User Comments - pretzellogic
pretzellogic
Posted on: Retired Life
June 29, 2011 at 9:48 AMdecades from now, my retirement plan is to turn myself into Wes Montgomery or Pat Metheny. First stop: Jamey Aebersold Jazz Camp, where 16 yr olds will admire my cool guitar, but wonder why a geezer is taking up guitar in the first place.
Posted on: International vs. Local Schools
June 13, 2011 at 3:11 PMAfter some serious research, it turns out foreign parents have many less options than I realized. This 8 year old article is still pretty accurate, and about summarizes the education situation for Beijing.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/en/doc/2003-09/05/content_261616.htm
Posted on: The Stepmother Role
June 3, 2011 at 10:23 AMHaving access to a random, and statistically significant sample size of the Beijing population (1 Chinese woman), the woman I asked confirmed her kids use 您nin when speaking to adults older than them/old people, and 你` ni when speaking to peers. She said her kids say things like 妈妈好，爸爸好，叔叔好 and so on. Of course, as with most science, more research is needed.
Posted on: Signs in China and Mistranslation
May 22, 2011 at 2:37 AMI'm surprised that Cpod would think it's ok that when another organization's English speakers/spellers mistranslate something, that's it's ok to point it out as "interesting". I don't think they meant their mistranslations to be interesting, funny, or worth a topic at all. Too bad mistranslations are not in the "honest mistake" category, and left at that. I'm sure the majority of native English speakers can figure out what is meant. But even Jay Leno is making fun of similar types of things.
Posted on: Transferring Money
May 13, 2011 at 3:50 AMActually, I think the most challenging part of the Chinese banking system is that each local branch doesn't interact with other branches of the same bank that you'd expect. My friend was in Hui County in Gansu province, and it turns out that the Hui County Industrial and Commercial Bank of China branch couldn't accept international money transfers. The Lanzhou ICBC could accept international money transfers, but she'd have to go to Lanzhou to get the money from her cousin's bank account in Lanzhou, 9 hours away by bus. So for me, giving her the money was no problem, but for her, getting the money was an enormous hassle.
Posted on: Cold Cucumbers in Sauce
May 8, 2011 at 12:40 PMI've tried it both ways already, and I prefer the Chinese :-)
My point was that the lesson only says cut, but maybe the lesson should be changed to have a few lines around hitting the cucumber with a blunt instrument first, then cut the resulting fragments into pieces, if that's what a Chinese cook actually does.
Posted on: Cold Cucumbers in Sauce
May 8, 2011 at 2:44 AMWell, if you were answering my question, i'm inclined to agree with you. But I would add that in this lesson, there was no mention of hitting the cucumber first with the knife, then cutting it.
Posted on: Business and Investment in China - Part 2
May 8, 2011 at 2:38 AMA number of things:
1)Jason's Chinese is excellent. I hope in another couple of years, my Chinese is that good.
2)this is another great interview. IMHO, what makes it great is that in real Chinese conversations, everything is unscripted, and a topic can come up that you don't expect. An interview like this makes you realize that. Most of the other intermediate/upper intermediate cpod lessons give plenty of clues about what to expect next.
3)Cpod broke up the chinese portions interview up into nice 30-45 second chunks to explain the content in english. This was probably the best way to go in providing the explanation. It would be nice to hear maybe just 1 interview in the future where the entire Chinese portion (5 minutes or so) is presented all at once, and then the English explanation is given all at once. That would be a lot to go through, but would have the advantage of seeing if we can go through the flow ourselves to figure out what is coming next, since we have to do this in the real world anyway. It would be like trying to follow a conversation at a dinner party. Everybody tells a new Chinese learner, "oh, this is good for you!".
Posted on: Transferring Money
April 30, 2011 at 12:08 PMI don't know who you bank with in the UK, but if your bank is Barclays, it appears they're part of the Global ATM Alliance. You should be able to get money out of your Barclays UK accounts when you go to a China Construction Bank ATM without transaction or exchange fees. Sweet deal if you ask me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_ATM_Alliance
Posted on: Retired Life
July 3, 2011 at 10:47 AMActually, I was thinking more an ES-175, but I might just go with my ES-335. That Linda Manzer Pikasso guitar is too unique for me :-)