User Comments - pretzellogic

Posted on: Going to the Toy Store

Maybe I want some dialogue like,

Lulu: "Mom, I want a chemistry set. Dudu was picking on me in class, so I want to use some ammonium nitrate to blow his chair up".

Mom: "Oh, Lulu, little girls don't blow people up".

Posted on: August, Study Tips and Expo Insights

I thought it was only Americans that said "man up". You learn something new everyday....

Posted on: Going to the Toy Store

ok, once again, I am guilty of "I saw a Chinese person do this once in my neighborhood; therefore, this happens with all Chinese everywhere".

Posted on: Going to the Toy Store

Wow, do Chinese mothers actually say things like, "girls can't play with remote controlled cars"? Or is this merely a gender role stereotype on Cpod's part?

Posted on: Ordering Songs at Karaoke

xiaophil, interesting that it's been more than a year since you've posted this, and Cpod isn't still coming up with real club scene music lesson suggestions.

Posted on: Ordering Songs at Karaoke

On a scale from 1 - 5, where 1 is easy, and 5 is difficult, I'd rate this intermediate lesson is a 2 - fairly easy.  Mostly 1 sentence paragraphs.  No major new sentence patterns. Mainly the thing here is faster speaking than average.  Introduced about 5-15 new words for someone at the early stage of intermediate.

Posted on: Lao Wang's Office 3: A Call for Innovation

On a scale from 1 - 5, where 1 is easy, and 5 is difficult, I'd rate this intermediate lesson is a 3 - intermediate.  Mostly 2 sentence paragraphs.  No major new sentence patterns, but this lesson works in a nice example of "easier said than done" phrase. Introduced about 10-15 new words for someone at the early stage of intermediate.

Posted on: August, Study Tips and Expo Insights

Some of these practices are common sense and well known, others are relatively unknown, and a few are picked up after awhile.  But after seeing what worked here, getting feedback from existing users and searching the boards after a few years of subscribing, talking with fluent and native speakers, here’s what seems to work for users that want to seriously learn Chinese reasonably well (or any language for that matter):

1.       Put the time in: 1 hour per day minimum or more. Don’t bother with a couple of minutes here and there.  You’ll only end up forgetting that little bit you practiced, and have to learn it all over again. 

2.       Constant pace: no 3 hours on one day, then nothing for 2 weeks:  almost the same thing as in number 1, but here, you stress study over weeks and months.

3.       Shadow like crazy: thanks to Simonpettersson, I was introduced to this method, and though it’s challenging, it also works.  A practice discussed at length by Antonio arguelles, this is a method that requires you to speak over a lesson so that you hear yourself making the same pronunciation as the speaker.  One of the greatest reasons to have a Cpod subscription is that it allows you to download lessons into a portable format and shadow.

4.       Speak out LOUD – worth it.  Thinking along with the lesson is not the speaking practice you think it is.  Hearing yourself make verbal mistakes with the cpod lesson is valuable feedback, and why cpod is a very valuable tool.   

5.       10 new words/day- challenging, but doable.  Going through a cpod lesson at the newbie level is probably giving you 10 new words at first, then less than 10 words.  

6.       Review and consolidate regularly -

7.       Practice speaking to others – speaking forces you to put together sentences that are of your own making, forcing you to work though grammar and sentence structure.  All good practice. 

8.       First time learners: DO NOT USE PINYIN AT FIRST – fluent speakers that learned well recommended this approach, and I buy it.  Nothing destroys tones faster than learning pinyin  as a starting point.  Best to learn using Chinese pod lessons, and listen to them over and over. I recommend 100 hours worth of listening time before even looking at pinyin.  After 100 hours, pinyin is a helpful tool on the path toward mandarin understanding.  Not before.   I remember the first time I heard zhun3 bei4 in a lesson, and seeing it in pinyin was significantly different from what I thought the pronunciation was.  Further, native speaking Chinese kids do not learn pinyin at first either. 

9.       Goto China, or at least plan to go to China – nothing motivates deeper study of Chinese faster than planning a trip to China. Once you realize you’re going to China, you move from casual interest to “holy cow, I’m going to need this!” shifts into overdrive.

10.   Speaking first, characters second

11.   Integrate speed and accents over time

12. Get an mp3 player.  I can’t bring myself to use the “i” word but using the cpod lessons on the go makes reviewing, speaking out loud, putting the time in, constant pace, and shadowing easier.  In fact, it’s really hard to shadow correctly without an mp3 player.

Posted on: Renting an Apartment through an Agent

Yes, in every building in China that i've lived in, I'm pretty much toast in almost any disaster. No fire escapes, no jumping out windows, only one way into and out of the apartment. Plus, if there is a fire, it's likely to come from the gas stove, which in our apartment is about 15 feet from the door.

Posted on: Feminine Products

maybe there's a lesson on the pill somewhere in here....