"That was a great movie," Echo blurted out halfway up the escalator. We had all just left the theater after watching Feng Xiaogang's latest New Years film "If You are the One". That's the one where Shu Qi plays a clinically depressed stewardess looking for a rich husband. A love story with Chinese characteristics.

Echo's enthusiasm was met with a curious silence at first. "I guess it was ok," Zhang Wei finally replied, "but I wouldn't call it great. And it was a good thing we had those discount tickets." Another pause. "Actually, I'm not sure it was even ok. The first half hour was funny, but then it got boring pretty quickly."

Not surprisingly, even good friends have different taste in film. But since everyone likes getting asked to a movie, here is a lesson on how to get a date in mandarin, Chinese.
 said on
December 30, 2008
It was a cute movie. The opening scene and first date were pretty funny. It just started dragging after it started taking its romance too seriously. And it was pretty strange to see the film romanticize what was really just a marriage of convenience for at least the girl.
 said on
December 30, 2008
Sound on mp3 file cuts out at around 4:30. Also, any plans to tag the mp3 files by difficulty level (perhaps in the "album" field)? Just a suggestion, as the number of Popup Chinese tracks on my iTunes slowly increases...
 said on
December 31, 2008
@toneandcolor - reuploaded thanks. Will take a look at the MP3 tags next time I'm in windows. Have any suggestions?
 said on
December 31, 2008
Well, Cpod uses the "album" field in iTunes to distinguish "Newbie", "Elementary" and so on, so you could do the same with "Absolute Beginner" etc. As a Mac user I'm not sure how you would tag the mp3 files in windows. I think it would be a good idea though, because presently iTunes just shows the lesson title without indicating the difficulty.

 said on
December 31, 2008
that's a good idea. I thought we were already using all of the fields, but just checked and see that we've just got Popup Chinese in that space.

Have changed the system so that we're tagging files with the username going forward. So elementary recordings will be tagged "Elementary" etc.
 said on
January 2, 2009
Just to let you know - lessons mp3s now have the "Album" field blank, instead of having "Popup Chinese".
 said on
January 9, 2009
the sound quality is great.
 said on
May 11, 2009
I have a question relating to the supplementary vocabulary. In particular the question:

昨天你做什么了. As 昨天 is already acting as a tense-marker, is it still necessary to have 了 at the end of the sentence.

Is 昨天你做什么 correct as well?
 said on
May 12, 2009
@doubt616,

good question.

in the sentence昨天你做什么了?昨天 is a tense marker, but we still need to put a 了at the end.Just like: what did you do yesterday? we have "yesterday" here, and we have to use "did" instead of "do". what do you think?
 said on
May 12, 2009
@Gail - I think you need to put a 'donate' link somewhere on the site to make me feel a little better about having you answer my daft questions! :) 非常感谢!
 said on
May 12, 2009
@doubt616,

your questions are good, really. and it's good for you to ask questions on the site. you know, thousands of people have the same questions as you. so don't hesitate to ask.

just keep confident. your chinese is good.

also you can send email to Gail@popupchinese.com.

enjoy!

 said on
May 12, 2009
@Gail or @anyone able to assist me - I think my biggest problem at this point is understanding when particles such as 了 and 的 can be omitted from a sentence without altering the message and when they are absolutely required. For example, in the sentence:

北京是中国的最大的城市中的一座。 (Beijing is one of China's biggest cities), I believe it's ok to drop the 的 after 中国 without changing the meaning of the sentence = 北京是中国最大的城市中的一座。 对不对?

Likewise with this sentence:

周星驰是中国的最著名的电影导演中的一个。

(Stephen Chow is one of China's most famous film directors.),can also be:

周星驰是中国最著名的电影导演中的一个。

If I wanted to say:

I thought (erroneously) that Stephen Chow was China's most famous film director:

我原来以为周星驰是中国的最著名的电影导演呢。

..can I omit the 的 following 中国 again?

I also have a sneaking suspicion that 个 should be present in that sentence as well. Possibly after 是。。。

Do you wish you hadn't cheered me on now?

:)

Leigh.

 said on
May 12, 2009
I should clarify things a little more by adding that I do understand that the particle 的 can be omitted when it used with familiar things such as 我妈, 我姐姐, 我朋友 etc. but why it is omitted in the above examples currently escapes me.
 said on
May 12, 2009
@doubt616,

Usually if there are more than one 的 in the sentence, you can omit anyone but not the last one.

For instance,

北京是中国的最大的城市中的一座。

Can be changed to : 北京是中国最大城市中的一座。(It is the most natural sentence.) Of course you can say 北京是中国最大的城市中的一座 too, only if you leave the last 的 there.

周星驰是中国的最著名的电影导演中的一个。

Can be changed to : 周星驰是中国最著名电影导演中的一个 or 周星驰是中国最著名的电影导演中的一个。

When 的 is the nearer to the end of the sentence, the more important it is, since it is used to clarify the basic structure of the sentence.

"我原来以为周星驰是中国的最著名的电影导演呢。

..can I omit the 的 following 中国 again? "

--Yes, you can.

Although you can not put "个/一个" in the current sentence, since "最" already have the potential meaning, which is "one". If you want to add "个" in that sentence, you can say 周星驰是中国最著名的电影导演中的一个. With 中 there, the sentence is changed to be "one of the most famous ".

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com

 said on
May 12, 2009
>> Usually if there are more than two 的 in the sentence, you can omit anyone but not the last one. <<

I learned the same rule, but with the extraneous 的s removed only within noun phrases. So it is difficult to say how many you need actually in the sentence as a whole. That would presumably depend on how many independent compound noun phrases there are in the sentence. For instance.

中国的经济的发展的速度 -> 中国经济发展的速度

印度经济发展的速度没有中国的快。

Two 的s in that last sentence, but I believe it's perfectly grammatical.

 said on
May 12, 2009
@echo - That was a marvelous response to my questions. I am very grateful to you.

@trevelyan - Likewise. This is fantastic brain food.
 said on
May 12, 2009
@doubt616,

不客气 :)

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com
 said on
May 12, 2009
I guess if all else fails I can just find a way to avoid using them altogether.

Perhaps:

印度经济发展比中国慢。

Not a 的 in sight.

:)
 said on
May 12, 2009
@doubt616,

yes, you are right. and usually we would omite more 的 in formal situations. so 印度经济发展比中国慢usually happens in writing or news report, not in casual conversation.