Performance Anxiety

Elementary: Performance Anxiety

As she waited for the judges to render their verdict, Lee reviewed her performance in her head. Her decision to sing "Yesterday Once More" had been risky. The song was overplayed, but she felt her syncopated interpretation made it fresh once again. And objectively speaking, there was no doubt her performance was one of the strongest of the evening. Even now she could sense the stunned respect of the audience, while the judges sat in a thoughtful, almost reverent, silence.

Our elementary lesson for today is faster than you may be accustomed to at the Elementary level, and also much busier: instead of a two-way dialogue we have a scene between a singer and her panel of three judges. This four-way exchange is fast and furious, but is also within your reach. So give it a listen and see how you do.

jim.veseley

said on

January 26, 2010

Quite a fast dialogue. Had to admit to a moment of quite panic (?) when all four of them began speaking at the same time. Playing it over a few times solved that though. More like this one please!

ckw4y

said on

January 26, 2010

I confused 歌手 with 首歌 and thought she was saying she had prepared to be a singer, which sounds weird but isn't a totally unrealistic thing to say.

LanZi

said on

January 26, 2010

@jim.veseley

It's a bit fast even to a native speaker, I mean, to Gail. Okay, and me. And the female voice in the end of the dialogue is sooo creepy. But I love that：）

@ckw4y

Yep. It can be confusing, espcially when they are speaking fast.

我还准备了一首歌。I've prepared another song (if the emphasis is on 还). Or, I also prepare a song (besides something else，if the emphasis is on 一首歌).

我还准备当一歌手。I also want to be a singer.

Brendan

said on

January 26, 2010

One of the hosts had a nasty head cold during the recording of this lesson. No prizes for guessing which one!

@jim.veseley - We thought it was pretty fast, too, and for a while it looked like the harmony that characterizes Popup Towers might be broken by the debate over how to characterize the lesson. Glad it worked out!

Xiao Hu

said on

January 27, 2010

@Brendan,

I don't know what you're talking about, Echo sounded fine!

trevelyan

said on

January 27, 2010

Some pity for the guy who had to edit out the worst of the hoarse snuffling. Hopefully it isn't that noticeable - although I guess everyone will be listening for it now. :)

ignaciotripodi

said on

January 30, 2010

Whoa, this one was fast! :-) It made more sense at the end, though, however it wasn't a good candidate for listening while driving so I'll check it out again while looking at the transcript. Useful new words!

LanZi

said on

February 3, 2010

@ignaciotripodi

哈哈！

加油! Just for your Chinese, not for your driving.

jyh

said on

March 13, 2010

Actually, I did not find this one hard at all, even on the first listen. To me, it was not even close to the train ticket story (Customer Service) and Break Up II, which both left me quite shell-shocked at the time. And then there is the "goatee" podcast that I still almost don't understand a thing from, in part because I generally have a hard time filtering words from background noise and in part because the moment I hear that kind of music my brain completely shuts down and stays on strike until the assault is over :-)

I have a question on 你唱得夠好了, particularly in light of something that was discussed in the goatee podcast. The voice actor and the transcript both say 夠好了, but Echo each time clearly says 夠好的了. Now, the goatee podcast makes the point that when 夠 (and 挺) is used as an adverb of degree it calls for a 的 after the adjective. Are we in the same situation here, and the actor just speaks fast and "eats" that part of the sentence?

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