User Comments - shanghai_helios

Posted on: Passive Verbs and 被

Please give us more "cultural" forms of the language. If these terms are in the official media, there shouldn't be anyy reason not to teach them, and in fact may even be more of a reason to teach them.

Also, it was remarked on the lesson that "被自杀" is commonly used for celebrities. Is this correct? I would have thought the phrase would generally be used in connection with low income migrant workers.

Posted on: Special Green Hat

The translation of 陈总 in the transcript is "President Chen". As John said in the lesson, the term should be "General Manager Chen" (unless Chinesepod is slipping in a reference to the "Green" Party of Taiwan and the former president.)

President or CEO would be something like 首席执行官， and I doubt staff members would give birthday presents to a CEO.

Posted on: Special Green Hat

"这是我在美国给你买的礼物。"

Why does "给你" follow "在美国"? It would seem that "买" would follow "在美国" because that is describing where the hat was purchased.

Can we say :"这是我在美国买给你的礼物。"?

Is another word order for this sentance possible?

Posted on: Flying a Kite

An advanced lesson on the six styles of Chinese kites would be good. The Nantong kite museum is excellent.

www.cn-kite.com

Posted on: The Red Spectrum of Meaning

For all the tourists, 红色旅游 Red Tourism

www.crt.com.cn/

http://english.cri.cn/ce_travel/events/redtour/

Posted on: A Cell Phone Ad on TV

Why is 能 repeated when discussing the features of the phone? Is it because 又 must precede a verb, and therefore the 能 must be repeated?

Also, I noticed that a 顿号 is used to separate the first two items, but then a comma precedes the 又. With this punctuation, it is actually a group of two features, and then another phrase describing a third feature added for emphasis? If so, wouldn't a better translation be something like:  "It can not only play music and take photos, but it can also go online"

Posted on: The Black Spectrum of Meaning

Changye,

Thanks. There must be a positive connotation for the color black, otherwise you wouldn't see so many black cars on the road. Maybe every guy wants a sedan that is 黑漆漆 to look rich and mysterious. And of course, use dark tinted windows. I can't think that all these drivers want to look like gangsters.

Posted on: The Black Spectrum of Meaning

Are there instances where black has a positive meaning?

Also, maybe it would be useful to explain 黑 also stands for Heilongjiang. Thus, a car with a license plate of "黑", isn't a 黑车.

Posted on: 1949

Good lesson from the early days and useful vocab, but maybe it's time to replace it with a new one and make a couple of corrections.

The lesson says that Deng Xiaoping was General Secretary of the CCP （中国共产党的总书记）. I believe this is incorrect. Deng never held such post. Others held the post. Neither was Deng chairman of the CCP . I believe the highest CCP position he officially held was vice-chairman, as well as head of the military commission.

Also, the lesson says that Deng put forward the Four Modernizations. Actually, I believe Four Modernizations were first introduced by Zhou Enlai.

Posted on: The Super Bowl

Go_manly, much of the appeal of the game is the strategy,that is, guessing what the other team will do next. Today's game had about 120 plays. Each play is a potential scoring opporunity. Think of it that way, and the game becomes more interesting.