User Comments - stevemisch

Posted on: A Simple Tour of the Office

Jenny, you are so right about the Toto washlets. Once you use one you can never go back to old fashioned toilet paper. But you forgot to mention their key benefit, that they CLEAN you with warm water afterwards, obviating the need for toilet paper, except to simply dab off the water. Cleaning is far superior. I had one installed on my home toilet, and they can install it ON TOP OF your existing toilet. AKA Bidet.

Posted on: Spending Money in Hong Kong

MingHui....

If you have an interest in universal natural linguistic twitchs that humans have, you may enjoy Steven Pinker's The Stuff of Thought.

Posted on: Spending Money in Hong Kong

Dudes, I just learned that the qù from qùnián is the same qù meaning "go." How did I miss this major point?

And, to answer Jenny's query, "How can it not be fun to go to Hong Kong?" I've only been there once and it was as a medical escort, transferring an injured patient from Chengdu to there. I went from airport to hospital in an ambulance, transferred the patient over about 3 hours, caught bus back to airport and left. They wouldn't accept my rmb in the store or to buy bus ticket (apparently no one told them that they're part of China now), but would accept USD, which I didn't have. Plus, some arrogance that comes from affluence, seemed present. I was happy to come back home to China. I've never understood how people feel that they "save money" there shopping, after paying for plane ticket etc.

Posted on: Finding the Office Building

John, John, John, usually you're so astute at pointing out these matters, but I've always been confused on this point, that lou2 is used BOTH for floor and for building--I looked carefully and they seem to be the same hanzi. Correct?

And, stick to your guns, don't let Di Lu tell you that it's boring to point out one sentence using "you3" and another using "zai4". That's what we pay you for! Maybe it's boring if you're a native speaker, but we thrive on this kind of clarification.

Lastly, I LOVE the structure of your lessons: First time hearing the conversation sounds impossibly fast. After breaking it down and then rehearing it I get it and feel accomplished. Then the vocab section spoonfeeds me and builds confidence and makes sure I got all the vocab--both repeat of old words and the random new ones. Expansion kicks my ass and is tedious, but necessary. The newly added Gramar part is similar--super useful, but a bit of a slog to get through. Perfect. The exercises at the end bring it all home and allow me to review once more.

In toto, these lessons are MUCH MORE USEFUL than even a good teacher. It assimilates into my brain more effeciently. I can listen to the diaglogue while eating breakfast (since my mouth is full).

Posted on: Choosing a Room

John's sensibilities about what "we" ele learners need to have enhanced/repeated are so right on! Great work. He even pretends to be one of us for the sake of the lessons--great ploy! Really.

Posted on: Dental Floss

I love this practical lesson and like RJs thoughts on the merits of flossing.

I've seen many young people (20s) who already have gingivitis (red, inflammed gums) and bad breath and they have never heard of flossing. They may lose teeth as they get older. They all say they brush, but brushing only gets 3 out of the 5 surfaces of our molars.

Flossing gets the plaque between the teeth where anaerobic bacteria live. Turns out anaerobes (grow without oxygen) kick off some nasty chemicals as their biproducts which can inflame gums and smell bad. Flossing is the only way to get rid of them. The plaque can accumulate and harden within a day so it's necessary to do daily. Agree that the best way is to wrap the string around fingers--forget the plastic ones.

Spread the word!

Steve Misch, M.D.

Parkwayhealth

Posted on: Scheduling a Time

Please, Please, Please, can you make the tone marks bolded or somehow bigger? Please look at the Grammar section and the font used for "ma3shang4." That's PERFECT!

How many of your poddies are over 40, like me? How many of those have presbyopia, like me, so we cannot see fine, faint tone marks without putting on reading glasses! Hen mafan!

Plus, tones don't come naturally to us so you have to really hit us over the head with them. Give us pixels! Bold the tones or if you cannot just bold the tone marks, bold all the font like you did for the first "mashang" in Grammar section.

Please.

Thanks for GREAT content!

Cpod is MUCH better than even a good teacher...

Posted on: A Good Book

Books are not expensive. Ignorance is expensive.

And, agree with Wande, that we shouldn't be promoting online stores over bricks and mortar stores, ESPECIALLY the kind that sell stolen material.

1. Bookstores help promote literacy.
2. Bookstores provide a much more pleasant experience, encouraging people to come in and browse.
3. Bookstores pay to support infrastructure with their rent and taxes and payroll.
4. If authors and publishers cannot make money we'll lose them and their circulation of ideas.

Chinesepod should be particularly wary of others selling pirated material online (or giving it away for free).

Posted on: Marriage and Divorce

Yes, the divorce rate may be higher in America, but I've long maintained that the unhappiness rate is the same for both countries. So, if you're unhappy is it more virtuous to stay married or enjoy the one life you have elsewhere?

And, I've heard so much how society is more traditional here, but married men flock to special KTVs in droves, meanwhile maintaining the appearance of a normal, "good boy" marriage.

Fascinating book on the topic called The Myth of Monogamy, Fidelity and Infidelity in Animals and Humans, by Baresh.

Posted on: Cell Phone Connectivity Issues

Would be helpful to point out that this work "ji1" literally means "machine" and is widely used in Chinese, e.g., fe1ji1 (airplane, air machine), shui2ji1 (, water dispenser, water machine) cha1ji1 (tea machine, tea/coffee table) and in the word for camera (shangji) and so on....