User Comments - waitingroom
waitingroom
Posted on: Pinyin Sections 3-4
July 16, 2009, 05:06 PMI'd like to hear a linguist's opinion on the zh/ch/sh issue, but so far I was under the impression that, at least most of the time, when Southeners speak Chinese there is still a faint difference between consonants like sh and s. To my mind, there seems to be a way of pronouncing (tongue position etc) these consonants that is (perhaps) distinct from standard Mandarin. Normally, it would sound exactly the same, but if you form the consonant like that, it's much easier for an sh to come out as an s, or a "kinda-s". (Having a look at the phonology might clear things up, though.)
Re: "sanhai" I don't think I've ever heard Jenny pronounce 课程 as ke4cheng2.
Posted on: Funny Rice
May 25, 2009, 06:24 PM"Because shelled peanuts." is the new "42".
Posted on: Podcast Language 1
May 23, 2009, 06:04 PMVery practical!
@rjberki Overdue, yes. But somehow - and I'm still a bit surprised, actually, I managed to pick up most of that "podcast language" when transitioning from ele to intermediate (though not using CP that much back then, in fact, because of that, the Ele-Intermediate gap was even bigger). Obviously, it took a while and I misheard stuff quite frequently (as sebire did with the "电话".) Contexts certainly isn't everything, but often it does hammer the point home ;)
If you ever get to produce a "classroom language" QW, that would be brilliant. Unfortunately, you don't hear "Turn to page..." in a podcast :P (Reminds me of my Russian classes. After just 1 semester, I was given the choice between abandoning studying the language informally at the uni altogether or moving up to the Advanced level class, which normally comprised of students in their 5th or 6th semester of study. I decided to take chances...and usually had no clue as to what the topic was, when to open my book, so I made a fool of myself during virtually every lesson etc. A very humiliating experience, but absolutely worth it because at by end of the second semester, I had caught up.)
Posted on: Funny Business
May 08, 2009, 07:54 AMI have a question regarding "你自己看着办". Can it be used just like it's English equivalent? Is it always a bit blunt/aggressive, or can it be used in a joking manner or even as encouragement (e.g. a teacher telling a student "Figure out for yourself how to conduct this experiment") as well?
Posted on: Funny Business
May 08, 2009, 06:52 AMI quite like those "unusual" dialogues - even though I'm not going to use much of the vocab myself, it's still nice to know some of these expressions, often they'll appear on TV. Are the dialogues in textbooks realistic? Rarely (though there are a few good ones around)!
恕我直言,what I haven't come across so far on CP is an UpperIntermediate lesson that reinforces the everyday life-vocab from the lower levels. I'm not sure about the other users, but I think I would benefit from longer, faster, complicated dialogues about stuff like buying a train ticket (just to give an example - what if there no tickets left? what if you want to upgrade you ticket? What about being told to queue for the security check? What if they have any objections to your luggage/tickets?) . It seems you have to piece these things together from the various lessons, but even then you'll be limited to newbie constructions... Besides, the lower level dialogue are very slow, so getting accustomed to hearing the same stuff at natural speed would be great, so people travelling to China won't be so overwhelmed. (After all, it's quite depressing not to understand your interlocutor when you should in theory be familiar with the words he is using. Please don't tell me that this is the "students' lot", ChinesePod seems to be rather good at solving problems learners have when they use other methods, so I'm confident that this issue isn't insurmountable either ;) )
Change of topic: How do you actually write that 囧? I think it's read as jiong3 or something, but it doesn't show up in the IME-list when typing.
Posted on: Big Bed
May 07, 2009, 03:36 PM大家好，有人能告诉我"X bed dorm"和"security locker"中文怎么说?
[Hi everyone, can anyone tell me how to say "x bed dorm" and "security locker"?]
@jonjar Yes, I'm pretty sure 你决定(吧) works in this context.
Posted on: Do You Want a Map?
April 30, 2009, 04:43 PMStrangely enough, I'm usually pretty good at finding my way in cities I've never been to but there's no chance of me actually managing to take the correct bus line in my own home town. After taking the wrong bus and ending up in some remote place surrounded by vast soy fields twice, I eventually gave up. Now I go to uni by bike, it's more sustainable anyway. ;)
As for the map in the lesson picture - why does the yellow road near the bottom go in a kind of spiral?
Posted on: Opening a Factory
April 29, 2009, 08:29 AMThanks, lujiaojie!
Posted on: Opening a Factory
April 29, 2009, 07:59 AMCan the sentence "能不能再优惠一些了？" be used putside of a business context? (To my mind, 优惠 makes sense when talking about policies, but not necessarily when talking about prices of computers or flats.)
Posted on: A Family of Teachers
July 17, 2009, 01:37 AM@Changye If given the chance, would you want to ask that kind of question anyway? ;)
如果你有机会，难道你想问这个问题吗? Ru2guo2 ni3 you3 ji1hui4, nan2dao4 ni3 xiang3 wen4 zhe4ge wen4ti2 ma? (Hope that sentence is correct, but I doubt it ;) )