User Comments - stevemisch

Posted on: Pearl Tea

Agree that zhen zhu nai cha rocks and is NOT a girlie drink!  Come on!

Posted on: Diet Coke

User 31011--Strong work. I used to (naively) think diet products are just flavored water, so who cares. 

Turns out that diet products mess up the feedback response in humans and rats (it's the same), such that after a normal person eats a large meal they will tend to eat less afterwards so the net results is no gain, but after a person (or rat) has been drinking diet products for some time, if they overindulge, they will NOT compensate later by eating less, so over time they tend to gain weight.  Perhaps it's this serotonin mechanism he mentions--I don't know.

Bottom line:  You can't get something for nothing. 

Many patients told me that when they quit diet products they finally were able to lose weight--I didn't understand it why until this new research.

So, regarding diet garbage products, follow the sage advice of Nancy Reagan and,

JUST SAY NO.

Water is better (Turns out fruit juice is just as glycemic (sugar content) as cola (but with more vitamins)), so can also be fattening.  Better to eat the fruit rather than the juice.

Dr. Steve

Posted on: Coming Up Next: 接下来，然后，还有，那么

I found the answer to my question--to read and follow without going to pdf, which closes the audio...

Posted on: To Bow or Not to Bow

You call it liberation too?

Posted on: Describing Athletes

A little less (pleasant enough) banter and promo could be usefully replaced with a bit more meaty discussion, such as the difference between zhen1 hao3 and zheng4 hao3 and why we use this term yuan2 for athletes instead of ren2. Thanks.

Posted on: Stopped at the Gate

PIXELS PLEASE.  It's bad enough that us foreigners spent and entire life time without tones, then we try to learn a new language with our much less plastic, can't teach an old dog new tricks, brains, but then,

the tone marks are barely visible.

The tone marks are about 1/5th the size of the pinyin characters.  I'll wager the number of pixels alotted roughly corresponds to the number of visual cortex neurons activated.  Is it therefore any surprise when we focus more on learning the pinyin characters and less on the tones?

Really, I think HUGE TONE MARKS would be a great improvement.  Is it hard to make this change?

Posted on: Finding a Seat at the Movies

• I would suggest to never comment that a lesson is "kind of easy" as John and Ken have sometimes done.  It's much better to LET THE STUDENT FEEL it is easy and thus the student feels big and like they have made progress (in an arena where we feel incompetent always).  If we don't feel it's easy, then we feel demoralized, "Wow, they said it's easy, but I don't think so...."
• Also, I think I got 100% on the quiz, but the "Listen and Type" gave me 2 off, but who's counting...

Posted on: Dinner with Friends

Under Expansion the last sentence for "chang" says "Ni chang chang ba," but the audio says "Qing chang chang ba."

Posted on: Furniture

As noted above, on next to last expansion, it mentions "zhang chuang" for "that bed" but on the pin yin it only has "hang" and no word for bed.  Written 2006, corrected January 2009 and yet....

Also, on "Matching" it lists "ba3"as "particle", when I believe it should be "measure word," like zhang.

:-)

Posted on: Aussie Rules

I think there is a mistake in the Multiple Choice.  You give:

____zhe ge youxi you shenma hao wan de?

and then 4 choices, but I believe the above is the complete sentence as given in your expansion, without anything preceding it.  This one "mistake" cost me a perfect 100% score.  :-)