It’s been a while since we had an open thread. The floor is yours.
What’s on your mind?
Ken Carroll
Open thread
Previous post: Praxis: a second meaning
Next post: Learning Spanish through podcasts
Learn Chinese on Your Terms
-
Recent Comments
pretzellogic on Improving Lesson Discovery
John Biesnecker on Introducing the ChinesePod API
Andrew Cockerham on Improving Lesson Discovery
Dave on Introducing the ChinesePod API
{ 56 comments… read them below or add one }
← Previous Comments
Hi Ken,
Eek – I was mortified to read what I wrote was insulting. Of course, I was exaggerating (in reality I was told there was a detectible southern accent). My partner’s parents are Shanghainese, so naturally we both enjoy listening to you guys.
I’ve never seen General Tso’s Chicken in Australia – I was also under the impression this was a North American thing.
Hello from the Bay Area – just a short comment on “detectable southern accent” or Shanghainese inflections. Jenny’s Chinese, which is really an amazing gift, brings me back home. In many ways, her style of language is completely familiar. For 17 years, I lived in NYC at home with my parents who spoke pure Shanghainese or in my mother’s case, Wuxi dialect – however most of the family friends could handle Mandarin as well. I was one of those ABC’s (American-born Chinese) who understood Chinese but always replied in English. Growing up I was well aware of the different styles of Mandarin but I always recognize Shanghai and Taiwan mandarin a bit better. (my own homegrown bias). Since my father sang Chinese opera – jing xi and kunqu, he had to learn several dialects in order to intrepet the arias properly. Now if I could only learm more Shanghainese…
Actually Chinesepod has really changed my life, don’t leave home without it, as they say. I am doing something I dismissed as almost impossible. Slowly, after four months, phrases and vocabulary are beginning to feel more natural.
Bob
Any chance of someday getting English translations of the zh transcripts? I’d be more than happy to pay premium for this.
(My problem is that as I study Chinese more, the amount of input that I can study increases, I’ve pretty much caught up with all of the UI and I lessons on the English site. And there is this big pool of input waiting on zh site, but its hard to validate that I understand it correctly or get help with set phrases that aren’t in the dictionary, etc.)
BTW my impression is that Jenny’s accent is more 标准 than a lot of Beijingers’. This also seems to be true of the Mandarin sound tracks for movies made in 香港, but that’s a different topic. Jenny ennunciates very clearly and is a real treat to listen to. I’ve never met anyone with her teaching ability in person.
I am wondering a bit about “Authentic Spanish fresh from our studios in Shanghai”. It seems like Mexico City or Barcelona would be more credible. Are you thinking of a branch office somewhere?
Bob Hsiang says:
Hello from the Bay Area -
Then you will be familiar with this song by Journey:
When the lights go down in the city
And the sun shines on the bay
I want to be there in my city
Ooh, ooh
Actually, as far as the accent goes, I’ve found that a lot of material has Beijing speakers doing the dialog. If a learner copies this faithfully, it can raise a smile amongst Chinese – as far as I’ve gathered, hearing a foreigner use all the retroflex ‘儿’s sounds funny. That’s why I like to hear a more standard accent like Jenny’s.
Does this sound right? Given that my Chinese raises smiles for many other reasons, I could be way off.
Hi Richard – I believe I left my heart in Shanghai last year! and yes, great songs from San Fran indeed – “…….Wear some flowers in your hair”, “We build this city on rock ‘n roll”, the ghosts of Janis Joplin, Jerry Garcia, Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service, et al., all revisit these Haight Ashbury streets from time to time, I’m sure.
btw, Shanghai is S.F.’s sister city for what it’s worth…
← Previous Comments