9 Responses to “CLO_085: How long was the flight?”

1. Richard Sharpe Says:
   April 6th, 2007 at 11:56 am

   I find it unhelpful when I hear seemingly native speakers saying 坐 more like juo4 than zuo4. It makes them sound like Cantonese speakers who have not gotten the pronunciation of the initials z, zh, ch, sh, and c under control and it confuses people like me who have been learning some formal mandarin in college courses …

   I appreciate that there are pronunciation differences in Mandarin across China, but I suspect that for the sake of learners there should be some attempt to adhere to standard pronunciation.

   I also find that most podcasts have insufficient native male speakers. In this lesson, there is a token presence by a native male speaker in the dialog, but then a clearly 外国男人 takes over and a female voice is used for all the explanatory material. It would be better, in my opinion to use both male and female voices about equally during the explanatory material as well.

2. Adam Says:
   April 6th, 2007 at 12:31 pm

   Hi Richard. Thanks for the feedback. Like you noted, I’ve tried to use speakers from different backgrounds to get listeners used to different pronunciations but I can appreciate the need for standard pronunciation. Looks like we need Kirin back!

   As far as the female voice goes, that has been used to balance the male voice doing the English explanations but I can see how listeners can benefit from hearing more male voices in future lessons so I’ll work on that too. FYI, the premium podcast for the last couple of lessons uses a male voice for the answers.

3. Salvador Venegas Says:
   April 11th, 2007 at 10:14 am

   Why is zuo4 written as 做 in the first line of the dialog and 坐 in the third?

   Salvador

4. Adam Says:
   April 11th, 2007 at 10:54 am

   Sorry, that was a typo. It should be fixed now.

5. Anthony Blum Says:
   November 1st, 2007 at 4:04 pm

   I’m having problems understanding the first part of the dialog in the video. Maybe this isn’t a bad thing, since this is a fairly beginner level and they talk fairly quickly, but I find it disconcerting. I keep listening to it over and over to no avail. I understand the conversation from the point where she asks him if he likes it here, but before that I’m having problems. I’m picking up some words like “shengyi” but overall I’m not really sure what she is asking. Is there a transcript of this or could you help me out on the first two sentences? Thanks.

6. Anthony Blum Says:
   November 1st, 2007 at 4:24 pm

   I think I got it. I was having problems understanding “jing1chang2″ for some reason. “Do you often come to Taiwan? I often come to Taiwan for business. Do you like it here. I extremely like it. How long does it take you to come to Taiwan by airplane? Around 10 hours or so. A 10 hour flight, aren’t you tired? Not too tired.”

   Hopefully, this is correct. At first I thought it was 4 hours. I sometimes have a problem with the difference between 4 and 10, since I think some Chinese people’s “s”s and “sh”s sound similar (now I’m having problems remembering which are confused) and I’m not the greatest with tones. Unless, I’m wrong it sounds like the female is saying “shi2″ though (but I had more problems with the male). After listening to it many times I think it sounds like he is saying “si2″ which reaffirms my guess that it is 10, but I guess I’ll see if I am right.

   This isn’t a complaint by the way. I am very glad that you use speakers from different parts of China. This is one of the main reasons I use your site over other Chinese language websites. I have a friend from Southern China, so I’d like to be able to understand the not so standard mandarin. So don’t listen to complaints that just want standard or Beijing pronounciation. Thanks!

7. Adam Says:
   November 1st, 2007 at 4:47 pm

   Hi Anthony,

   Actually he’s saying “si4″ so your first instinct was correct. This video is meant to be a continuation of the videos in lessons 64 and 65 with the Japanese person (you can see his CLO business card on the table!). So the flight from Japan to Taiwan is only 4 hours.

   Don’t worry - I had the same problems early on distinguishing between similar tones, and wondered how it was possible NOT to mix up 4 and 10 (especially since many people here tend to pronounce ten as “si2″ rather than “shi2″). After enough practice with the sounds though, your mind gets tuned in to the subtle differences and you can pick out the differences instinctively without much effort.

   As we progress through the lessons, you may notice the speakers starting to speak faster within the lessons as well. The dialogues also begin to get longer in level 3 with a lot more Chinese used within the lesson explanations as well. This should give you a lot more listening practice, which is what your mind needs more of in these early stages.

   Please keep this feedback coming, since it’s very valuable to me. I’m sure other listeners will also appreciate you sharing your strengths and weaknesses while learning.

8. Tom Carroll Says:
   November 13th, 2007 at 8:38 am

   Hi Adam

   The link to the Vocabulary PDF document for this lesson links to the Vocabulary Document for lesson 84

   Regards

9. Adam Says:
   November 13th, 2007 at 8:43 am

   Hi Tom, I’ve fixed the link now. Let me know if you notice any others.

Leave a Reply

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website