User Comments - sebire
sebire
Posted on: Fasten that Safety Belt
November 07, 2010, 11:14 AMYou get a lot of people sitting in the back of open trucks in Singapore. Looks like death on 4 wheels to me.
In Malaysia, I was appalled to get into a people-carrier/van owned by my cousin. His children were just running around the back of the van, and when I put on my seatbelt and insisted that they did the same, my aunt turned round and said "why bother with that? Are you afraid to die? If God says it's your time, it's your time".
Life is cheap over there.
Posted on: Trick or Treat!
November 07, 2010, 01:05 AMI have just discovered that we have a mutual friend...!
Posted on: One-Way Street Scuffle
November 05, 2010, 09:28 AMUbiquitous in the US perhaps - I hadn't heard it before I went there, I think.
Posted on: Trick or Treat!
November 04, 2010, 09:42 AMDon't do it Suxiaoya, it's the dark side!!!
Posted on: Slippery Ground
November 01, 2010, 12:27 PMAbelle, I'm a visual learner, so I have to see the dialogue. I think you'll pick out more with the dialogue, because you'll hear Jenny speak parts of the dialogue with some other words thrown in, so you get a bit more context for the other words.
Posted on: Slippery Ground
November 01, 2010, 10:53 AMHey Paulinrus, I just dived straight in. You can't get anywhere just listening to Ellies. I didn't understand much for a few months, but then stuff started to click. Bear in mind that half of Jenny's speech is just reading the dialogue, and the other half is translated by John. Listen to some of those Qing Wen's which go through some of the vocab like "verb" and "noun", "structure", "jie xia lai" etc. Make sure you have a copy of the dialogue in front of you! That is really handy. And pick lessons where there is a transcript :)
Posted on: Slippery Ground
October 31, 2010, 02:09 PMPaulinrus, the only way you can cross the bridge is to suck up the vocab. I found there is just not enough vocab in Ellie lessons to bridge it the gap. You literally have to sit there with your dictionary looking up every other word, though it does help with John pretty much translating what Jenny says. You will find that you will learn the vocab pretty quickly though, as a lot of it is very common, and then you will be on your way.
Posted on: Job Shopping in Modern China
October 31, 2010, 12:38 PMRCK, I think it's important to be exposed to various accents, though I would try to emulate an accent that is considered most intelligible to others. I think I tend to copy Jenny's accent rather than the voice actors (though tough luck if you're a man!) I don't think it is too dissimilar to what I hear on Chinese soap operas/news. To me, if you're watching a TV programme, and it sounds pretty normal, then that's probably OK. Let's face it, I just sound fairly English anyway.
Talking of Standard British English tends to cause flaming rows, but Southern English has become a "region-less" and "middle-class" accent due to centuries of history. What I understand is that this is not the case in China, and is a political decision, so as people have said before, not many people actually speak it.
Posted on: Job Shopping in Modern China
October 30, 2010, 04:09 PMThat's peculiar, usually in Singapore they just effortlessly switch to English when I look at them blankly.
Posted on: Considering an iPad
November 11, 2010, 12:55 PMSome vendors are trying to push the iPad as an ideal platform for people to use business interactive "dashboards", i.e. data visualisation tools to track business performance. I am not quite sure why that is better than using a laptop.