foldable, detachable
dunderklumpen
June 14, 2010 at 01:25 PM posted in I Have a QuestionHi!
I've just built a bicycle trailer for my canoe and a chinese friend had a look at it. He asked if it was "huo3de" and I didn't understand what he meant. He tried to explain but, well,... no success. I think he meant something like detachable, foldable, loose or similar but I could be totally wrong too. It could be about the material it was built from or anything really. I'm pretty sure it was huo3 in pinyin though.
Any ideas?
bababardwan
June 20, 2010 at 11:29 PM
dk,
yeah,no worries mate. Always happy to hear clarification questions.
Wow,that's a pretty impressive arrangement in your pics. Looks like you have a bit of fun.
dunderklumpen
June 20, 2010 at 09:31 PM
Thanks, I just needed to make sure I didn't miss the point. I'm learning two languages here you know :-)
I guess they are all huo2de in that sense. Mine is huo2de in a wider sense :-) I can remove the wheels and fold it to make it fit in a small store room.
bababardwan
June 20, 2010 at 11:51 AM
dunderklumpen,
yeah,something like the towing hook..wherever/however the bike is attached to the trailer part,I guess I envisaged that you were talking about something like this:
http://www.bikingbis.com/_photos/Schauer1.sized.jpg
...and I also guess I would have thought they'd nearly all be huo de
dunderklumpen
June 20, 2010 at 10:44 AM
>>examine the connection closely to determine the difference
What does "connection" mean in this case? Does it refer to the towing hook?
bababardwan
June 20, 2010 at 12:52 AM
dunderklumpen,
多谢你的解释，我明白。 thanks for getting back to me and clearing that up. That makes sense. Things that are rigid are like dead and things that can move or be detached ..can change their state...huo de. I'll remember that now. His question makes sense too as a canoe trailer could be either and you may have to examine the connection closely to determine the difference.
dunderklumpen
June 19, 2010 at 06:29 PM
Hi Baba!
今天我去问那个朋友了。不好意思，我听错了！So much for certain... 他说的就是huo2，不是huo3。哪个字呢？就是活。他说明，说人的时候活的和死的就是living和dead的意思，而说东西活的和死的是 detachable和rigid的意思。So I guessed correct about the meaning of the word but was wrong abut the pronounciation. I still can't find a good link to 活 with that meaning so it might be local northern accent.
死
# 1. verb die
# 2. adjective [死亡的] dead
# 7. adjective [规定] rigid
(nciku)
dunderklumpen
June 14, 2010 at 03:37 PM
I don't think so... I'm certain the first character was a third-tone character. He called the cart a 拖车 (tuo1che1).
bababardwan
June 14, 2010 at 01:54 PMI think I´m way off the mark DK...but it couldn´t by any chance be that he was saying 拖斗 could it?