So Lesson 2 of Integrated Chinese contains a fair amount of vocabulary related to family. These words simply need to be memorized, because you’ll be hearing them even more than you expect. That’s right… it’s time for ChinesePod’s “the Fix” audio review.
I’ll let you get right to the Fix. As before, there are two of them, a long one and a short one:
IC Level 1, Lesson 2: the Fix (short)Let us know what you think!
-John Pasden
Well, I ordered my book through Amazon today. I thought I’d just tag along on this adventure. Sounds like it is going to be fun. Also, it feels good to be part of a specific class that is climbing the ladder together. Maybe this way I will finally get to the Intermediate level…eventually
Bob,
It wasn’t really our main goal to get ChinesePod users buying the Integrated Chinese textbook, but if it helps you, then we’re all for it. I’ll be very interested in hearing what you report about the book. Will you be using it by yourself, or do you have a teacher to help you?
John, it will help me in several ways. One, even though I am currently at a level slightly higher (I hope) it will serve as a review. It will also help me maintain my level of enthusiasm. Probably the most important thing, however, is that I find by participating, even in the smallest things, is a big help in keeping my interest alive. For example, I doubt if I will ever get to China BUT by participating in ChinesPod in a multitude of ways, even at a lower level, I am continually brought to an ever growing awareness of China and its growing importance in world affairs. The other day I read that in the just a few more years, China will contain the world’s largest population of ENGLISH speaking people. Wow, that certainly is an eye opener…in fact it is scary. There is another rather selfish reason for maintaining and increasing my fluency. I call it the “amaze your friends and terrify your enemies” principle. Here in Mexico we are experiencing more and more Chinese visitors now that Chinese people are not restricted so much in traveling outside of China. Occasionally I get a chance to “Nǐ hǎo” with them. I can’t even begin to tell you how this blows away my Mexican friends and tickles the Chinese visitors. Not only that, but sometimes I have even been caught up in three way conversations involving Spanish, English, and Chinese. I wouldn’t recommend that though. It always seems to give me a headache. Too much strain on the brain. I decided to tag along with this IC program just as another way to help me stay plugged in. I will enjoy comparing my experience with the book with whatever comments appear on this blog. In regard to your question about a teacher. You are my teacher, John, but you already knew that…didn’t you?
I would agree with Bob I find following this is a useful review and keep my interest level high. In the fix it says “not to have ” is mei , but I was expecting “mei you” .I am puzzled . So mei means not to have and you means to have?
有 (you) means to have, 没有 (mei you) means “don’t have” or “haven’t”. When using 没有, 有 (you) can usually be omitted.
So 我没有去 and 我没去 both mean “I haven’t gone”.
Bob and Keith, that’s good to hear! Thanks for the feedback.
And James, thanks for helping out with the helpful answers.
I’m here for revision, too, keeping Bob company
I’m switching from Mandarin to focus on Cantonese for the next three months, and this seems like a good systematic way to keep my Mandarin on the back burner, consolidating and improving what I think I know rather than broadening knowledge or taking a break, and it force-feeds lessons each week so that I can’t slack off. At this frenetic pace, though, I think I’ll be in new Mandarin territory pretty soon anyway!
For what it’s worth, I too am only interested in traditional characters. The plugin works great for automagically rendering most of the best material as traditional characters, and the rest, well I just won’t bother looking at it.
Fantastic AuntySue. You are great company to have