User Comments - phil
phil
Posted on: Working Hours
June 07, 2008, 09:54 AMThis lesson has not appeared in my lesson feed nor on my Me page. Latest Qing Wen was missed but Dear Amber is working.
Posted on: London
February 27, 2008, 07:54 AMpena007, Recently I have been using the online dictionary "nciku" which is here: http://www.nciku.com/ it seems to have quite an extensive dictionary, including Nantes and Corsica, plus some other useful tools
Posted on: Shaolin Temple
February 08, 2008, 04:38 AMApart from the lesson being listed twice under UI, half of the dialogue, half of the expansion plus all the vocabulary is duplicated.
Posted on: 橄榄球在中国
January 27, 2008, 03:04 AMIt would be quite a challenge for CPod to do a lesson on cricket! I wonder if translations even exist for some of those more curiously named fielding positions: Silly mid off, long leg, third man, deep backward square leg, cover point, short leg, gully, long on, fly slip....
Posted on: 橄榄球在中国
January 22, 2008, 09:45 AMJust to complicate things even further, there are two codes of Rugby, Rugby Union (15 players) and Rugby League (13 players). A little research on Chinese Wikipedia reveals the following two respective translations: Rugby Union 联合式橄榄球 (lian2he2 gan3lan3qiu2) Rugby League 联盟式橄榄球 (lian2meng2 gan3lan3qiu2) And by the way, China does enter the qualifying rounds for the Rugby (union) World Cup!
Posted on: Football (Soccer)
January 21, 2008, 07:54 AMHi amber, I'm intigued to see that American football is 橄榄球 (gǎnlǎnqiú) since for years I have been telling people that I used to play gǎnlǎnqiú under the impression that it was rugby. Do both games have the same name in Chinese?
Posted on: Pedestrian Peril
January 20, 2008, 04:21 PMI seem to have a minor problem with the links to this lesson from the Home page. The lesson title (Upper-Intermediate - Pedestrian Peril) contains two links, one to the Upper Intermediate lessons page and the other to the actual lesson. For some reason clicking on Upper-Intermediate is sending me to Please Upgrade for Access page. As far as I have checked, it is only happening for this lesson.
Posted on: Lost Cell Phone
January 13, 2008, 03:27 AMsebire, There are plenty of options these days and it will be difficult to cover all those places on a local mobile phone basis. There is the same problem in China as in India of a phone purchased in one province not working in another and same for adding money. My daughter recently completed a similar trip to the one you have planned. She took her UK mobile phone for emergency use only and thereafter used email, good old public phones, Facebook, MSN, Skype and Skype Out. There will be internet cafe's except in the most remote places. If she needed a longer chat, with no internet access, she called me and I called her back using my Skype Out. Sounds like a great adventure...have fun!
Posted on: Trip to the Chinese Doctor and a Special Guest
January 05, 2008, 01:22 AMLunetta, It is a good question regarding medical services in China and important to be prepared. Here's a few comments based upon my experience of standard medicine in China, from an expat standpoint, but excluding the international hospitals which are available in Beijing, Shanghai and maybe a few other 1st tier cities... at a price! For all but emergencies, the normal process is to get yourself, with passport, to the best hospital in town (often seems to be the "No 1 Hospital" or the Military Hospital or a Joint Venture Hospital) and register, the cost maybe RMB100. It is recommended to find out this information before the problem occurs of course. The hospital may have a section for foreigners (Tianjin and Changchun both do for example). You will then need to give them some idea about your symptoms, following which you will be directed to the relevant section to consult with a general doctor/nurse for that section. After consultation a specialist may be called for further investigation. My experience is that they like to test almost everything, blood pressure, blood, X-ray, urine etc before advising on a course of action. After this, medicine (western, Chinese or both) will be recommended along with any other advice regarding rest, eating etc. At this point you will need to pay, with cash or a local bank card, for consultation, tests and medicines. In my experience, having international insurance doesn't help since no hospitals are affiliated. Have to pay first then claim back. This also means the problem of getting official invoices (fapiao) and medical statements. If a stay in hospital is required then a mix of pay upfront, pay as you go or pay on departure will occur. In case of emergency then you need to call 120 for emergency/ambulance. I have mixed experience regarding language. However, even with a reasonable grasp of Chinese the vocab required to deal with such a medical situation would make it highly advisable to find a bilingual colleague or friend to accompany you. At all stages you will be confronted with crowds of people, no queuing and no privacy! Well, I could write a book but will stop there.
Posted on: SBTG: Confucius
June 11, 2008, 01:41 AMSome Cpoddies may be interested:
This years BBC Radio 4 Reith Lecture is a series of 4 lectures presented by Professor Johnathon Spence (Yale University) "an eminent historian" titled Chinese Vistas.
The first lecture is titled "Confucian Ways" and can be downloaded from here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2008/
maybe for a limited time