xing1qi1 = next week
上次 shang4ci4 = last time
下次 xia4ci4 = next time
昨天 zuo2tian1 = yesterday
明天 ming2tian1 = tomorrow
前天 qian2 tian1 = the day before yesterday
后天 hou4 tian1 = the day after tomorrow
去年 qu4 nian2 = last year
明年ming2 nian2 = next year
前年 qian2 nian2 = the year before last
后年 hou4nian2 = the year after next
Posted on: Lesson
June 24, 2008 at 9:31 AMWow! I was just able to see that the four tones in Mandarin really do resemble the diacritics used in Pinyin. I think this really helped it sink in that referring to the tones as rising, falling, etc. isn't just an analogy, rather it's what's actually happening.
(The graphs above are screenshots I took from a program I have which shows voice pitch in graph form. I played the 'ma' recordings for each of the four tones from Chinesepod's Pinyin chart. Sorry, I couldn't seem to get the images pasted in, so I had to put links.)
Posted on: I'm hungry!
June 18, 2008 at 12:24 PMGreat lesson! I've only been learning Chinese for a couple weeks... so let me try typing my first sentence in Chinese: 我很饿现在。我要吃饭。 Can I say 现在 at the end of the sentence like that?
Also, on the expansion page, it seems the three expressions for 怎么 and the one for 饿 don't match the audio or the translations.
Posted on: Seoul
June 5, 2008 at 11:54 AMHi everyone! Actually I'm just a newbie, and a new newbie at that. (This is my first posting!)
I'm an American living in Seoul. So this lesson is particularly interesting for me. I remember seeing a poster in the subway here a few years ago that explained why the Chinese name for Seoul should be changed. I thought it was odd at the time that they were trying to dictate to another country how to say something in their language. (Imagine if the United States insisted to the Chinese that they stop saying Mei3guo2 and say something closer to America instead!) But then I suppose we're supposed to say Mumbai now instead of Bombay! And Beijing instead of Peking. Any thoughts?
article I found about the name change
Posted on: Gong Xi Fa Cai!
January 26, 2009 at 2:16 AMThat's very punny, matt_c. Did you come up with that? :)
祝你们都新年快乐!
zhù nǐmen dōu xīn nián kuài lè!