Comments for Clark Nielsen for the Win

Comment on Crossing the Street in China by Nathan

Nathan — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 22:14:00 +0000

Guatemala was the exact same way.

Comment on I Dream of Plastic Axes by Hopfrog

Hopfrog — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 20:24:36 +0000

Yeah, its really interesting to me too. I didn’t buy into a lot of this stuff til I started doing the interpretations here. Its wild how a lot of the symbolism makes sense and work together.

Comment on I Dream of Plastic Axes by Clark

Clark — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:13:54 +0000

The frustration and insincerity could be about job hunting. What’s funny is that the roommate was in last night’s dream, too, where he was a successful movie star and was too cool to hang out with me. I don’t know why he keeps coming up, though. I haven’t talked to him for years.

I appreciate the interpretations. Keep ‘em coming! It’s kind of fun to guess what they mean.

Comment on I Dream of Plastic Axes by Hopfrog

Hopfrog — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 21:28:15 +0000

Oh what a drag, I just typed up a whole entry but forgot the email field and lost it. Ok, one more time, in short:

A pretty bad dream. The ghosts seem to represent something currently unattainable. The zombies, our first recurring theme, take on a new meaning since you are worried about becoming one. To become a zombie would mean that you are feeling emotionally detached and dead inside, but since you have not become one yet, it seems you are worried about this happening if you don’t deal with some issue. The axe is symbolic of frustration and hostility and the fact that it is plastic seems to indicate insincerity. The infection represents negative emotions being internalized or not dealt with. The fact that you have to use the plastic axe on yourself may indicate that you are frustrated with yourself for not being sincere in dealing with something that may have really negative consequences if it is not dealt with. The fact that there is a 24 hour time limit may mean you feel you need to deal with it swiftly. It appears that your roommate may have dealt successfully with a similar issue in the past and that the solution was a difficult one. That may be the key to what the dream is really about.

Again, I am hesitant to do this, because there is always the possibiity that my unqualified interpretations could be putting false suggestions out there. But you seem to have your head on straight and I am sure you are fully aware that only you can figure out what, if anything, these dreams really mean.

That dream was a downer. I can’t wait for the “I Dream of Rainbows and Cupcakes” entry.

Comment on How to Remember Chinese Tone Order by cr7cr8

cr7cr8 — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 08:57:07 +0000

Wǒ juéde hěn yǒu bìyào duì cǐ biǎoshì bùmǎn, yīnwèi, lǎoshí shuō, wǒ yǐ jìn zhīdào hěn hǎo de liǎojiě le nàxiē shēngdiào, fā zhège tiē bìng bùshì wèi wǒ zìjǐ de hǎochù, ér shì gěi nàxiē zàixué shēngdiào réngrán yǒu hěn dà kùnnán deRén. Bùguǎn zěnyàng, wǒ méiyǒu zài tánlùn rúhé fā pīnyīn de shēngdiào. Zhè zhǐshì guānyú rúhé jì zhù dì yīshēng, dì èr shēng, dì sān shēng, hé dì sì shēng. Lìrú, měi gèrén dōu zhīdào xǔduō xīngqiú de míngzì, dànshì wǒmen jìde zhù tāmen de shùnxù ma? Nà jiùshì wèishéme wǒmen fāmíng liǎo xiǎo kǒujué lái bāngzhù wǒmen.
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This is just for the first paragraph, unless you want, I am not going to do the rest because I am feeling I am doing something that nobody cares right now.

Comment on How to Remember Chinese Tone Order by cr7cr8

cr7cr8 — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 08:34:58 +0000

My God. I found out that this is the best way for me to learn English (may be for you as well), Because when someone was involved in a debate, she is highly motivated to pick up those sharp and aggressive words to delivery the strong sense formed in her mind, this could be a reason to explain why the f-word never lost its translation. And I just have learned the new word “elude” in your refutation (’refutation’ as well by writing these, thank you :) ). Sadly, there is hardly any public debates due to its political system in my country, which turns out tough language, poorly used. I watched our foreign minister’s answering in an official news-express today , guess what, I can easily understand the English translation regardless of whether listening to the original Chinese version , but I always feel difficult to understand the words from an American politician’s mouth. once again, American English is hard to learn well.
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The following are the PIN-YIN translation of your refutation:

Comment on How to Remember Chinese Tone Order by Clark

Clark — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 06:49:54 +0000

I have to take offense to that, because, frankly speaking, I already know the tones really well. This post was not for my benefit but for the benefit of people who are struggling with them. I’m not talking about how to pronounce tones, anyway. This is about remembering which is first, second, third, and fourth. For example, everybody knows the names of the planets, but do we remember the order? That’s why we invent little jingles to help us.

As for this “China price” that you often elude to, it’s important to note that foreign teachers are there to teach English, not learn Chinese, and trying to do both is very exhausting. Don’t be so hard on someone for not picking it up fast enough. Also, in my experience, native Chinese speakers who aren’t teachers by profession are not great teachers at all.

If you want to compare teachers to students, though, every class of mine had five great students and five terrible students. Everyone else was passable, and that’s about where my Chinese was before I left. Yeah, I could have learned more, but given the circumstances, I think I did okay.

Comment on How to Remember Chinese Tone Order by cr7cr8

cr7cr8 — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 22:44:19 +0000

Clark, frankly speaking, if you keep the current pace of your Chinese learning, you would not have any significant achievements in terms of the verbal cognition of the language.
(You have been to China for more than a year, and you are still at the level of the recognition and memorizing of the 4 tones.)

4 tones are just 4 tones, nothing more else,similar the to the alphabet in English, since you have remembered thousands of English words, what is the big deal? Plus, China has its unique china price in the world, and the mandarin is part of the China, it should be reasonably CHEAP to learn. (Feel free to ask any Chinese-Americans around you if you have any questions, I am 100% sure it would be absolutely FREE, you can ask me as well through the comments.)

Ask yourself, how many of those kids you taught while you were in China whose English are better than your Chinese ? (I felt shame and lame of you !)