User Comments - xiaohahaha
xiaohahaha
Posted on: Global Warming
June 19, 2007 at 11:22 PMthere was one case that Jenny did correct Ken, in one lesson Ken mentioned what sounded like si gui. Jenny at first thought that Ken was trying to say 'sex addict', but then when it was clear it was something else, she did correct the tone for him. I'm not sure what the original statement meant, but I did learn something!!!! It just happened that the other day my hairdresser gave me a couple of chinese words, She said that I should ask my teacher what they mean!!! And si gui was one of them!!!!
Posted on: Global Warming
June 19, 2007 at 10:45 PMThis is really a fun place today! I don't know why some feel it necessary to go to great lengths to defend Ken, John. I think everyone of us has pointed out that we have the greatest admiration and respect for them!!! Both Ken and John welcomed the criticism in fact! Some of you probably already know that my teacher also owns the company that does the chinese radio broadcasting in Houston. On a couple of occasions she took me and another student to her radio studio to practice 2 lines of station id. zhe li shi de zhou zhong wen tai, wo zui si huan de guang bo dian tai 這裡是德州中文台 我最喜歡的廣播電臺 the other person was ABC ( american born chinese) we spent 3 hours practicing to try to get it right!!!! She said that it wouldn't be fair to her listening audience to put our voices on air until we had it absolutely perfect!!! de zhou = Texas. I must say that it really felt good to know that every chinese chick in Houston had the occasion to hear my voice on the radio for several weeks after. It cannot be overstated, correct tones are absolutely essential!!!!
Posted on: Global Warming
June 19, 2007 at 3:03 AMSomebody somewhere said this is a great place to learn english! I know there are native chinese that read these posts and want to learn english. I received some that want to learn english from me. Unfortunately I don't have the time to respond to them. Learning bad chinese is a lot worse than learning bad english. I know I can understand some really bad english, mainly because I listen for something that sounds close to what I can relate to. With chinese there is no such tolerance. I learned from my teacher that you need to get 3 out of every 4 tones correct to be understood. If your sentence only has 3 words, you better have all 3 tones correct!! And that's only the tones! What about structure, and the choice of words used by chinese that we couldn't imagine using in english to describe something. I know from personal experience every week that this is the case. And this underlines what I've been trying to say about the more complex lessons. It is those lessons that need to be explained in plane english if we ever hope to get past speaking about the weather!!! We could still have the Advanced lessons as is, but we need another classification that I like to call "Advanced for Newbies" This is absolutely crucial!!!
Posted on: Global Warming
June 19, 2007 at 12:08 AMLantian I spent the last 4 years trying to get the other students in my Taiwanese taught class to send email in characters. I setup their laptops to enable them to use pinyin i/p. But still nothing happened. In the end I found out that one girl never learned pinyin, the notes she took were phonetic sounds as she saw them, nobody learned the characters, so they couldn't recognize 我 from 你. so it turned out to be a useless effort. But I also realized in class that our teacher would ask us to make a sentence using chinese words we learned in class. Everybody was able to do that, which was good, except she said that's not chinese!!!! Everybody can directly translate, but no chinese on the street will understand us that way!!!
Posted on: Global Warming
June 18, 2007 at 11:41 PMI’m not so sure this is the right place to post in characters. My biggest fear is learning bad chinese. 我不敢肯定这是一个正确的地点后,在字符. 我最大的担心是不良学习中文. Anybody can use google to get chinese characters out. I did just that to get this!!! Perhaps we should have somebody making corrections to those that do post in characters. Otherwise there is no point!!! What I would like to see is those that are Chinesepod certified, to make comments of their own in chinese characters with little stories, something of interest. This would make a lot more sense than responding to those that found typos in the lessons!!! That’s a real waste of valuable talent!!!!
Posted on: Global Warming
June 18, 2007 at 2:18 AMfran1942, I don't usually go out of my way to listen to a guy, so I won't bother going there. I tried one adult class that had a male teacher. I just couldn't take it so I didn't return!! A couple of ladies from my other class tried it and liked it, so they stayed. AZERDocMom Perhaps others could analyze this situation and see what they think. And then we could invite John to explain his actions. Could be fun! I would also like to hear what Jenny thinks the reason is! Before John says his part!!
Posted on: Global Warming
June 17, 2007 at 8:43 PMI also speak with a different tone when I'm greeting a female, depending on her tone. I tend to speak louder when I'm talking to a person much older than I am. There is a definite reason for John's tone of voice, Or perhaps he is sitting much closer to Jenny when he speaks chinese and further away when he speaks english? That would do it for me!!!
Posted on: Global Warming
June 17, 2007 at 8:35 PMAZERDocMom Then I don't know why he turns the volume down on his voice!!!! I do the same thing when I'm not exactly sure if I am saying something correctly in english, I will lower my voice, hoping nobody will catch on!!!! It's nature's way to help us get past things that we are uncomfortable with!!!
Posted on: Global Warming
June 17, 2007 at 3:17 PMI have to say that even though I only understand about 10% of what Jenny says, I thoroughly enjoy listening to her voice. The same with my Taiwanese teacher. I listen to her every day at noon on the radio even though I only understand about 50% of what she says. They both are a pleasure to listen to!! But if nobody tells me what Jenny is saying, I will probably never know, ever!!! I observed that when John speaks chinese, his voice becomes quieter and most of the time I have no idea what he says. I wonder if he really isn't sure of his tomes? I can't tell. Just an observation! Usually when I learn a language, I prefer to hear the female voice, but here, this is the only place where it is a pleasure to listen to both John & Jenny.
Posted on: Global Warming
June 19, 2007 at 11:37 PMand can you just imagine if Jenny didn't correct Ken and I actually asked my teacher?? Or if I had the occasion to practice using a new word that I just learned on chinesepod, like I do often times!!!! Y'all better believe tonese are important!!!!