User Comments - questyn
questyn
Posted on: The Love of Milk Tea
June 30, 2013, 02:10 AMThanks for the series on karaoke. Any chance of hearing my favorite Chinese band, 凤凰传奇, in some future lesson?
Posted on: Words with 可(ke)
June 09, 2012, 03:00 PMI think so, too, veronique21. 可爱 feels like "cute" in midwestern American use: you like it, but it makes you smile because it's also a little funny. Children and pets - classic 可爱。
Most English-speaking Chinese say that word means "lovely," though. I don't know how Chinese got to translate that into "lovely" in English unless it's the UK equivalent of "cute" in American English.
Posted on: Controversial Wartime Martyrs
April 30, 2012, 05:17 PMCould you add a comment including the names of the first two men mentioned? I am not familiar with them and wasn't sure what characters are in their names.
谢谢！
Posted on: The Correct Usage of Correct
April 07, 2012, 06:23 PMThank you for this lesson! It hits a specific need of mine.
Posted on: Motivating a Team
March 30, 2012, 04:10 PMHi pretzellogic,
By "drinking castor oil," do you mean that your brain has an automatic "reject" of characters and looks for letters instead (even though with some thought you know the Chinese pretty well)? I have this happen, too, and it doesn't matter if I know the Chinese well or if it has some new words - it was an automatic brain thing.
I don't have a measurable way to tell if I'm improving, but here's what I've found:
- Become aware of that brain rejection and press on through it and read the Chinese.
- Over a few months, that automatic resistance to reading characters was definitely less. Reading became easier. It's a hurdle worth pressing through. I still have a slower reading speed in Chinese than in English and that's my next goal. (Plus I have more vocabulary to keep learning and then there's my own writing style to work on...)
Posted on: Copy and Paste
March 28, 2012, 03:13 PMHi: I've done this and like it. I'm using Windows 7 purchased here in the US. In Control Panel, I switched the "Region and Language" "Format" to "Simplified Chinese (PRC)". (I kept the location as US.) This means I still get some English, but I get a lot of Chinese in program menus for popular software, get the Chinese version of Google.com and many other sites, and have the date and time in Chinese format. A jigsaw puzzle program I have also switched into Mandarin to my surprise! So it's hard to predict which programs will be able to make the language switch. Word does; OneNote does not.
I generally consider myself at Advanced level in Chinese, but precise computer terms have often been new - and pretty difficult to look up in a dictionary. My brain still can balk at seeing characters; I need a split-second "push" sometimes to get my mind to depend on characters for information instead of English. Switching language settings has helped me feel more instinctually that Chinese is a language of practical, daily communication and not a special skill I only pull out from time to time. It's a daily part of how I live.
Posted on: A Qing Wen to Our Listeners
March 10, 2012, 03:29 AMI agree with Guolan: I have a weak area in being able to describe people and their emotions beyond a few basics.
I would really enjoy knowing Chinese literature, music, and stories that "everyone knows" if they grew up in China. It's a big part of cultural literacy.
Posted on: 宗教知识竞赛
January 31, 2012, 06:22 PM太平天国的洪秀全我认为不算基督徒。他是不是说自己本人就是再来的基督？这不是基督教里的一个原则。能不能说他是邪教的创始人？还是怎么解释这样的情况？现在的中国（和所有的国家）还有这样的情形。有一位很charismatic的人建立新的派别。可是，派别也不太一样把。英文里说"cult"就比较难听，面对信奉这杨宗教的人，怎么比较礼貌的说他们信仰和本来的信仰分离了？
谢谢。
Posted on: An Interview with Zhang Ayi
January 16, 2012, 11:34 PM张阿姨， 谢谢你跟我们分享四川的风俗和方言！我在中国几年前住在云南省。我非常想念那边的方言，四川话很相近，所以我很高兴听！不要害羞，放胆说出来呢。是中国的一个特点，还有很多方言。
你们还会找到一位会说昆明话或者云南省其他地区的方言吗？
Posted on: The Best Dazzling Folk Song Trend
August 25, 2013, 02:26 AMSilliest, come on! It makes sense. This is my favorite Chinese song and I memorized it last summer to sing karaoke - go Phoenix Legend!