5. Who’s “Requesting Marriage?” 求婚 qiúhūn

欢迎光临! Welcome!

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The Mandarin Blueprint Podcast focuses primarily on The Mandarin Blueprint Method online curriculum. Creators Luke Neale & Phil Crimmins answer questions and comments, discuss topics related to China and Mandarin learning, and have special guests.

00:09

Updates About Phase Four of The Mandarin Blueprint Method

06:40

The plan for continuing developments to the curriculum. Any feedback for us?

07:42

Some interesting news that makes learning a bit about the Chinese character 婚 hūn quite relevant ;).

求婚 qiúhūn

结婚 jiéhūn

婚礼 hūnlǐ

婚姻 hūnyīn

离婚 líhūn

15:35

Two new Webinars Released!

Rapid Chinese Acquisition Crash Course

17:43

NASEEM SHAWARBA – “TOUGHER“ INITIALS EXPLANATION

Thank you very much, Phil & Luke.

All my Chinese friends are amazed by how perfect my pronunciation is.

They told me I only need to speak a bit a faster. I did that and they told me there is no difference between me and a native speaker.

I am trying to master every initial and final ?

20:26

CHAD RESSLER – 4 COMPONENTS OF HABIT BUILDING PART 2- ROUTINE

Chinese must be integrated into your existing routine, or a new routine including it should be established. My study time is now done with morning coffee… Anki later in the day…and a Mandarin language movie at bedtime. I have seen progress daily with this routine.

24:49

MAGDA JOT – CHARACTER #9 个 GÈ – MAKE A MOVIE

Hi! I have been wondering about Gandalf for g- — somewhere earlier you said that these should be real, male actors – or did I get it wrong? In that case, will we be needing Gandalf (male, fictitious actor) somewhere along the course later, or can I use him here?

28:56

SIDNEY GREEN – CHARACTER #90 代 DÀI – IT’S A WORD

Why is it wǒmen zhè yí dài hěn chúantǒng and why is it not wǒmen de dài hěn chúantǒng?

36:31

DAVID PINKERTON – FROM EMAIL

Hey guys

Loving the new course and Anki cards.

Why do you just show the image for a word rather than image and the meaning when your reviewing words.
Is there a reason like it helps to recall or something

David

40:12

ROBERT CARVER – CHARACTER #121 己 JǏ – MAKE A MOVIE

Confusing directions here–if it’s a box and a hook, then the box is facing the wrong way even though you specifically say to remember the box is facing the other way.

42:04

ERIC BROWN – CHARACTER #123 已 YǏ – MAKE A MOVIE

Whoa, so close to 己！At least a different actor/pronunciation. I made part of my scene my actor fixing my two props by pushing the hook higher to try and remember the distinction.

44:25

GARY – FROM EMAIL

Good morning, I do apologize if you have covered this already because I will be starting the course today. But is there a distinction between how one would say “car” and “to eat,” che vs chi? Also just curious about how specialized your hearing is compared to an average person. When you listened to the viral clip of “Yanny vs Lauryl” which sound did you hear? Or the viral clip of Grover from Sesame Street where only some people hear him saying “that’s really awesome,” and other people hear “that’s really f#^*ing awesome” I would imagine the part of the brain that differentiates sounds is more specialized in a bilingual person who mastered a tough language like Mandarin.

48:52

RYAN SMITH – CHARACTER #30 骂 MÀ – MAKE A MOVIE

Location: My friend Anil’s bathroom
Actor: My friend Marcos
Props: 2 rolling stone mouths & a horse

In the last scene, Sniffles the Looney Tune drove Marcos to dive off the 12th story balcony by annoying him with too many questions. Well, in this scene, Marcos is in the bathroom with the horse, trying to nurse the horse back to health due to his massive fall. The rolling stone mouth that Sniffles split off to ask more questions is in the bathroom scolding Marcos for jumping off the balcony with the horse.

The scolding is so severe and the rolling stone mouth so mad, that the camera does a split shot, highlighting the rolling stone mouth on the top right & top left of the 2 side-by-side shots, one highlighting the injured horse, and the other highlighting the ashamed Marcos.

I went with the split screenshot for this, because while slightly difficult to mentally picture, it was the only way that I could really get across to my head that we need to really emphasize the duality of the rolling stone mouth prop.

53:23

RYAN SMITH – CHARACTER #47: 百 BǍI – PICK A PROP

The main thing that comes to my mind as a physical representation of 100 is the hecatoncheires, or the “hundred-handed ones”, from Greek mythology. Definitely stands out in scenes, anyway.

55:57

NASEEM SHAWARBA – CHARACTER #48: 今 JĪN – MAKE A MOVIE

Hello, I’m a bit confused.
I learned in the pronunciation course that Jīntiān means “today”. Which one should I use – jīn or jīntiān?

58:58

RYAN SMITH – CHARACTER #55: 月 YUÈ – CASTING CALL

Being a big Star Wars fan, I decided to go down that route for the “yu” actors.

yu Yoda
nü Nute Gunray
lü Princess Leia
ju Jabba the Hutt
qu Qui-Gon Jin
xu Aayla Secura

There are some possible points of confusion that might happen, since I’d already picked Obi-Wan as the prop for 只, and Christopher Lee as my `c-` actor.

But I don’t think that Obi-Wan as the prop should be an actual problem since he’ll always appear with an actual actor. And Christopher Lee should be fine since I already have him firmly in my mind as the actor himself, not as his Count Dooku persona (it helps that I grew up watching him as Dracula).

1:02:36

DEBRA – FROM EMAIL

I love the podcasts.  I started your courses a few weeks ago.  I had been looking online for a month or longer for a course that made sense to me.  Your approach is brilliant and your blueprint method and materials are excellent. I am greatly enjoying the lessons. I am doing it all on an iPhone as I have been traveling for six years now and have no home or computer. So far it’s working well although a bit of a headache with Anki was necessary but it now runs only off the iPhone.  Not bad for a 64-year-old woman!  With age comes patience.

1:06:19

CHAD RESSLER – FROM EMAIL

Hey guys,Burning through the Pronunciation Mastery course and loving it!As a student, I was thinking about how I would enjoy seeing my instructors in real life situations. Is there any chance of like a “Chinese on the Street” where we could see you guys engaging in regular conversations?I had almost paid for a different service, but it was Luke’s video where he was speaking in Chinese that made me hesitate, research the Mandarin Blueprint more, and then decide to invest in it (best decision!).Just a thought from a student.Have a good one!

1:08:38

KEITH WILKINS – COMMENT ON THE COURSE

Hey Guys,

Question #1

As I go through your program (I only started last week), I was interested in your thoughts on these things. The first, Anki. I have read through the whole guide, downloaded the program on my computer, have had some experience with practicing with the cards that I have made with my editing inputs. But still, some things about this program befuddle me.

Notwithstanding that the UI on the desktop version is just clunky and seems like it is from the ’80, I don’t get exactly how it works with the option of introducing new cards/new cards per day, etc. I understand why that you need to double the number of new cards of the videos you watched that day, but translating this to apply to the Anki deck seems too hard. I just got so frustrated with trying to understand that I just waited until I was ALL the way through with Level 1-3 videos, and then studied that deck as a whole.

I understand they are sorted by ‘due’, but some in that column then had dates, some had numbers (12, 13, etc..) which confused me even more. Am I the only one that has found it this way?

Question #2

The other thing – your method makes total logical sense to me, and I am enjoying going through the program and reliving some sets and actors from my past. However, as I work through the cards and get to the characters, I find myself wondering how the heck am I going to keep hundreds and hundreds of them straight in my head when I get to that point? Sometimes, I struggle to recall and think ‘okay, now what was the movie scene I made with THAT actor, THAT set, those props, that keyword, etc. ‘ If I am struggling to keep all that stuff straight in my head in levels 1-3, what about much later in the course?

Having said that, you guys have done an amazing job with this course – I can’t even imagine the hours and hours you have put into making it look so professional. Well done!