Intermediate Chinese Grammar online edX course

[yukifu]

Don't worry about asking questions! None of us have perfect Chinese or else we wouldn't be in the course.

 

At 3:30, she's talking about the example Chinese sentences in the top half of her slide. She illustrates how changes in word order can change the meaning of a sentence. 

 

At 6:20, she's comparing the Chinese sentence with the Russian sentences in the bottom half of her slide. Here's the breakdown of the colors:

 

粉色 = 主语 (我）, 绿色 = 动词 （爱）， 黑色＝宾语 （我的母亲）。

pink = subject (I), green = verb (love), black = object (my mother). 

 

The subject + verb + object format for this sentence in Chinese can be translated into Russian several different word orders without changing the meaning. The Russian sentences all have the same meaning, even though the word order changes. 

[crt32]

At the end of video 1.5 she presents a list of 语法术语 (grammar terms). It will probably help your understanding to learn these in advance.

[Shelley]

Russian? I thought it had a Cyrillic look to it but it didn't make sense to me to have Russian examples, so I thought it had to be something else. Well not sure what to do about that, I may just ignore the Russian stuff, I am after all learning Chinese.

 

Do you think they will be sticking with the colour code throughout the course?

 

Thank you crt32 I did catch that and am working my way through the list.

[yukifu]

Could someone help me with this last homework problem from Week 1? We are supposed to correct the following sentence:

 

我有一个习惯，以前睡觉(before sleeping)，常常要看看书。

 

My best guess is as follows (and is wrong):

 

我有一个习惯,睡觉前,常常要看看书。

 

What am I missing? Thank you!

[crt32]

It's just 睡觉以前 instead of 以前睡觉, although 睡觉前 should also be correct, maybe just isn't accepted.

Furthermore you need to make sure to type the punctuation using your Chinese IME. "，" and "," are two different characters. Otherwise your answer won't be accepted.

[Shelley]

This is the first time I have done a course of this kind so not used to the way to do homework.

 

Am I right in thinking you get 5 submissions? Are these then marked as right or wrong giving you a chance to rethink? And then resubmit?

[Orpheus]

Yes, and after the 5th submission there will be a "Show Answers" button for you to click and see the correct answers.

[li3wei1]

I was fine on the homework, until I got to the last bit, correcting the sentences. I think there are many ways of correcting those sentences, but the computer will only recognize one of them.

[Shelley]

Thanks Orpheus.

 

@li3wei1 That doesn't seem fair, if there is more than 1 correct answer it should recognize them. Maybe at least there are less than 5 so you can get it by trial and error so to speak

[Elizabeth_rb]

Thanks SO much for posting this link!  I've signed up and will have some catching up to do, but as it's mostly for professional interest (i.e. for teaching to others), then I'm not too worried the workload will finish me off.

 

What is the textbook that everyone's been talking about?  I've only watched the first vid (no probs in Chrome), so mayn't have come across it in the materials as yet.

 

It was interesting that she used a comparison with Russian in showing how important word order is.  I came across some examples like that comparing English and German, where the German word order was a little more fluid owing to the use of noun cases.  You could tell whether it was the dog who ate the meat or the other way around by the case used rather than where the word came in the phrase as would be needed in both English and Chinese.  Fascinating!

[yukifu]

 

 

What is the textbook that everyone's been talking about?

 

Here is the link to the Amazon page for the book. It is called Textbooks of Teaching Chinese as A Foreign Language Intermediate Grammar Notes. I bought my copy through an Amazon seller for around $18USD and got it in under a week (living in the US).

 

It is actually very helpful. The examples supplement the Professor's videos and the exercises in the book progress from beginner to advanced for each topic more so than the course's homework problems. I am not finding the course too challenging, but the book does help if I have a question. I do not think most people in the course have purchased the book, though. 

[Elizabeth_rb]

Thanks!  I probably won't invest either, but it's good to have the reference.

[Shelley]

Wow I went to check out the book on amazon uk and they want £82.00 for it second hand http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=978-7301129142

 

Think I will pass on the text book.

 

Welcome Elizabeth_rb to the class.I am sure you will catch up easily  with your skills.

[Shelley]

I have worked my way through the homework but I am having trouble with the last Correction exercise No.4

 

我也觉得它是一个小舒服的房间

 

I am right in thinking that to think is the verb here?

 

Also is 它 being used used the right way here?

 

I think this is the right answer 我觉得也是一个小舒服的房间.

 

Thanks for any help.

[Orpheus]

I think the only problem with the original sentence is the order of 小 and 舒服. In English we say 'a small comfortable room' but the word order is different in Chinese.

[li3wei1]

I think I would say 这个房间很小，很舒服 and not use 它

[Shelley]

So I think then that it should be:

 

我也觉得这个房间很小，很舒服.

 

This sounds good to my ear and makes sense. I also think this room very small, very comfortable.

 

I really didn't like the use of the 它 here so I am going to go with this.

 

Thanks for your help Orpheus and li3wei1.

[crt32]

In one of the videos the teacher says it needs to be 一个舒服的小房间, but doesn't explain why because there will be lesson about this grammar point in week 12 (?).

 

I think the use of 它 is perfectly fine, it just means "it". I've seen 它 being used in this way many times before.

[Shelley]

Oh I see, I am just not used to using  它 in this way.

 

I suppose we are not to change the sentence to much or introduce new characters?

 

In which case your answer crt32 seems to be right.

 

I wish it was the other way round and that we got the lesson before the question

 

Thank you crt32

[li3wei1]

WARNING: this post wanders off-topic

 

The above got me thinking about order of adjectives in English. I've never heard any rules about this, but why do we say 'big black guy', but not 'black big guy'?