User Comments - John

Posted on: Kinds of Nuts

I ran a few searches for you. Google's and Baidu's counts should give you a more accurate picture of which terms are most often used. Here's what I found:

昆士兰栗 - Google: 40k, Baidu: 33.3k

澳洲胡桃 - Google: 820k, Baidu: 201k

澳洲坚果 - Google: 614k, Baidu: 244k

夏威夷果 - Google: 657k, Baidu: 389k

So while 夏威夷果 is competitive with 澳洲胡桃 and 澳洲坚果 individually (especially on Baidu), the combined might of 澳洲胡桃 and 澳洲坚果 shows Oz defeating the States in this particular battle. :)

If you're serious about your Macadamia nuts (and especially if you're Aussie), I recommend you know all three terms: 夏威夷果、澳洲胡桃、澳洲坚果.

Posted on: Kinds of Nuts

You'll have to take this issue up with the Chinese people. Even we Americans don't use such an American-centric name for them. :)

Posted on: Kinds of Nuts

...and tomatoes are a fruit?

Fair enough. We kept peanuts out of the dialogue, anyway.

Posted on: Piano Class

学到不高的程度！我练习的时间太少了，因为我不是小孩子，很难抽空。

但至少我现在会弹一些简单的曲子（不是有名的曲子啊！）。

我不记得钢琴课多少钱一小时，可能50块左右吧。

Posted on: Discussing Contract Renewal

Right...

So rather than "first," it's really "ahead of you."

Posted on: Las Vegas

The exercise checker is supposed to ignore all punctuation in order to avoid precise this kind of situation. Apparently it has gotten all punctuation-conscious on us. We will look into it.

Posted on: Hungry Traveler: Shanghai

I've also heard that avoiding pork altogether was society's best defense against trichinosis in the ancient world.

Posted on: Hungry Traveler: Shanghai

Oh yeah... That's the stuff!

Posted on: Discussing Contract Renewal

It's the culture equivalent of saying, "sorry, I have to go now."

From the Chinese speaker's perspective, there's no need to apologize.

From the English speaker's perspective, there's no need to specify you're leaving FIRST.

And yet these are the things we are trained to say...

Posted on: Hungry Traveler: Shanghai

Heh, "pork surprise" isn't quite as funny if you're vegetarian, or Jewish, or Muslim... :P