User Comments - mclarty
mclarty
Posted on: Direction Words: 向, 朝, and 往
June 4, 2017 at 12:02 PMI think I have always misunderstood the saying 好好学习，天天向上. I took it to mean study well and everyday you "rise" towards the heights. But what you say here about inwards verbs makes me think it is more like study well and every day gain knowledge "from" the heights. Is that right? Or am I overthinking the grammar of this saying?
Posted on: How To Sound Polite
June 4, 2017 at 10:59 AMI think they say in the video that this is exactly what you should say if you want to object to the joke. Of course if you are joking around then your objection could also be taken as a joke! Nothing sounds harsh if everyone is clear that it is a friendly joke. But if you want to be sure to avoid misunderstanding, and make sure your friends understand you are not objecting, and you just want your friend to explain the joke, then you could use the things they talk about around minutes 3 to 4 of the video.
Posted on: No Subs on the Subway
June 3, 2017 at 12:23 PMIn the dialogue the phrase 真巧 is pronounced with full falling-rising pattern on the third tone. Is this an example of the emphasis pattern for third tones described in the Say It Right series? The series explains that third tones are most often pronounced a just a low tone but the full pattern can be used for emphasis. Maybe the dialogue is using this just for emphasis for relatively new Chinese learners. But I wonder if this is a phrase where a native speaker might well use the full third tone.
Posted on: No Subs on the Subway
June 3, 2017 at 12:12 PMHi, I read in some travel books that Chinese people never follow rules. But when I'm in China I see people doing about as well as i see in the US.
Posted on: Pretend ABC
June 3, 2017 at 10:41 AMIs there an audible difference between 嘛 and 吗 at the end of a sentence? Or is this something that is differentiated more in writing than speech, like 她/他/它?
Posted on: Massive Misunderstanding
June 2, 2017 at 9:54 AMWhat do you mean by a night club when you say it in English? I really do not know. Does it have to offer live entertainment? Would a karaoke bar count? A disco? A comedy club? One place near me (in Ohio) bills itself as a nightclub - it is a brewpub with pizza and some large screen TVs.
Posted on: Asian Rainy Season
June 1, 2017 at 9:15 PMThis Bridge Lesson really is tougher than most Elementary Lessons. And I am looking forward to make the shift to Intermediate, so I like that. But when I search for "Bridge" I only find one other marked this way. Are there more, and if so how can I find them?
Posted on: Express Delivery
May 31, 2017 at 10:58 PMAfter working on this a lot, I suspect it is like robertkjr3d says in a comment to the Elementary lesson I Like Those Sweet Kind of Things. In a lot of routine phrases native speakers rush past the tones a bit. The Elementary lesson Beijing Accent is related to this.
Posted on: Tourists Buying T-Shirts
May 29, 2017 at 12:05 AMHere are some usage data with regard to 车: Google finds the form 坐车 three times more common on line than 搭车 (and Google searches for both simplified and traditional characters at once). A lot of things distort Google search data but these are big numbers: 22 million to 7 million. This suggests that when it comes to 车, the verb 做 really is more common than 搭 but not by a big ratio. And not by nearly enough to suggest that it is mostly a Mainland vs Taiwan difference.
Posted on: Checking out a New Flat
June 4, 2017 at 2:58 PMI'm just now switching to Intermediate, and one thing I like a lot about it is that here Fiona seems to speak much more natural Chinese than she usually does in Elementary. In Elementary she often uses a classroom pace of speech, and there is good reason for that. But I am really happy to hear the way she speaks here.