URLLesson Introduction
Just out for a leisurely stroll or... death wish? Map in hand, foot off curb, head in clouds... in China, not understanding the difference between legal law and natural law can get you killed. If you're one of those pedestrians' rights activists, this podcast is for you. A lesson on how to survive, literally, in Mandarin Chinese.
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obitoddkenobi says
January 19, 2008
很好， 你们反映poddies'的要求再次给我们一门关于交通危险的课。现实而有用的。还有我很喜欢的词，呸、呸、呸。谢谢。
rjberki says
January 19, 2008
a stretch for me but lots of good vocab and grammar. My listening skills tend to lag far behind reading and writing. Going through this on paper is still a very satisfying and educational endeavor. I wonder if I will ever be able to speak, but reading seems to come much faster.
dave says
January 19, 2008
A lot of your dialogues seems to take on this theme of one person preaching to another about something they're not doing carefully or correctly...almost in a mother and child manner. While occasionally interesting this theme is getting old fast. Please kill the naggers!
user3965 says
January 19, 2008
I am missing the extra vocabulary added by anonymous in many previous lessons.
mark says
January 19, 2008
I usually wait for a local person to cross the street and emulate their behavior. I feel like traffic is a dance, and I don't know the steps. So, I recruit an unsuspecting dance partner to lead.
chand says
January 19, 2008
I have to agree with RJBerki from my experience. I have been studying (using Chinesepod) Mandarin for almost 1.5 years now. My reading has progressed to the level where I can read 90% of all text through the upper intermediate level. This is very exciting. However, when it comes to listening comprehension I lag far behind. Case in point...if I watch a TV show or movie in Mandarin, I am usually "blown out of the water", feeling like they are speaking some other language. Yet, I can follow along almost all of the Chinesepod dialogs. Does this mean that I need to be immersed in China in order to jump to the next level, so that I am constantly listening to Mandarin? The fact of the matter is that with the exception of Chinesepod, I hear virtually no other Mandarin in day to day living.
soulman2001au says
January 19, 2008
i've been using chinesepod for just over one week now, and during that time, i've probably learnt 200 new words. good on ya chinesepod. also can 行人 can be used as an adjective, as in 'he is very pedestrian', so can i say 这个人很行人？
bill says
January 19, 2008
Chand, What you say is true. Patience is required. 1.5 years is just a small amount of time for learning a language. I recall when I was learning French, and then would go to France, and someone on the streets would ask me some thing. It was NEVER what I had learned. After about 3 years I was much better but still missed a lot. At about 5 years the language really began to reveal itself to me ... I read a lot, went to many movies and ALWAYS covered the subtitles so as not to mix English with French. Just listening and building ones vocabulary on the side really helps. I find Chinese somewhat slower for sure, and read a study where it said that Chinese is the most difficult learning curve, and that reasonable fluency arrives on the AVERAGE at about 7 years of continued practice. This varies from individual to individual for sure. When you find yourself getting the jokes, really feeling the humor spontaneously, then you are really there! I would guess that comes at about 10 years or so. And for sure, moving to China for 6 months would be a big win. I've been to France more than 40 times since 1990 when I began my French adventure. I've essentially lived there nearly two years in small pieces. I'm very patient. Bill
obitoddkenobi says
January 19, 2008
Chand, RJ, stick with it, it comes in waves and it does get better. Supplement ChinesePod with other Chinese language sources, if not movies, newscasts that you listen to in both English and Chinese, simple little songs that you can find the lyrics to help you through. 1.5 years is not a long time, and as other posts have noted,this is a very difficult language to learn. 千 里 之 行 ， 始 于 足 下.
chand says
January 20, 2008
Bill, obitoddkenobi....thanks guys for your advice and sharing your experience with language learning. It definitely made me feel that I should not berate myself, and just keep on truckin'. 7 years for average fluency...yikes...I guess I'm just an infant compared to that timeframe.
auntie68 says
January 20, 2008
Dear Chand, if it's not too late to add my 2-cents worth, you are doing incredibly well with Mandarin if you can read Upper-Intermediate with reasonable comfort after only 1.5 years! Well done! I had 11+ years of formal classroom lessons in Singapore, where Mandarin was my official "Second Language", and one year ago even merely READING the Intermediate lessons seemed like a crazy challenge. Bravo, and I MEAN it. I'll think of your progress when I try to help my Mandarinistically-challenged toddler nephew to enjoy Mandarin. Please hang in there! Being comfortable with the written characters counts for more than you may realize. It means that you have a very solid foundation for acquiring additional Chinese vocabulary and natural speech patterns as soon as your "ear" adapts to the cadences of spoken Chinese. There's no telling what little thing will tip you over to the side where you wake up one morning and suddenly realize that you can understand just about everything you hear without translating it into some other language, it could be anything, really. All I want to say is that each person reaches that "magical moment" via his own route. Some need a boot-camp kind of turning-point, some reach it simply by relaxing and daring to let their brains process the language overnight (try listening to something from the day before, after a good night's sleep... you may be blown away). Go Chand GO!!!
auntie68 says
January 20, 2008
Erm, Chand (this was coming, you knew it), do you speak or read any South Asian languages? Just curious... one of my friends has been encouraging me to tackle Bengali -- ahh! the language of Rabindranath Tagore! Satyajit Ray! Sabina Yasmin! --, which is more native to Singapore than Hindi, but I am hesitant because I hear that Bengali orthography is very difficult, it is as irregular as English (eekk!!!)...?
jennyzhu says
January 20, 2008
Reading the comments makes me want to shout out how phenomenal the community is. I think one of the big reasons that sustain people's interest in Chinese is the genuine support and passion shown in here.
jennyzhu says
January 20, 2008
soulman2001au, When 'pedestrian' is used as an adjective, the translation is 平常、乏味.
user42993 says
January 20, 2008
I also this there's huge discrepancies between different TV shows and movies, in how hard the Chinese is to understand. Personally romantic comedy movies aren't my genre, but I can more or less understand them, while the evening news will blow me out of the water. Ha Ha- I live in China, and I hear virtually no Mandarin in my day-to-day life...now when is ShanghaihuaPod starting?
phil says
January 20, 2008
I seem to have a minor problem with the links to this lesson from the Home page. The lesson title (Upper-Intermediate - Pedestrian Peril) contains two links, one to the Upper Intermediate lessons page and the other to the actual lesson. For some reason clicking on Upper-Intermediate is sending me to Please Upgrade for Access page. As far as I have checked, it is only happening for this lesson.
chand says
January 20, 2008
Auntie68, first let me just say that I am so very grateful for your encouragement. I felt so happy after reading your comments. It made me want to redouble my efforts to adequately acquire Mandarin comprehension. I was born in India (raised in Canada), so I do understand Hindi and Punjabi languages. I do not know Bengali, although I have some Bengali friends. Here is funny anecdote. My vocabulary in Mandarin is now larger than my vocabulary in Hindi. Yet, I can follow Hindi conversations, movies, TV, etc with ease, yet Mandarin comprehension still remains very challenging. Maybe this is why I have felt kind of "stupid" learning Chinese...though logically I know that I acquired Hindi as a baby in India, and am tackling Mandarin as an adult outside China.
chand says
January 20, 2008
... also another thing I have realized is that Chinesepod has been nothing less than a Godsend for me, magically falling out of the sky at the same time I started an interest in Mandarin. It's obvious to me from the wit, humour, story-telling and variety of the lessons that all those behind Chinespod have a passion for what they produce, and a genuine excitement about seeing their students reach their full potential. I am humbled.
chand says
January 20, 2008
Auntie68...bravo that you have considered learning Bengali. Interestingly, no one really seems that much interested in acquiring languages from India. Even Hindi which is the 3rd/4th most spoken language in the world has not sparked nearly the interest, that for instance Mandarin has. Maybe it is because most people in India also speak English fluently, and doing business there or travelling there doesn't require Hindi usage per se to get by. Will we ever see a HindiPod?
mark says
January 20, 2008
Being able to understand Chinese phonemes spoken at natural speed (if I know the words being spoken, to be able to recognize them) is the only portion of studying Chinese that happened in a non-linear fashion for me. It seemed like I just woke up one day and had an ability I didn't have the day before. Conversely, knowing all of the words that might be spoken is a long slog that seems to progress more linearly. (I'm still persuing that adventure, and from some of the comments it seems I still have a few more years to go.)
auntie68 says
January 20, 2008
Zhou sunn. chand, every word of praise or encouragement that we aimed at you was justified. There! Actually, Bengali would be a natural choice for me (vs Hindi) because it is something of an unofficial local language for nearly a hundred years, having been brought here from Calcutta via the Sindhi, Parsee, Baghdadi Jewish, or Bengali businessmen who came to do business but ended up becoming citizens. Hindi is a much newer language in Singapore, it is spoken only by the newest Singaporeans: Indian engineers, managers, and investors who are being actively and aggressively courted by us as ideal permanent residents. Seems to be working. Only about five years into this policy, there are now two Indian International Schools in Singapore! Curiously, many of these new permanent residents (PRs) come to us via the US or Canada. chand, good luck with those Chinese phonemes! Mark said exactly what I was trying to say, but in fewer words...
auntie68 says
January 20, 2008
oh, chand -- One possible reason why more people don't move their butts and study Hindi, could be that Bollywood movies make anybody believe that they are already able to speak Hindi. Many Singaporeans are well-equipped with the standard Bollywood vocab: Kaun? Ki? Beta (/Beti)! Nehi! Chelow (as in, "go on, shoot me/ press this knife into my throat, I dare you"), love songs words like "zendegi", "dunia" etc, "Now my dear fellow"... etc. Sorry for the homemade hanyu pinyin!
changye says
January 20, 2008
零五年中国有将近十万人死于交通事故。 这个数目是日本的十四倍但是如果考虑 中国十三亿人口的话这也还算挺不错的。 大家不要高兴太早了同年日中两国分别 保有的汽车和摩托车的总台数几乎持平。 这个事实正好意味着中国一台汽摩托车 杀死的平均人数竟然就是日本的十四倍。 这种交通工具确有资格被叫做杀人凶器。 但不用太担心中国驾驶文化现在没有救。 这几年来的统计显示车祸数量明显减少。 虽然中国保有的车辆数每年增加几百万， 零七年的车祸死亡数目减少到了八万多。 但愿以后这个可喜的趋势长期继续下去。 反正我想外国人最好不在中国自己开车。
user10405 says
January 20, 2008
Chand, RJBerki, and all, I too struggle with my listening ability. I still have a difficult time with TV and radio, especially the news. The vocabulary is challenging and the speed is daunting. I came to the realization a few months ago, that listening is more than hearing the words themselves - it is hearing the context in which they are spoken. When I used to listen to a conversation, I would get so caught up in the meaning of each word, I would lose track of the conversation, lose the meaning, and quickly give up. What I have found recently, is that somewhere along the line, I have learned to ignore words I do not know, and to keep listening to the speaker. It surprises me how much more of the spoken word I understand now. I can usually catch most of the meaning of a speaker, even if I do not understand every word. So for me, comprehension has come through listening to what I can understand, and not worrying about what I cannot. It surprises me too, how many words I learn in context of hearing a speaker use the words. If I hear words or learn words in this way, they tend to "stick" better too. This whole "improvement" in my understanding certainly coincides with my improving vocabulary, (thanks Chinesepod!), but it does seem strange to me that I improve my understanding by listening more "selectively". I guess I do the same thing in English - If the doctor uses medical terminology to explain a condition to me, I may not understand every word, but I understand the consequences.
chittywangbang says
January 20, 2008
THROOOOM I am that bad scooter driver. Shanghai roads brings the devil out in me! 入乡随俗 i say！---when in Rome--- Red light! HA! Maybe ill look both ways, but I aint stopping! In England you can get done for skipping lights on a bicycle! Oh dear I was away from China a month and now I forgoted all my Chinese!
couragetolead says
January 21, 2008
Kill the naggers, Dave? How long have you been waiting to use that one?
zhaoluo says
January 21, 2008
中国交通太复杂了。人很多，车也很多。 所以我们走路的时候要小心。 要不我们很危险。
rjberki says
January 21, 2008
First of all, thanks to all for the comments. I have no intention of giving up, and 10 years is my goal. I have been teaching myself Chinese for abut 3 years but I just found cpod in aug this year. What a difference. I have probably doubled my vocab and understanding of grammar in these few months. I always figured Im building a base that will serve me well once the hearing and speaking kicks in. Im glad to hear it can happen in a non-linear fashion. I plan to start a list of phrases (lexical chunks as Ken likes to call them) and learn them well, so I can retrieve when needed in conversation. Im thinking this will help. It also helps to shift my focus, or change my study techniques from time to time.
rjberki says
January 21, 2008
Changye- in the US we have about 50,000 traffic deaths per year. The Chinese numbers dont seem so bad considering the difference in population but I wonder how many cars there are in China vs the US?
auntie68 says
January 21, 2008
Dear changye, thank you for your thoughtful analysis of the road safety situation in China. Statistically, it seems much safer than I had imagined, although the "kill rate" for accidents involving motorcycles was quite stunning to me. It's a good thing that China's motorists and bikers don't have the same access to "yaabaa" (thai illegal amphetamines) and rough Thai hooch, as their counterparts in Thailand. The road carnage in Thailand around holidays -- eg. songkran -- is quite staggering. Most of it is down to DUI, compounded by a relatively new "motoring" culture.
auntie68 says
January 21, 2008
RJBerki, for what it's worth, what has been very helpful to me, in learning Mandarin, is hearing and reading sample sentences which illustrate a new "lexical point"/ language pattern, rather than some complicated explanation with symbols like Adj or Adv or N (Obj? Sub?) etc etc expressed in some formula. It's naughty to compare, but JapanesePod101 has recently raised the quality of the "sample sentences" in its transcripts (they include basic "grammar notes" in their pdfs as part of their "Basic" package), I'm really benefitting from that, and --- well... ahem... -- I wonder if CPOD might be willing to consider including some "grammar notes" in THEIR pdfs for humble "Basic" subscribers like me. Nothing fancy, just a handful of good example sentences to help consolidate whatever usage points were being introduced in that lesson. It doesn't even have to be explained in detail, the sample sentences will do the talking. ???
auntie68 says
January 21, 2008
By using sample sentences, you can get around the problem of having to attach "labels" to various language elements. If the sample sentences are well-written, it may not actually be so difficult for the student to process the elements in the sample sentence intuitively, and so to understand the syntax intuitively, rather than via parsing and analysis. However, I'm no linguist! John Pasden is doing some heavy-duty work in linguistics, and he is pretty utterly bilingual, so he would know if there's any value in this.
ketangli says
January 21, 2008
i agree with the comment that understanding phonemes just happened overnight with chinese for me, for some reason. the other difficulty in understanding spoken chinese is that chinese has a TON of homophones and near-homophones! so reading disambiguates more quickly than speech in a lot of cases.
klgardensong says
January 21, 2008
Disambiguate--I love it! I guess my ear has always been better than my eye--my struggle is relearning characters. I just have to muster the discipline to work on them every day. On that note, I keep trying to get the lesson pdfs in traditional characters--even installed Foxfire. But I'm still at a loss. Any thoughts? Ketangli, are you in Rochester, NY? If so, and you're ever heading down to NYC, let me know. I'm just 10 minutes off Route 17, about 3/4 of the way down. Kathy
tvan says
January 21, 2008
klgardensong, I get mine by simply adding them to my "feed" and then picking them off my aggregator. Then again, that might just be a feature of the premium plan and above.
tvan says
January 21, 2008
Sorry for the poor pronoun use above. I meant to say that "I get traditional PDF's by adding them to my feed..."
feb2 says
January 21, 2008
Jenny keeps saying "gu ding da pei" for what I think means "lexical chunk" or "set expression". I understand 固定, but what are the hanzi for "da pei"?
rjberki says
January 21, 2008
disambiguates- yep thats exactly it! Great way to put it.
obitoddkenobi says
January 21, 2008
I think da1pei4 is 搭配, as in pairing or matched set. So a fixed matched phrase for the whole thing.
obitoddkenobi says
January 21, 2008
p.s. disambiguates has entered my vocabulary too. I like it.
scotts23 says
January 21, 2008
“呸呸呸“ 好像跟德文的“toi toi toi"一样！
obitoddkenobi says
January 21, 2008
犹太人有 peh' peh' peh'. They all seem to be aspirations...trying to get/keep out that bad/evil vibe.
helifan says
January 21, 2008
Dave, I think that's just how Chinese people talk to one another. Here in Taiwan I can't go through the day without someone telling me not to drink cold drinks, sleep with the fan on, go outside with wet hair (even if it's 100 F outside), drive my scooter with my jacket open, or any one of a million other things that "make you sick". People seem pretty eager to tell you what to do if it's health/ safety related.
chris says
January 21, 2008
Whilst Upper Intermediate is still a bit beyond me, I have read the comments above with interest. I am with the majority in that my listening lags way behind speaking, reading and writing (although writing is a close second!). What I find most frustrating is that I've been living in Shanghai for exactly a year now, but I still deal so much in English. It seems so difficult to make the time from work to really immerse myself in my surroundings. My biggest fear is that I'll go back to London next January, without making the most of the opportunity to nail the language. Some work/life balance discipline needed I think!
fudapeng says
January 22, 2008
klgardensong, There is an option that mac users have (with the Leopard operating system) where one can toggle characters back and forth between 简体字 and 繁體字. I'm not quite sure how else to do it. by the way... Does anyone know if Macs work in China? I heard that they don't, but I wouldn't know.
klgardensong says
January 22, 2008
tvan and fudapeng, Thanks for your help - but I still need more! I have a Mac but not yet Leopard, that will be a fun feature when I can afford to upgrade. (Does it work with pdfs, though, or just with characters you're writing yourself?) So, I guess the problem is that I've adjusted the settings for my "feed" but I don't know what my "aggregator" is or how I get there. The podcasts come to me from iTunes, but I've never seen pdfs. Sorry to be so hopelessly clueless. (BTW, I do have the premium plan) Many thanks for any additional help! Kathy
tsack says
January 22, 2008
Whoooooooooooooo weeeeeeeeeeeee. Great vocab! I'm definitely going to hook up after learning all of this! Thanks Cpod/sexy!
tylersjzu says
January 23, 2008
Guys, I want to congratulate you on creating an exceptional site. The premium service I can ever remember spending. Nimen de chuangxinli rang wo de zhongwen tufeimengjin! I have one beef: I'm having trouble downloading a lot of the podcasts from earlier upper intermediate lessons. What gives?
tylersjzu says
January 23, 2008
I mean: the premium service is the best money I can remember spending.
tvan says
January 23, 2008
klgardensong, in terms of setting up your Mac to display and type Chinese characters, www.yale.edu/chinesemac/index.html has an excellent section. Leopard isn't necessary, its been in Mac OS X from the beginning. If you're just starting, the standard system features are fine, though be aware that better alternatives exist. I am not a web cognescenti by any stretch, but an aggregator is a feature that consolidates RSS feeds into a single page. iGoogle and MyYahoo are examples of homepages/portals that have these plus, if you're using a Mac, Safari and Firefox as well. If you haven't done so already, go to the bottom of your Cpod homepage and click the link "Your Feed". Traditional PDF's is one of the options, at least with Premium. There is an address at the bottom; you need this. Go to whatever aggregator you use and follow their instructions. I hope the above is clear. Sorry I didn't respond earlier, first day of school.
user40490 says
January 23, 2008
I am newcomer, nice to make friend with everybody about studying chinese via this website, please contact MSN: timipretty@hotmai.com
anaen7 says
January 23, 2008
大家在路上一定要小心啊！
klgardensong says
January 24, 2008
Thanks, tvan. I have no problem writing characters on my Mac - I'm really happy with that function. My problem is getting the Chinesepod lesson pdfs in traditional characters. Yesterday, for the first time, I was able to get the latest pdf for Evading Nosy Questions in traditional -but it seems that's the only pdf available through my RSS. I'm coming to the conclusion that I have to grab the latest pdf (through iTunes) when it first comes out. It's that or work with the simplified version from the website, which I should probably do anyway since I have to get caught back up on both. Thanks again.
longdehua says
January 24, 2008
Hey klgardensong: In iTunes your podcasts should have a little "i" in the description column. Click that to bring up the dialogue. Select and copy the text and paste it into (for example) TextEdit. In the TextEdit menu, under Services you should find the Chinese Text Converter function. Also, if you're in Simplified Chinese input mode, selecting text and pressing Shift-Alt-C will convert to Traditional.
obitoddkenobi says
January 24, 2008
Thank You longdehua, I know I didn't ask the question, but learning how to convert to traditional characters easily was helpful....I figured I had to go up into international and switch things, but your way was a lot easier than that.
clay says
January 28, 2008
tylersjzu, We upgraded to a different server, so some of the material got affected in the process. That ,and the first podcasts were recorded in a different format, with the latest providing better quality. We are constantly upgrading the older lessons, and aim to have them a 100% before long. if you see specific problem, please let us know. -clay
rherschbach says
January 29, 2008
Is it true that headlights used to be prohibited in China? Wonder what road safety was like then....?
cassielin says
January 31, 2008
i really agree with Jenny. We often use“人没事就好” when some bad thing happen. For example, we will say “人没事就好” when someone's money was stolen on a bus. Because chinese people think that 人没事就好，破财消灾。
lailaash says
February 3, 2008
To be honest, even though my Chinese level is right around Upper Intermediate or maybe higher, I find it difficult to use my language while living in China as well. I've gotten very good at small talk, but when it comes to serious conversation or just hanging out with Chinese people, I never really know what to say, much less how to say it. Has anyone else run into this problem?
lailaash says
February 3, 2008
By the way, in the transcript of the lesson, the man in the dialog says: "这样横冲直撞，差一点撞到我", but in the podcast, it seems to me that he says "撞倒." Am I hearing wrong?
sushan says
February 3, 2008
Yeah, I'm not talkative in my native language either so that is a bit of a barrier to my using Chinese a lot in real life. When I am talking with Chinese people, since my listening ability is above my speaking ability, I try to ask as many questions as possible. It's relatively easy and I can usually understand most of the answer. If they ask me a similar question back then I have just heard them use some relevant vocabulary and can spackle together some kind of answer. But I do run into frustrating times when I really want to express something and can't, or really want to engage someone and can't figure out how to do it. I think it comes with the territory.
lailaash says
February 3, 2008
Also, is there any reasonable explanation for the usage of 可, or is it something you just have to "feel?"
lujiaojie says
February 3, 2008
lailaash ： 这课里是“撞到”，听起来有点像“撞倒“，因为”到“和”倒“放在动词后面的时候都读得比较轻。撞到和撞倒意思有点不一样。
luoshanji says
February 24, 2008
大家好！ 在美国，我出租汽车司机根普通的赶车人都很怕的步行的人。但是，这年在北京的环境下我才认识他们不怕碰撞！。在中国，赶车人驾驶执照用“句号”制度吗？ "The yellow ones dont stop!" (Will Ferrel, Elf)
man2toe says
June 4, 2008
你走的時候忘了關門呢？你也太粗心大意了吧。
(How could forget to close the door when you left? You are so oblivious.
她本來就是粗心大意的人，經常忘帶東西。
(She is just that kind of careless sort of person. She often forgets to take things.)
這個英文好像是寫了有一點太粗心大意的. 是故意的嗎?
changye says
June 5, 2008
Hi man2toe,
Let me try!
你出门的时候，怎么没有锁门呢？你太粗心大意了！
锁门 (lock)
kinhdun says
June 5, 2008
哪能学英文呀？