User Comments - zhong_bide

Posted on: Don't push that button

@wande

I think I am right in saying that this is a shi4 .... de pattern - where the adjective follows shi4.  See QingWen lesson 58 for discussion.

Posted on: The Person Component

I think leave the actors out.  Just use the character animations with background voice for explanation, with maybe some pictures of the characters in different fonts as used on billboards/ signs etc.

Nevertheless I look forward to seeing the concept developing.

And I really appreciate the fact that you do some experimenting.  John, don't stop experimenting!

Posted on: Stuffy Room

I always appreciate how you give us these little sayings like hai2 hao3 还好 in context.

Hong Kong is always too stuffy in summer.

夏天香港总是太闷了。Xia4tian1 Xiang1gang3 zong3shi4 tai4 men1le.

Posted on: Understanding 了解 (Liǎojiě) and 理解 (Lǐjiě)

At my level it would take me a month of Sundays to transcribe what I hear firstly into Pinyin ( if I get the tone right) and then try to match the characters to something meaningful, and then try to work out what the character combinations mean guided by the English conversation, or work backwards form the English.

Nevermind, these day I just regard QW as arriving late on Mondays (after Connie has posted the sentences) instead of Sundays!  I don't bother listening to QW intil then mostly, although I usually do listen first before looking at the transcripts, to see how much I can pick up.

Having said that, I must be such a fan of the Saturday movies, that I am impatient that I didn't get one last Saturday - I keep looking to see if a new one has appeared yet!! :)

Thanks Cassie for posting the sentences today.

Posted on: I want coffee!

Some extra vocab for addicts:

Mocha                  mo2ka3 ka1fei1                            摩卡咖啡

Cappuccino         ka3bu4qi2nuo4                               布奇诺

Latte                      na2tie3 ka1fei1                            拿铁咖啡

Expresso              yi4shi4nong2suo1 ka1fei1            意式浓缩咖啡

Coffee beans     ka1fei1 dou4                                   咖啡豆

Coffee shop       ka1fei1 ting1 or ka1fei1 shi4        咖啡厅还是咖啡室

Posted on: I want coffee!

When I was in China 2004 I started getting headaches from caffeine withdrawal, but I was relieved when I found I could get small cans of milk coffee in the supermarket.  One of them each morning fixed the problem.

In 2007 I was delighted to find Nescafe in the supermarkets.  Great stuff - not as good as ground beans, but it had been  my staple at work anyway!   One or 2 a day was great.  One day I felt desperate for a coffee, and found a Starbucks - the coffee was terrible - no wonder they were not popular in Australia (apologies to the Americans, who seem to invariably love it).

Now back in Australia, back to old habits - about 5 each day!

Posted on: Food Regions of China

I would like to see some lessons on cooking - not just the names of the foods and their contents as per the Hungry Traveller series, but a lesson on the preparation of a particular dish - with vocab like
: add, stir, mix, heat, etc.  (Intermediate level) Perhaps a cooking movie would be great!

Thanks.

Posted on: The Perfect Sandwich

我也觉得三明治里不应该放黄瓜。黄瓜毁坏！！！

Posted on: Catch the Train

I have no problem with Ken.  I like the way he draws out the meaning of parts of an expression to show how it relates to the whole (as does John P).  Ken makes no pretense of being a native Chinese speaker, but as a fellow learner defers to Jenny's native expertise.

MMYSDF:

Are you a native English speaker?  You seem to be very picky, yet you have made mistakes yourself. viz.:

"usefullnes"  - should be "usefulness"

"awaful"  - "awful"

When using direct speech, add a comma before the quotes.

"but it certainly ISN’T for the announcing" - an uunusual expression.  Perhaps "commentary" would be better than "the announcing".

"The ChinesePods seem pretty good, but we have of course seen this a million times before." - I don't know what you mean by this.

Ken certainly sounds like other Irish people I know, and definitely does not have a Chinese accent.

Look, be tolerant.  I won't make any further criticism of you.  People who speak with different accents or use a form of English we are not used to can annoy us.  I know I sometimes get annoyed by   terms specific to American English, but recognize that I need to be tolerant too.  I am Australian.

Listen to some more - It seems that maybe you are new to CPod.  If you have some expertise in Mandarin, look at the higher levels where Ken is not involved.  Perhaps you might then like to comment on the positive aspects that you find.  Maybe you just had a bad day today!

Posted on: The Artistic Little Brother

Stories are great; they make a good balance to all the dialogues.  Dialogues are fine, but they do have linguistic limitations in teaching.