A can of beer and a sleeve of crackers

[crispy47]

My apartment building has this special characteristic: During the winter, it expels all heat; during the summer, it traps all heat. In all cases, it is a giant concrete humidifier, which perhaps accounts for these other characteristics. It's hard to tell. I can't think very critically in my current humidifiedly sweltered condition. Of course, in

Comments

[crispy47]

For one, I doubt I speak Chinese better than you do. For the year or so I was at the TT, my Chinese probably got worse. Not that I'm insecure about it or anything. I guess I'm pretty comfortable with where I'm at Chinese-wise, or at least I can accept it as the consequence of choices that I don't regret

[crispy47]

I guess I haven't really had your pissing-contest experience since college. My class now is super noncompetitive. I really experience it mostly in survival-related stuff-in terms of being able to make yourself understood and to be understood, to be able to watch the news, to be able to order food, to be able to carry on academic conversations, etc. I notice it when there's a huge difference in proficiency levels-like where one person could hold a conversation that the other person couldn't understand at all, or one person's accent is clearly way better

[crispy47]

"vocab and semantics can be acquired throughout life, while maybe syntax and pronunciation are much harder to acquire at this point."

c.f. Hou Laoshi.