Full-Transcript Inter Lesson 43 How’s Business?

October 29, 2006 on 1:49 pm | In Chinesepod Transcripts | No Comments

Chinesepod Full-Transcript Intermediate Lesson 43 How’s Business

US$ 2.99
MS Word doc file
Transcript of entire unscripted dialogue from podcast

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“The Watergate tapes are the most famous and extensive transcripts of real-life speech ever published. When they were released, Americans were shocked, though not all for the same reasons…one thing that surprised everyone was what ordinary conversation looks like when it is written down verbatim.”

The transcript of this lesson is the first with three people in the conversation. Jenny, Ken and Aggie. Our transcriptionist had an extra hard time with catching what was being said. It makes for interesting studying though.

Enjoy the transcript!

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Please take a look at this blog’s Cpod Full-Transcript category for posts and other transcriptions that may fit your needs. There are now a wide variety of price ranges (from 99 cents, to five bucks. ) and a subscription plan. The subscription plan includes That’s Outrageous plus the next four transcripts.

Did That “Click” For You?

October 25, 2006 on 3:01 am | In Misconceptions | 1 Comment

When native speakers of a language speak, hear or read a sentence that is not properly formed they will often say it “just didn’t sound right.” And if the sentence is then properly re-ordered or the proper word inserted, there’s a mental “click” that happens; almost a feeling of relief, “There, that’s right.” Do other’s know what I’m talking about? (that apostrophe in ‘other’ makes you quesy doesn’t it?) You know this feeling right?

In learning a second language (or third, forth..how many was that Ken, John..) there are several approaches to attaining a proficiancy level that allows one to speak or write well, but do those approaches give us “the click”?

Most of us can probably point to examples of long-time learners who still toss out the weird sentence every now and then, and we know of millions of Chinese who could out-grammar most of us native English speakers. Yet they speak and write rather poorly, why is this so? Why does so much effort in the grammar-translation approach lead to such poor speaking and writing results?

In Steven Pinker’s “The Language Instinct” (pp 200-210) he talks about the concept of a mental parser. An ability of humans to utilize this language parser to understand streaming audio (speech). He makes the distinction that “grammar is a code…specifying what kinds of sounds correspond to what kinds of meanings in a particular language”. In other words, ask most Chinese learners of English if a particular word is an adjective, noun, verb and they’re more likely to know before I do.

What does this mean for those of us trying to learn to speak a language, and hoping to attain ‘native-like’ proficiency? Or at least an ability to enjoy leisurely reading and chatting in the target language? This is where I think understanding ‘parsing’ can inform how we learn and teach language.

Parsing by the mind, and especially with Chinese, means going from the start to finish of a sentence and capturing each bit of meaning before moving on. In fact in Chinese it seems quite straighforward, there’s little conjugation to throw into the mix. In other words, we don’t first take in a whole sentence and then interpret what it means. It’s much simpler than that. Let’s say the sentence is,

The dog likes ice cream

The parser goes along and thinks of it like this:

  • The
  • The dog
  • The dog - likes
  • Likes (what?)
  • Likes ice-cream

Notice that I don’t need to explicitly know any grammar here, that functions in the background. What I am doing is reading for bits/chunks of meaning. I believe this is the lexis that Ken and MikeInJimbei talk often about.

I’ve noticed that these days with myself (an intermediate level) I’m able to parse well with known vocabulary. It’s when I hit words that are unfamilar, and the context is complex enough that I cannot guess the general meaning of a chunk, that’s when everything quickly breaks down and I lose the whole sentence. Some call this the ‘intermediate plateau’.
For example,

  • The wiggly likes ice-cream
  • The “something”
  • Likes
  • Likes ice-cream.

I can guess at this sentence. But let’s say we add in more ambiguity.

  • The wiggly likes mub.

And then when the core of the meaning revolves around a key word I don’t know, it all collapses.

  • The wiggley plebada mub.

Even if I then re-build the ‘easier’ sentence

  • The dog plebada ice-cream.

I have come to realize one of the main reasons why I dislike typical classroom language instructions and materials is that there is a huge focus on what words “mean” rather than exposure to what words should come up before or after a word. Think about how we learn words in our native languages, how we gain our intuitive grammar. Our minds are asked “Do you like the wiggley?” “That wiggley is not a cat.” “The dog wants to plebada the mub.” And so forth. It’s natural, it’s easy.

When we are given grammar and translations of words, we lose ‘the lexis’, we lose the exposure to what should come after or before. Words in any language come with a whole lot of expectations about the words that should come before or after it, how they should be used, and the underlying grammar. This is OFTEN different or completely disassociated from the same linkages in the word of the other language. Giving me the meaning of a Chinese word in English completely disassociates me from the lexis and appendages of the other Chinese words that inform that term.


So is a grammar-translation approach to be tossed aside? I doubt it. A ‘natural’ approach only really works for kids who have parents to talk to all day, can play, and have years to experiment. Adult-learners, we do need and like knowing right away what a word means. We have different goals, time and committments.

From what I can see, parsing and building up this skill occupies something like less than 2 percent of current methods. Why not build it up to 30% or so. A curriculum and method that gives us more opportunities to parse and to hear parsing. How would you do this? Build up ‘the click’?

ThisisauniqueAurbocodetotrackmyranking8898

Moving Up in the World

October 24, 2006 on 6:17 am | In Studying | No Comments

HIT ME ONE MORE TIME - I guess it’s some sort of ‘acknowledgement‘ when your blog gets hit with spam. Today, and over the last week a plethora has shown up on this blog. What a time-sink. As such I’ve re-started the registration requirement for comments.

More importantly, with the computers coming back up, good weather, and some time: Here’s what’s coming up soon:

  • The next full-transcript for Chinesepod
  • Talking about ‘the parser‘.
  • Tactics for using text-messages to study

Learning Vocab the Hard-Drive Way

October 16, 2006 on 11:59 am | In Chinesepod Transcripts, Uncategorized | No Comments

VOCAB STRATEGIES - There’s the frequent refrain, how do I learn Chinese vocabulary?! We’ve all heard the various strategies, flashcards, get out and talk, learn one word a day, stickies, you name it.

I have a new strategy, let some little disaster come into your life. You’ll pick up a few new words. Mine is ‘ying pan’. Ying is the word for hard. And pan is the word for box-like. Hence the meaning ‘hard drive’.

Over the course of a week I had one computer harddrive fail. Okay, no problem I started to use the notebook. Virus. Okay, there’s the other notebook, can’t connect to the internet. The internet goes out because I hadn’t paid the landline phone. Who even uses it anymore! My life devolves into a non-tech abyss.

Anyway, this made me desparate enough to ‘keep my chin up’ and call 10000, the Chinese version of the phone company help line. You might be thinking they have an option ‘Press O’ for English. You’d be wrong! Luckily I could ‘hear’ enough to catch “#3 Shangwang fuwu”. Hey, hey, hey, did you get it, that’s Internet service. After asking for an English speaking operator I got, “Well would you like to try in Chinese?” In Chinese! Forget $10 for a Chinese lesson, come to China and mess up your phone and computers, get nice patient Chinese people speaking to you.

I am both flattered and aghast. Anyway, that was then that I learned that I couldn’t connect thru my ADSL because the houseline had gone unpaid for too long. Off to the office, cash in hand I went. “Dian hua fei” that means phone bill.

It was after I had so proudly accomplished all this, that I returned home to find the ADSL reset and me without any slip of paper of the original password. Oh boy. Another call into 1000, and hey - the super patient- operator helped me reset the password. “Mi ma” that’s password. There’s also ‘bo hao’ for something akin to username.

After this, I was really on a role and decided to do a clean re-install of WindowsXP. That’s when I really ‘hosed’ my machine. That’s ’si ji le’ from our recent Cpod lesson. I really wacked it good, my Bios couldn’t read the external CD drive, no way to boot. Yup, yup, yup. That led to my next call, to the computer guy.

I still don’t know how to say ‘operating system’ in Chinese, but luckily Microsoft has taken over the world and my mutterings of ‘….XP’ were enough for us to communicate my plight.

He came over, I had really messed everything up bad, so he took all the drives back to the office to do the installs. That’s where they are now, and why I’m at a ‘Wang ba’, internet bar. Here I also had to catch the words ‘mima yi er san si wu liu’ said in rapid-fire Chinese. That is, the password is 123456.

That all said, the Full-transcripts are slightly delayed this week. Hope you’re reviewing the previous ones!

Full-Transcript Inter That’s Outrageous, Plus More

October 9, 2006 on 8:46 am | In Chinesepod Transcripts | No Comments

Full-Transcript for Intermediate Show 42: That’s Outrageous

This podcast was great! It was John’s first show and it’s almost entirely in Chinese. The pace is quite moderate though and the Chinese banter is easy to follow. There is just so much for the learner in this show. This is all in the banter not the scripted dialogue:

Bargaining
个人说一千五百块，还有一个人说什么三千块

ge4ren2 shuo1 yi1qian1 wu3bai3 kuai4 ， hai2 you3 yi1 ge5 ren2 shuo1 shen2me5 san1qian1 kuai4

One person says 1,500 and the other says what’s this 3,000?

Expressing Emotion

嗯，cat fight.我们都喜欢cat
en2 ， cat fight wo3men5 dou1 xi3huan1 cat

Yah, “cat fight” we like “cat”.

Travel Vocabulary

诶，对，我们的呃飞机上的那些，呃 different kinds of seating，对吧？
ei2 ， dui4 ， wo3men5 de5 e4 fei1ji1 shang4 de5 na4xie1 ， e4 different kinds of seatin， dui4ba5 Yah, right. When we fly there are different kinds of seating, right?

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Bargaining, expressing emotion, travel tips. This lesson’s full transcript appeals to students, the highly emotional and business travelers! It’s a premium lesson, quality content. I’m going to let that be reflected in the price of this full-transcript, five bucks. US$5.00. I’m not going to discount it in the future either, it’s just too good.

We do have something new though for my loyal customers, a new Subscription Option. You can purchase “That’s Outrageous” plus the next four transcripts for US$13.00 with one click and just one Paypal payment. Please click a link below to purchase and get immediate download.

book imageFull-Transcript Intermediate 42 That’s Outrageous! US$ 5.00
book imageSubscription:”That’s Outrageous” plus next 4 Full-Transcriptions US$ 13
book imageStarter Pac 1: Mix of other Three Full Transcripts US$ 3.00

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Lastly, why not post a few comments after your review of this transcript? I’ll be posting some comments in a few days after I spend some time with it. I’d love to see what other’s found interesting. What lexical phrases did you spend more time with? Was there a way Jenny or John said something that’s not like how the textbooks do it? Post and let’s go thru it together. Makes the learning fun and easy.

Website Tweaks

October 8, 2006 on 1:16 am | In Uncategorized | No Comments

My apologies to anyone who was/is surfing this website right now as I’m playing around with the layout of the page. If anyone is familiar with Wordpress and has some hints, please drop a comment.

I noticed that my right-hand navigation pane doesn’t show up properly in Windows running Internet Explorer or Firefox. I don’t know why.

In my CSS stylesheet I have been tweaking, to no avail, the container sizes, etc.

Thanks everyone for your paitence, I’m not doing this with a dev server, just updating the site live and seeing what happens! Life on the edge.

The Full-Transcripts Continue

October 1, 2006 on 11:35 pm | In Chinesepod Transcripts | No Comments

Hi Everyone,

It’s Monday, there is a typhoon swirling around southern China, it’s a weeklong holiday — happy 国庆节. We would have liked to put out a new transcript today, it is in the works, but let’s just say it’s been ’scheduled’ for next Monday!

Don’t forget though, there are all the previous transcripts stilll out there for you to get. Click in the navigation panel on the right-hand side, Chinesepod Transcripts. In those old posts are the links to the various transcripts.

Happy reading!  book image

 

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