User Comments - mclarty

Posted on: I Can't Handle Spicy Food

Because no one more expert has answered I will say a general rule is that aone syllable adjective like难 needs很 just to round it out. Here 很 does not necessarily even mean "very." It can be used just to sound better. And this is especially true in a sentence with parallel phrases where the first phrase had a two syllable adjective like容易. 

Compare the Elementary lesson Syllables and Verbs.

Posted on: Add Another Bowl to that Order

People rolling their eyes at the thought of eating intestines and tendons are probably English speakers--not continental Europeans or from other parts of the Americas.  Plus they don't know either soul food, or what their (great?) grandparents ate.

Posted on: Where's Shiny The Cat?

It means the thing should be completed (soon, not just some day).  

Posted on: You Play Very Well

There is a better resource now, which is chapters 1--12 of the Say It Right series.

Posted on: Express Delivery

Yes, the forum quote I gave is a continuation of that chapter. I have studied both and understand the general situation. My question here is: how is the speaker in this lesson actually saying 我等你等?  After listening to the dialogue sentence many times, It sounds to me like the speaker is pronouncing 223 3, corresponding to one unit 我等你 and then another 等. But maybe it is 23  23 corresponding to one unit 我等 and then another 你等.  I do not trust my ear for this.  So I am asking.

Posted on: Classroom Chinese

Think of méiwèntí as like "Not a problem!"  It is a sentence, short for "I have no problem" or "It is not a problem."  You cannot say wo yao meiwenti, just like In English you cannot say "I want not a problem."

Posted on: Express Delivery

I am not sure of the tone changes in我等你等了. It sounds to me like我等你 is being pronounced as one phrase so the first two are pronounced as rising tones with你 as low, while 等了is treated as a separate phrase, so this 等is pronounced as a low tone. Am I wrong about that? And if I am wrong about how it is pronounced here, could it also be pronounced that way?

This general issue is discussed by OldMartin and Xu Laoshi in the forum at

https://forum.chinesepod.com/t/how-to-change-many-3rd-tones/1011/3

"you first break the sentence into basic entities (noun, pronoun, verb or adjective+noun) and apply the basic rule to each entity."

So I am trying to tell how the speaker here broke 我等你等了into basic units. And I do not really trust my ear for this.

Posted on: How Cold Is It in Winter?

I want to back Gwilym on this.  ChinesePod creates involvement by letting you, or requiring you to, hit pause when you want, and consult the vocab list or the transcript of a dialogue when you want, et cetera.  It is not for passive listening.  It is not just for listening at all, but very visual now, since Chinesepod teaches reading along with speaking and now with the videos it lets you see people's faces as they speak (the Say it Right series uses this a lot).

And one way to take advantage of this is to learn to repeat really fast, even at the same time as the speaker on the audio is saying something.  That is hard but rewarding too.  You really should try.

I have a lot of respect also for Pimsleur, and that is meant for listening, without choosing or selecting things.  Your only action using Pimsleur is repeating in the pauses.  But it would not be good for ChinesePod to start giving Pimsleur style pauses.

Posted on: Rude Waitress Part 2/2

At 10 块 each, are these really steamed buns? Or is each one a basket of steamed buns as shown in the picture? And it makes more sense for two people to get four baskets of buns than four buns.

Posted on: Rude Waitress Part 1/2

I've never heard 慢走 used in a rude way either.  But it was funny one weekend night in a completely packed mid-priced Beijing restaurant, with people waiting in line to get in, to see the manager rush over to every table where people had started to stand up, and hurriedly say 慢走! 慢走! to get them away from the table as quickly as possible.