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Free forums-mandated posting-holiday for Gharial. It's very rare I look at the edit history of someone's posts and see they've been repeatedly coming back to make them more rude.

A member has left us and we are currently enjoying a moment of silence for the departure. Someone will be along shortly to clean up the thread but I ask that we perhaps don't waste our precious brain juices typing out further responses to the deceased. You may of course hand write the messages on joss paper and burn it outside. 謝謝你的配合

Roddy, please bring back the "vote down" button.

Hey, i just wanted to let you know, that I just listened to the newest show of above named podcast and I really liked the insights! @imron: fun and inspiring appearance!

A really useful one is 叫什么来着 - gives the impression you totally knew the word a minute ago, it just slipped your mind.

Just a couple of observations. I know nothing about this particular company or this particular case. It's all about the visa. If you get your work visa and residence permit, you're fine. If you're not, something somewhere is dubious. The fact that companies using this model tend to recruit the youngest and least qualified teachers, and charge them for the privilege, should tell you all you need to know. Avoid. China is no longer a destination for the unqualified gap-year / working holiday teacher. If that was the case, there would be proper visas involved. The visa regs will, every time I've had cause to read them, have a 'subject to local conditions' clause at the end, and if a primary school in the fifth-tier town of Dabian wants to go to the authorities and ask to employ an under-qualified teacher, that's fine. We had a member a few years back describe this exact situation - a small town waiving work experience requirements. But crucially, this would go the proper visa route. Doing it on a tourist visa isn't acceptable and legal, it's the locals turning a blind eye. Which is all good fun, until the school falls out with the police, or an illegal teacher three towns over gets arrested and the province demands a crackdown, or... whatever.

I think this reply makes complete sense for Pleco which is basically a dictionary (that I once bought a Palm for). From Pleco's point of view, Outlier provides some extra info about certain characters, which is nice, especially because people are willing to pay for it. But Outlier marketed the dictionary as some kind of revolutionary learning tool that could teach you characters in a way not available before. People may have assumed that you could bounce around from character to character, drill down to components, learn about characters that way. I don't think it's entirely unreasonably to be a little miffed that you can't. Maybe that's the problem though. The tool most learners need is a version of Wenlin, with good GUI, for phones, with perhaps updated etymology, that can integrate with Pleco but not be limited by Pleco's dictionariness. Perhaps I'm biased cos I love Wenlin, which in addition to being a dictionary is indeed a self-learner's tool as well. But it's not cheap, it is not on-phone, and there's a touch of the SuperMemo stubbornness when it comes to GUI. Maybe people hoped Outlier would be to Wenlin what Anki is to SM.

After reading the totality of your posts, you have not at all convinced me that you are correct. Sorry. @重大雷雨 you have the right to believe what you choose to believe. I believe if you spent time living in China as many of us in this forum have, your views on this matter would evolve and change.

@vellocet First of all, I'd like to say thanks for piping in. But, since this is a public forum and since our livelihood quite literally depends on public opinion of our competency, I'd like to address the term "enthusiastic amateurs." You seem to be referring to our business sense (in which case, it may be a fair assessment), but for anyone else who may be reading this thread, I'd like to clarify a bit. I left a pretty cushy job as an electrical engineer to go to Taiwan to spend a year (and no small amount of money) at ICLP in order to get my Chinese up to a level that I could survive in a Chinese academic environment. After that, I spent 6 years in a PhD program for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (TCSL) at National Taiwan Normal University and was the first westerner to pass the PhD qualifying exams (two 6-hour exams, all in handwritten Chinese with nothing but pen and paper -- I memorized 15 books over a 4.5 month period to do this. It was over 20,000 supermemo flashcards. I had to be able to answer any question about linguistics (first exam) and any question about Chinese language pedagogy (second exam). The linguistic areas I studied for the first exam include topology and universals, semantics, transformational grammar, case grammar, functional grammar, contrastive analysis, Chinese syntax, pragmatics, phonology and Chinese morphology. During my time in the TCSL department, I became interested in Chinese paleography and Old Chinese phonology. I took 18 hours of classes in the Chinese department on paleography and historical linguistics, including classes by paleographers 季旭昇 and 杜忠誥. I had the good fortune to do two 2-week courses with Dr. William Baxter (specialist in Old Chinese phonology) and 陳劍 (one of China's top paleographers), one in 2007 and one in 2009. After talking with 季旭昇, Dr. Baxter and Dr. Dirk Meyer (of Oxford University), I left TCSL and move over to the Chinese department to pursue more academically rigorous studies in paleography. I was only allowed to transfer 9 credit hours, so had to do another year plus of courses including more historical phonology, paleography and excavated texts. I also participated in 季旭昇's weekly study group on excavated texts for over 2 years. To summarize: not including the time I spent learning Chinese and classical Chinese to a level that I could even start preparing for this project, I've spent at least 7 years full-time preparing to do this project. My PhD proposal (i.e., for my dissertation) was accepted 22 Oct 2015. I put off writing it up until a month ago, because I was spending 6 days a week on this project. I'm now only putting 1 day a week toward my dissertation, which has to be written entirely in Chinese, also so I can put time into this project. John lived in Taiwan for 3 years before moving to Japan. He learned Mandarin really quickly. Within two years of being in Taiwan, he applied to and was accepted into the masters program in the Chinese department, also at NTNU. He did a year in that program, focusing on paleography and Chinese calligraphy and was very successful. He has a real solid basis in paleography. Better than any of the popular books available in English (and Chinese for that matter). The two of us earn our living from Outlier and have done so for years now. So, if we have a say in this, we prefer the term "underfunded professionals."

@Gharial Mike (and Pleco) certainly did NOT drop the ball here. They've only done what we asked them to do. We did not request the functionality you're asking for. As to us being slow, yes, we are slow. We're slow because I have to do all of the computer programming required to make tools to do the work faster AND I do the paleography. So, if I'm spending time writing a software tool to make the process go more quickly, then paleography has to stop and wait on that. To date, I've created tools to speed up converting paleographic analyses into dictionary entries, creation of the meaning trees, and creation of the expert entries, not to mention the software for data testing, fixing Python 2's issue with extension characters, creating data lists, etc. etc. Each one of those has taken a significant amount of time to code. Our internal rule for making an entry for a given component is "does it show up more than once in the most common 2000 characters as something other than a sound component" OR "is it a common character itself?" In the most common 2000 characters, 奄 shows up in only 掩. Given that I've been in graduate school for 12 years in Taiwan using Chinese as the medium of instruction and don't recall ever having come across 掩 in my reading, I doubt the frequency stats on it are even correct. When I first starting learning Chinese, one of the first words I learned to write is 鉛筆. I lived in Taiwan for over 10 years before coming across 鉛 in reading. So, this idea of putting out data for the most common characters first is not just an abstract idea to me. FYI: I did do the analysis on 奄 before doing the analysis on 掩. It just didn't make it into the dictionary because getting common characters / components done is a far higher priority (and it should be). Here are my notes on it: to spread out wide in order to cover s.t.； 廣大申展所覆蓋 ；从大从申，會廣大申展所覆蓋之意。按：奄 *ʔ(r)omʔ、申 *l̥i[n]、大*lˤa[t]-s 西周 HDK 4015 HDK = 黃德寬《古文字譜系疏證》. If you have questions that are bothering you this much, it would be better for everyone concerned if you just joined our Facebook Group and asked them directly ("Chinese Character Discussion" group, if you're interested) or email me at ash at outlier-linguistics dot com. BTW, the having the Expert version is not a requirement for getting updates on the Essentials version. Anyone that buys the Essentials version will get updates on it for as long as there are updates, system-level data included. I've finished writing the software tool for speeding up the Expert entries, but am working on getting a version that John can also use. This has taken a lot more time than I originally thought (surprise, surprise). I've already started making Expert entries with the new tools. Once John has a version he can use, then we'll put out 100 new Expert entries as fast as we can make them. I know you said you aren't interested in buying it. That's fine. We'll be doing it regardless.

At the risk of seeming didactic, the discussion at the link I provided is correct. And by the way, what counts isn't what a native speaker says they think they say, it's what they actually say. Have a discussion in Chinese with the lady in the store -- assuming she's a native speaker and not an oversea Chinese -- and listen carefully. (Always giving third tone its full value -- and forgetting tone sandhi -- is actually a mocked characteristic of foreigner Chinese. Some years ago it wasn't uncommon to hear a taxi driver or local low life yell out a horribly sounded 你好 to taunt you as you walked by. [We normally don't talk about these things but we all know they used to happen, always when you were walking alone, never when with a Chinese.])

I would also avoid noto sans for a tattoo. What looks good as a web font, won't look so good when tattooed on your skin. This is why it's important to find a tattoo artist skilled and knowledgeable about writing Chinese (not just tattooing it, but someone who is familiar with the language and what does and doesn't look good), because they'll be able to set you up with the right type of style.

Hello, I'm currently in my first semester as a foreign masters student at a university here in Dalian. I was talking to some of the second year foreign graduate students about their internship options and it seems to be completely opposite of what I understood. I was told by them that they have to complete their internship within the city of the university in China (in this case Dalian) or go back to their home country to complete the internship. My goal was to find an internship in a different city other than Dalian in China, but I am now hearing mixed messages on this. They're saying this has to do with Visa requirements? Can anyone clarify the rules on internships for foreign graduate students in China? Thank you, AZL

我想说什么来着 is also good if you need a breather to remember how to say something 😂

To be fair, these are clearly labelled as containing cocoa-butter substitute, not real cocoa butter. So in the US they could not be sold as "chocolate" biscuits. They'd be sold as "chocolatey" or "chocolate-flavored" or some such biscuits. Have to say, on the whole Chinese confectionary and biscuits are pretty careful about noting somewhere on the box whether chocolate-looking stuff is real or not. But you do have to read carefully. 代可可脂 are the magic words usually used on chocolatey stuff.

Fully agree. The only edible chocolate I found at a normal supermarket was the Dove ones.

Not me. I know better than to trust Chinese chocolate goods - they invariably taste awful, which is probably why OP thought they were dog food.

Completely agree. The books do not accomplish their chosen task well. I used to read technical manuals in my spare time for fun, but these books baffled me. Things like, two third tones together, the first one changes. OK, but what about three together? Nobody thought to address this obvious situation. I could go on, but doubtless everyone has suffered through all the examples already. I know that's the reason I started posting here in the first place, to find these answers. I think it's the Dunning-Kruger effect. This is widely understood to mean incompetent people are so incompetent that they can't recognize their incompetence, but the lesser-known corollary states that people who are competent assume everyone else is just as competent as they are. They're at step 4 of the four steps of competence. Thus they don't need to explain things and can use shorthand, jargon, jump to conclusions as the road is already known, etc. Thus they dash off a beginner level textbook, "Pssh, this stuff is easy, barely need to explain it at all. Just hit the major points quickly and then I can get on to writing the interesting material." And then they wonder why only 5% of learners make it into intermediate.

”那你的意思是...” is a helpful starting pointing for repeating back what you think someone means. Agree that listening carefully can be helpful as it’s often one or two words that throw you. If you can remember wha they are you can actually enquire about them rather than have the whole sentence repeated. I personally rarely find myself asking someone to repeat something. Mostly it’s asking the meaning of a word or repeating what I think they mean in a different way. I actually assumed this would be a thread asking how you can speak to people rather than just advice. On that front, I was gonna say talk to people who either a) can’t run away easily (taxi driver, shop worker) or b) are retired / bored.

Our dictionary is indeed "a kind of revolutionary tool that can teach you characters in a way that has not been available before." 1. It has a unified way of explaining all characters based on 4 types of functional components (that has not been available before) 2. It's based on the latest paleographic research and quotes its references (also not available before) 3. It's also based on the latest research in Old Chinese phonology (also not available before) Wenlin is great. I use it a lot myself and have since probably 2000. But, the character explanations are largely based on Wieger, Karlgren and the Shuowen. At best, those resources are 100 years out of date and take nothing from what has been uncovered by advances in paleography and research into Old Chinese phonology over the last 50 years. If I'm wrong about this, please point out a resource that does the above (or even part of it). The system-level data has already been put together. However, it's in the queue right now behind other things, like getting the Expert data back on track. Basically, we just need to edit that data and have Mike Love incorporate it into Pleco. And just as a side note, Mike Love is super effective with getting things done (the nonsensical, baseless claims made in this thread to the contrary notwithstanding) Also, the issue raised here isn't that the OP disagreed with/wasn't happy with what we are doing. It's the fact that he immediately started in with disrespect / unreasonableness / sarcasm. There's nothing wrong at all with expressing your discontent or disagreement with something. But, just because you bought a product, it doesn't give you the right to denigrate people. And from a merely pragmatic viewpoint, doing so isn't likely to further your cause.

I'd be inclined to leave the thread as it stands. It serves as a record showing how you can go wrong here by targeting other posters instead of their posts.

great interview @imron I like your comments about the rushing to advanced level and how you were missing out of lower level stuff. I am reading a novel , going through HSK 6 material. Yet right now listening to this podcast I am in a motorcycle service center in Beijing struggling to tell the guy the specifics problems with my motorbike. These reality checks are necessary at times! I have been recently concentrating too much on literary words and grammar, sentence structure etc Although I'm making steady progress, yet it seems to have polluted my basic level which I could easily do a year ago I'd say this a norm in chinese classes in china. Many students come to China for a few weeks to one year to learn chinese. The schools and textbooks want to throw as many words at you at possible, I don't agree at all with this approach and think the focus should be on sentence structure, grammer, tones etc and not amassing a huge amount of words. However its a strong selling for chinese courses to claim "you will X amount of words in 3 months etc"

The fact that you perceived it easier to write your own GUIs rather than use the one they made speaks volumes. I actually installed one of the latest Supermemo releases the other week just to see if they'd made any improvements to the UI - and nope, it's still just as I remembered it.

Incidentally, Jiangmen has the same pronunciation as anus in Cantonese.

How we practice spoken foreign language via shadowing and echoing 如何通过影子跟读 & 回声跟读提升外语听力口语水平 Have you been wondering why you have watched a bunch of videos in foreign language but still fail to utter the word appropriately and fluently when you need to. That's probably because you watch but never practice based on what you've watched. 为何看了那么多外语视频还是不能在口语交流中流畅而确切地措辞？那是因为你只是看了视频，却没有据之进行相应的跟读练习。 What we need to make it communicating fluently and finding the exact expression fitting the certain context when we speak? Basically three elements, familiarity of the wordings, pronunciation you are confident with, and swift reaction to what you've heard. Simply put, to manage a conversation well you need to know what the other party means, figure out the suitable words you would like to apply to convey what's in your mind, and pronounce it accurately enough for others to understand. If you stagger in any part mentioned above, the conversation lacks the fluency and agile state of mind to go smooth. 为了能在口语交流中的流畅表达，找出符合语境的那个字眼，我们要做些什么？基本而言，有三点：第一，提高对词汇的熟悉度；第二，练就自信的发音；第三，能迅速反应所听到的内容。再简单粗暴点，要无碍沟通，就得知道对方在说什么，找到表达心中所想的那个词，并通过能让对方正确理解的发音说出来。如果上述三者中某一项不过关，沟通流畅度会降低，沟通者难以维持轻松敏捷的交流状态，对话也会随之受阻。 You may find that people good at talking with foreigners have a lot in common, and that's far from coincidence. First of all, their listening comprehension of foreign language won't get in the way of further expression. They make it understanding what the other is talking about in seconds, and the faster it is, the less time it takes for him to respond. 你会发现善于用外语交流的人都有相似点，而且这不是巧合。首先，他们对外语有较强的听力理解能力，这保证了下一步的表达不受阻碍。对方说的话，他们能秒懂，懂得越快，作出回答的用时越短。 Second, they are resourceful in the volume of expression available. The wordings seem automatically come into mind whenever the idea hits. And they are connected to memory by pronunciation instead of written form. 其次，他们可以用来表达的词汇也很丰富。每当大脑想到了什么，这些想法对应的外语表达词汇貌似都自动地闪进他们脑海。而且这些词汇是通过语音而非字形进行记忆的。 Finally, they are confident in their pronunciation. It doesn't necessarily mean the pronunciation is accurate or native without flaws, but it sounds not too weird for the native speaker to get it, so it won't make them too shy to speak out. 最后，他们对自己的外语发音很自信。这不一定意味着他们的发音准确地道得毫无瑕疵，但至少在母语人士听起来不会太奇怪以致难以听懂。这样他们就不会因为羞怯而不敢开口说外语了。 To make a progress in spoken language, we need to be familiar with the pronunciation, and the meaning corresponding based on how the words sound instead of the way they are written. Therefore, we could react quickly when we hear and get the words with the least struggling when speaking. How may practice echoing and shadowing help with the improvement? 要在口语上取得进步，我们要熟悉语言的发音和相关意思，要根据发音联想到意思，而不是根据字形。这样，当听到某个词的发音，我们就能迅速反应相应意思；口头交流的时候也能更轻松地引用这个词。回声跟读法和影子跟读法又是如何提升口语的？ Every time we watch a video in foreign language, especially those with titles, we read the meaning through the written language instead of understand it purely via pronunciation. And we've thought we get it, but actually we just don't focus on the connection between pronunciation and meaning good enough to make us well prepared to the future conversation with similar expression as the potential content. We may find it would be easier for us to realize what it means based on written form instead of reflecting its meaning the minute we hear it, since the connection between pronunciation and meaning hasn't been well developed. 每当我们看一个外语视频，特别是视频带字幕的时候，我们其实更多地是在通过字幕而非纯粹根据发音了解意思。我们以为自己理解了，而事实上我们没有很好地注意发音与意思的联系，以至下一回同样的表达再度出现在谈话中时，我们措手不及，不能很好地根据发音反应对应的意思。我们会发现，我们没有建立起发音与意思的联系，所以我们会发现同一个词，根据字形比根据发音更容易辨别它的含义。 Both echoing and shadowing help us build and strengthen the connection between what we actually hear and what it means. When we echo what we hear, we try to repeat and imitate the pronunciation and lessen the inconformity between what we hear and the way we pronounce. The more consistent it is between them, the less time it costs for us to reflect what's said and further what it means. 影子跟读法和回声跟读法都能帮助我们建立并强化发音与意思的联系。当我们进行回声跟读，我们是在模仿并重复所听到的声音，并使自己的发音趋近于它。当这两者越接近，听力理解所需的用时就越短。 Echoing also improves our muscle memory of the pronunciation and meaning of the words since we are practicing speaking up, which makes it relevant to our daily activity. Memory does serve better to the things we frequently apply than those we have ignored. We have paid little attention to the pronunciation when we watch videos without noticing the voice but the titles, or are too hurried for the meaning to notice how it is spoken. However, echoing brings us close to the pronunciation, which will be closer if we echo the video without titles and with scene where we could see how the commentator moves his mouth muscles. 回声跟读是我们练习发音的机会，使发音过程与我们自己的日常活动挂钩，这有助于增强对发音的肌肉记忆，进而提升对发音对应意思的理解能力。和被忽略的东西相比，越是被高频使用的东西，我们记得越牢。而看视频时我们一般只看字幕，或急于弄清意思而忽略发音。而回声跟读将让我们关注发音，如果进行跟读训练的视频不带字幕，且有发声者嘴部肌肉运动状态的镜头，那作用就更大了。 Pronunciation has something to do with oral movement, and it will be a guidance of how to pronounce by watching how it is pronounced by others. Reading the meaning from lips will bring you closer to the meaning, too. It means the connection among movement, pronunciation and meaning is established. You don't need to reflect the written form to know what it means when hear it, and you can simply move your lips for the certain vocabulary when the thought strikes you. 发音与口腔运动息息相关，看着别人是怎么运动口腔肌肉进行发音的，有助于引导我们正确发音。从运动的嘴唇判断意思，也能加快你理解发音的速率。当发音、肌肉运动与意思三者相互关联，你将可以通过纯粹的发音反应它对应的含义，无需通过联想字形才能得知意思，而当你想到某个点子，对应的外语表达也跃然脑海，脱口而出了。 When you are easy with echoing, it is worthwhile to take a further step to shadowing, which means repeating and imitating without pause. Unlike echoing where we finish hearing each sentence and hit a pause before we repeat, where we have more time to react and polish the way we speak, shadowing leaves us limited time to respond or polish since we are repeating almost simultaneously with the video. 当回声跟读已经不成问题了，可以挑战更高层次的影子跟读，即无间断无缝跟读。回声跟读时，我们听完每句话按下暂停键再模仿读音，模仿的时间更充足，更有利于雕琢每一个发音。与回声跟读不同，影子跟读几乎与视频发音同步进行，给你的反应时间或美化调整发音的时间是相对有限的。 Shadowing requires familiarity with the language, so that you are less likely to make mistake when imitating, and it means a higher level for reaction, which you cannot reach without former practice in echoing. 影子跟读训练要求我们熟悉语言，以减少犯错几率，这是对反应能力更高级的要求，没有前期的回声跟读训练，很难达到这种水平。 Imitation with consciousness is the shortest and most efficient path to mastering a skill, so it counts when you compare your pronunciation with the standard model and fill in the space of improvement if there is any. Make every move effective in boosting spoken language by echoing then shadowing. 有意识地模仿是提高一项技能最短最奏效的途径。对比你的发音与范本发音，找出差距，并填充进步的空间，将大有裨益。从回声跟读到影子跟读走起，一步一步地提升外语口语，让每一步都不白费。

You can have Kung Pao Chicken 宫保鸡丁at the all-you-can eat Chinese buffet in the strip mall on the outskirts of Smalltown, Texas, USA. I know because I’ve eaten it there. Panda Express also dishes up a ton of it at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, Concourse B. You can always count on it to form the cornerstone of an honest, solid meal. East or West. But if you start chasing it around Mainland China, you will quickly find that the name is the same wherever you go, but what the waitress delivers to your table definitely won’t be what you remembered having last week down the road a piece. It varies all over the map. More so than most popular dishes. Why is that? Gongbao jiding originated in Shandong during the latter Qing. Chicken and peanuts were both staples of Shandong Cuisine, which is also know as 鲁菜 lu cai. The Governor of Shandong Province 山东省 was a real aficionado of that particular taste combination; anecdote has it that he would even occasionally fiddle around with cooking it himself instead of just relegating the task to his staff. We are talking about Ding Baozhen 丁宝桢（1820年－1886年.） Shandong Governor Ding was originally from Guizhou 贵州省 and that is where he began his political career. When his relatives and friends from back home visited him at the Governor’s Mansion, he couldn’t wait to introduce them to his Shandong “find.” They were suitably impressed and carried the word back to Guizhou. The dish was quickly adapted to the local palate, and soon became a staple of Guizhou Cuisine 黔菜 (Qian Cai) as well. Guizhou loves hot food, so the fire quotient was ramped up. Guizhou also insists that sour be part of the flavor mix. That was accomplished by including pickled vegetables 泡菜。 In his later years, Ding was appointed governor of Sichuan. Not surprisingly, he took his culinary discovery with him. Once again it was modified for local tastes and to make use of prized local ingredients such as Sichuan peppercorns, also known as prickly ash, a mouth-numbing member of the citrus family 花椒 huajiao. Today Gongbao jiding 宫保鸡丁 definitely belongs to the cannon of best-loved Sichuan Cuisine 川菜 chuancai. Ding continued to attract favorable national attention by revising the salt tax codes and by refurbishing the famous Dujiangyan Water Conservation System 都江堰水利工。In the course of his long career, Governor Ding caught the eye of the Qing Emperor in a positive way, and before long his favorite dish got picked up by the power elite in the northern capital city. It earned a proud place in Beijing Cuisine. So today your order of Gongbao Jiding 宫保鸡丁 can have many faces. Not to worry; they are all pretty darned good. I’ll show you one very decent recipe that’s not difficult to cook up at home, but I make no extravagant claims to it being the “one true way” or the “gold standard.” (Please click the photos to enlarge them.) The finished product and the vegetables. Start with the meat. Use two large chicken breasts if you plan to make enough for 3 or 4 people to share as part of a Chinese meal. I suggest buying fresh chicken, instead of frozen chicken breasts since they have more taste. The two I had today weighed 0.549 kg (a little over a pound.) I sliced them open first off so they wouldn’t be quite so thick, then proceeded to cut the meat into roughly one-inch cubes. 鸡丁 Safety tip: Put a folded piece of damp paper kitchen towel under the cutting board so it won’t scoot around. Marinate the cut chicken in a mixture of 1 beaten egg white 蛋清, ½ teaspoon cooking salt 食用盐, ½ teaspoon ground white pepper 白胡椒粉, 1 tablespoon of yellow cooking wine 料酒, and a heaping teaspoon of corn starch 玉米淀粉。Put on a disposable glove 一次性手套 and massage the seasonings into the meat. Let it marinate 腌制 in the fridge about 15 minutes. Notice that the marinade isn’t “soupy.” It coats the meat without much excess. Wipe a small amount of cooking oil around the inside of your wok and heat it with low flame. Put in a heaping teaspoon of Sichuan peppercorns 花椒 and stir them until you start to smell their lemon-zest aroma. Take them out and let them cool. Meanwhile, cook a handful of peanuts 花生米 the same way. You want them to slowly toast, but not scorch or burn. Keep them moving over low flame for a couple minutes. They become crunchy as they cool, not while they are still hot. Crush the toasted Sichuan peppercorns in a mortar and pestle or in a bowl with the back of a stout soup spoon. Toasting and crushing them like this greatly increases their flavor. Set them and the roasted peanuts aside, turning your attention to the vegetables. Cut the red bell pepper 红甜椒 into thumb-sized pieces and chop a cucumber 黄瓜 into cubes 丁that are about the same size as the chicken. If you are using long Chinese cucumbers as shown, no need to peel them. Cut the spring onion into rounds, using only the white part. Mince 切碎 a thumb of ginger 生姜 and a clove or two of garlic 大蒜。 Prepare a thickening sauce 勾芡酱 by putting a heaping teaspoon of corn starch and a half cup of water into a bowl. Stir well to dissolve. Stir in a tablespoon of sugar 白砂糖。Add a tablespoon of cooking wine 黄酒, a tablespoon of dark vinegar 老陈醋, a tablespoon of light soy sauce 生抽 and about a third as much dark soy sauce 老抽。Set aside. Prep finished, time now to cook. Get the chicken from the fridge, stir it up. I always like to lay out the ingredients and mentally rehearse what goes in first, what follows, and so on. I suppose you could even arrange all your “mis en place” dishes in time-sequence order if you were of a mind to. “Hot wok, cold oil” 热锅粮油。I realize you knew that. Preheat it before adding two or three tablespoons of cooking oil. I used corn oil today. Flame on medium 中火 instead of high. Chicken requires a different approach from pork or beef. Add the chicken in one layer, spreading it quickly with your chopsticks (not all mounded up in the center of the wok.) Leave it alone for a minute or so, allowing it to sear. Carefully scrape it up and turn it over, trying to minimize surface tearing. It should mostly have changed color from pink to white by now and have a little bit of golden crust. The goal for this first stage is to only cook it two-thirds or so; not completely done. Only takes two minutes max. Add the crushed Sichuan peppercorns and 4 or 5 dry red peppers 干辣椒。I usually just tear these peppers in half as I add them. Some people cut them into smaller bits with scissors. Stir everything well and then add the chopped cucumbers and red bell peppers. Add new ingredients to the center of the wok; that’s the hottest part. Then stir it all together. Give it a minute or so, allowing flavors to blend, stirring and flipping all the while 煸炒，翻炒。 Now the thickening sauce goes in, mixing it well because the solids will have settled in the bowl. Stir everything well for a minute or so until you see the chicken and vegetables developing an attractive sheen. Last of all, add the peanuts and incorporate them more or less evenly 拌均匀。You want the peanuts to have a very short cooking time so they will retain their crispy texture. Plate it up 装盘。Admire your handiwork. Snap a photo with your phone. Set it on the table. Call the team to come dig in. Gongbao jiding and steamed rice 蒸饭 are just about inseparable, so plan ahead and have some rice ready when the chicken comes off the stove. Took a little over half an hour today, maybe 45 minutes including clean up. I listened to the Sutherland - Pavarotti Turandot while working. London Philharmonic/Zubin Mehta. Although this is fun to make at home, it’s also an easy thing to order in a simple restaurant. Any random six-table Mom and Pop joint will be able to turn it out. I often supplement it with a clear green-leafy vegetable soup. 苦菜汤 kucai tang, for example, is easy to find and serves the purpose of turning this into a real meal: veggie, meat, and soup. Tasty and won’t break the bank. Try it soon and see what you think! Here's the recipe all in one place to make it easier to use: (Click "reveal hidden contents."

G: How about a refund? M: Sure, if we can. Here's how. G: I don't want your stupid money. Seriously, I'm lost for words. Ah, there they are.

Sun Tzu disagrees: "The greatest victory is that which requires no battle"

For someone who objects so strongly to condescension and huffy rambling posts, you sure do enough of it yourself ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Not even a teasponful of sugar! I'm pretty sure in Beijing there's a cupful in this dish.

If possible, we're always happy to offer refunds if customers are dissatisfied, with this or any other add-on. For purchases made through pleco.com or Google Play, we can generally refund purchases within 1 year, as long as your credit card is still valid. For purchases made through the App Store, I'm afraid that your refund request would have to go through Apple - developers are not able to initiate refunds on App Store purchases ourselves.

I’m not sure how you would have liked us to integrate it better; it’s a character dictionary and we let you look up entries in it by character. It would generally not make a whole lot of sense to bring up 掩 when you search for 奄 except in a “characters containing component” tab, and we already offer one of those. Showing people 掩 in the search result list when you enter 奄 would seem like a bug. It makes sense right now to make that link via a stub entry because 奄 lacks a standalone entry, but that’s a temporary data issue, not an integration one.

恰似你的温柔 Love me tender in your way Original by 邓丽君 Translated and performed by Enjune Zhang 某年某月的某一天 I know not where it is but a certain day 就象一张破碎的脸 Memory fades away like a broken face 难以开口道再见 It's hard to utter goodbye in pain 就让一切走远 Let it be Let it into somewhere far away 这不是件容易的事 It's far from something easy 我们却都没有哭泣 But neither of us shed a tear 让它淡淡地来 In a gentle way it came 让它好好地去 Let it decently go away 到如今年复一年 Now all those years pass me by 我不能停止怀念 I couldn't quit the yearning inside 怀念你怀念从前 Think about you and me Once upon a time 但愿那海风再起 I wish that breeze Comes back to me 只为那浪花的手 For the hand of the wave 恰似你的温柔 It loves me tender in your way 这不是件容易的事 It's far from something easy 我们却都没有哭泣 But neither of us shed a tear 让它淡淡地来 In a gentle way it came 让它好好地去 Let it decently go away 到如今年复一年 Now all those years pass me by 我不能停止怀念 I couldn't quit the yearning inside 怀念你怀念从前 Think about you and me Once upon a time 但愿那海风再起 I wish that breeze Comes back to me 只为那浪花的手 For the hand of the wave 恰似你的温柔 It loves me tender in your way Love me tender in your way-enjune.mp3

We have just completed the first week of third year! I can't believe I am now half way through this degree, perhaps even over half way as 4th year finishes earlier than the previous 3 years. We have a new teacher for 综合 this year, and so far I think she might be the best teacher we've had. She has a great way of teaching, and explains things really well. In both 综合 and 口语 our teachers have said that the major focus this year is going to be 近义词。 This is because our vocabulary is growing, and as it does a common problem we will face is misusing words that have a similar translation in the dictionary, but can't be used in the same way in Chinese. A good example from this first week was 保存/储存，or 职业/行业。 Our other subjects are 中国历史，写作，修辞和阅读。I was really excited about history, and the book is great, but the class so far was uninspiring. It was all focused on getting through the material and prepping for what will be on the exam, so we covered right up until 秦始皇 in one class, which was way too fast. We also did some on 孔子，which ironically we have covered in more detail last year (twice). Our 写作书 is actually 高级 instead of 准高级，so it's quite challenging, but the first class was laughable. Unfortunately our teacher seems to think we are retarded, and so spent most of the lesson explaining what a sentence is, what a question is, how a question mark/comma works etc. She also calls us 'babies', which perhaps should offend me, but when a 36 year old woman refers to me, a 31 year old man, as a baby, it grinds my gears a bit! Anyway, hopefully this class will improve, and the material in the book looks great. 修辞 was fun, and I am also looking forward to this. We looked at 比喻句 which are pretty straight forward, being as we use them in English all the time. But it's interesting to see how Chinese metaphors differ from English ones! All in all this was a great first week, and I am excited for this semester! Other good news is that I got a scholarship which knocked my fees down 20%! My teacher said if I had done more with the university then I would have gotten a higher one, so maybe next year!

喜欢你 I'm into you Original by Beyond Translated and presented by Enjune Zhang 细雨带风湿透黄昏的街道 Sun's setting Drizzle in wind drenches the street 抹去雨水双眼无故地仰望 Dry the rain away I look up insensibly 望向孤单的晚灯 I see the streetlight lonely 是那伤感的记忆 Reminding me of the sad memory 再次泛起心里无数的思念 Growing yearning for you keeps stirring in me 以往片刻欢笑仍挂在脸上 Right on my face laughter of the past stays still 愿你此刻可会知 I wish that now you would know 是我衷心的说声 This is the thing I'd like you to know 喜欢你 那双眼动人 I'm into you The eye contact from you 笑声更迷人 The attracting smile from you 愿再可 轻抚你 I wish to Have my hands on you 那可爱面容 Your pretty face I do 挽手说梦话 Wanna hold your hand telling you Everything I knew 像昨天 你共我 Just like yesterday You and me 满带理想的我曾经多冲动 With dreams ideal in me I was impulsive and crazy 屡怨与她相爱难有自由 I deemed her as the hindrance of my being free 愿你此刻可会知 I wish that now you would know 是我衷心的说声 This is the thing I'd like you to know 喜欢你 那双眼动人 I'm into you The eye contact from you 笑声更迷人 The attracting smile from you 愿再可 轻抚你 I wish to Have my hands on you 那可爱面容 Your pretty face I do 挽手说梦话 Wanna hold your hand telling you Everything I knew 像昨天 你共我 Just like yesterday You and me 每晚夜里自我独行 I wander alone every night 随处荡 多冰冷 Nowhere to rest It's cold inside 以往为了自我挣扎 I have been busy with the struggling of mine 从不知 她的痛苦 I fail to see the pain in her mind 喜欢你 那双眼动人 I'm into you The eye contact from you 笑声更迷人 The attracting smile from you 愿再可 轻抚你 I wish to Have my hands on you 那可爱面容 Your pretty face I do 挽手说梦话 Wanna hold your hand telling you Everything I knew 像昨天 你共我 Just like yesterday You and me I'm into you-Enjune.mp3