User Comments - stevebroderick

Posted on: Delegating Tasks

Hi,

I have a couple of questions regarding this:

1 - is gan3kuai4 and ma3shang4 the same?  i.e. they can be used interchangably?

2 - in one of the sentence examples it uses "ke3ta1..." - is this just "ke3shi4ta1" with the "shi4" left out?

3 - is "jiu4yao4" and "zheng4zai4" the same?

4 - how do you answer "qu3xiao1le" in the questions?  I think I tried "qu3xiao1le0" and "..le5" and every other thing I could think of.  Can you let me know how I'm supposed to answer when it's a neutral tone?

5 - this one's probably stupid, but what is the difference between "kai1hui4" and "hui4yi4"?  I'm assuming one is in the future and one isn't?

Thanks so much!

Posted on: Bank Hours

Hi,

I'd just like to say I really like how John explains in detail all the different parts of the dialog in such a clear way (use simple words to explain simple concepts - i.e. always using terms such as 'an X that conjugates a Y' doesn't help me - my failing as I realise.  I've never been good at languages), plus he also tells you the bits (i.e. cong2 X dao4 Y) that are inferred.  I find when Chinese is used, there are so many parts like this it really helps me to understand.

As to the other comments, I'm jealous of everyone's progress.  Well done!  I'm falling behind in my practice now :-S  Spend lots of time in chinese meetings at work trying to understand, but after a few hours I end up staring at the roof and I find it so hard to get back home and find the motivation to practice.  Kudos to you all!

Posted on: Directory Assistance

I have a couple of questions on this. 

Firstly, I thought when you use a question word - i.e. na3ge - you didn't need to use "ma"?  Is this not correct?  "ni3 zhi1dao4 na3ge qu1 ma?"

Secondly, when you ask for a telephone number, shouldn't it be "dian4hua4hao4"?  Is the final "hao" omitted for a specific reason? "...dian4hua4 he2 di4zhi3"