User Comments - si1teng2

Posted on: Jewish Holiday

我有一個'mnemonic':

”蜂”聼起來好像蜜蜂的聲音。"Feng" sounds like the buzzing of a bee.

“蜜”比“蜂”聼起來甜蜜。"Mi" sounds sweeter than "feng".

Posted on: Drinking Game

Hi light487, I think each level is actually broader than you might think, and contains easier and harder lessons. So the harder elementary lessons are similar in difficulty to the easier intermediate ones. As you improve at one level, the easier lessons at the next level become more accessible. I doubt there's a deliberate policy of making the lessons easier. More likely just a coincidence that these two intermediate lessons happened to be more accessible to you given the progress you have made so far.

If this is right, then maybe ChinesePod could mark each lesson according to difficulty within its level? Perhaps one, two and three stars for increasing levels of difficulty--to help learners transition more smoothly from one level to the next when the time comes? Just a thought.

Posted on: Bringing it All Back Home With 回去 and 回来

Thanks for resolving this, Connie. And thanks also to Changye for your insightful answers--as always!

Posted on: Drinking Game

Bababardwan, we also both made an appeal to someone "more qualified" at the end of our posts. How's that for freaky! 巧合 indeed!

Does anyone know if there's an equivalent of the exclamation "Jinx!" in Chinese?

Posted on: Drinking Game

Xiaophil, for what it's worth, here's my attempt to answer your hard question. It is often said that Chinese is not a tensed language. In a tensed language, the verb MUST take a specific tensed form if it refers to a specific time. This is not the case in Chinese. For example, 去 can mean 'goes,' 'will go,' 'went,' and so on: usually it is the context that makes clear whether the event is past, present or future. One talks about future events without using 會 or 要 before every verb that is translated in the future tense, for example, and about the past without using 過 or 了after every verb that is translated in the past tense. Hence the claim that Chinese is not 'tensed'.

Therefore, while particular Chinese sentences must be translated into English with appropriately tensed verbs, there are nevertheless no 100% reliable one-to-one correspondences between Chinese temporal expressions and English tenses. I think it is best to learn the the functions of the Chinese temporal particles, verbs and adverbs on their own terms. Those explanations are more accurate than rough and ready tense equivalents--though, unfortunately, more difficult for us tensed language users to understand.

But: Our friendly neighbourhood Chinese linguistics expert, John, is more qualified to answer this question than I am.

Posted on: Bringing it All Back Home With 回去 and 回来

Hi Jenny, Pete, Connie!

I'm sure you're very busy, but I'm still waiting for an answer to my question. Changye's answer seems to contradict what you said at the end of the lesson:

"Use 囘 when you're talking about a place that's your home, or you study at, or you work at." Pete replies "Right, it has some kind of personal connection to you that makes it yours."

I thought it had a more general sense of going back to a place where one was immediately before, whether or not there is a personal connection or any sense of belonging to that place.

Please help resolve this! Will the real 回 please stand up!

Posted on: Bringing it All Back Home With 回去 and 回来

Hi Changye,

Your understanding of the use of 回 is the same as mine, but my problem is that what you said (and what I thought) contradicts what Jenny and Pete said in the lesson. So, I guess I'm really asking them to comment on this.

As for the 囘 variant, I didn't deliberately seek it out--it was the first form of the character that turned up with my traditional input method. The more usual 回 is there but for some reason is the fifth choice. That order took me by surprise, but I just kept the variant since it is still the correct character.

I don't know how common it is currently in Taiwan, but I have seen it in books that are a few years old (published in the 50s, 60s, maybe even 70s and 80s--to the best of my recollection).

Posted on: Bringing it All Back Home With 回去 and 回来

Thanks, Changye! That's what I thought. But this seems to contradict what Jenny and Pete say close to the end of the lesson (from around 9:28).

Jenny says that 囘 is used for "your home, your home town, or your home country," and suggests that it cannot be used for places "not belonging" to you. "Use 囘 when you're talking about a place that's your home, or you study at, or you work at." Pete replies "Right, it has some kind of personal connection to you that makes it yours."

In the example I gave, my itinerary has me 'going back' to Paris, which is not my home, place of work, or study. I would have thought 囘 can still be used, as you said. But Jenny and Pete seem to suggest that it cannot.

Help! Jenny, Pete, Connie, Changye!

Posted on: Bringing it All Back Home With 回去 and 回来

So, 囘 can only be used for returning to one's own home? What if I'm describing a holiday trip and I say that I went from London to Paris, from Paris to Madrid, and then I 'went back' to Paris? If Paris is not my home, does this mean it is wrong to say: “我回到巴黎" ?

How do you talk about going back to a place you've been to before when it is not your home?

Posted on: 武松打虎

Jenny, 謝謝你的勸告！我對細節注意，可是語言能力不太高，還差得遠呢！說中文說得不好，寫中文寫得太慢了，而且總是有很多錯誤。

Changye, 在 Victoria Peak （對不起，我不知道中文名字）一只老虎也看不見。他一定把所有的老虎都打死了。