User Comments - John

Posted on: Making Soup

Ha ha... never heard that!

Posted on: Making Soup

If you never cook, it shouldn't be a big deal.... Work on high-frequency vocab.

Posted on: Making Soup

Oops, sorry about that... I can't always be 100% clear on what's American English and what's universal English.

Posted on: Washing the Sheets

Tal's answer at the top is pretty good.

The point here is that in Chinese there's no subject, and in English the easy way to avoid a subject is to turn the sentence into a passive one. The original Chinese sentence, depending on the context, could either be asking, "did you clean the kitchen?" or "has the kitchen been cleaned?" Sine there's no context for a single expansion sentence, the translator opted to straddle the semantic fence by using a passive construction in English (even though it wouldn't be called for in Chinese).

Sorry for the confusion! This definitely goes beyond what an Elementary student is expected to pick up on.

Posted on: 美国校园枪击案

Also, as a company operated in China, in can be very difficult to discuss certain events online. We're limited in that regard.

Posted on: Fake Beggars?

See above.

Posted on: Fake Beggars?

Think of 可怜 as meaning "to be pitied" (the poor thing). "Poor" is the best way to translate 可怜 naturally into English as in "that hungry poor puppy," but if you say "he is very poor" for 他很可怜, "poor" obviously takes on another meaning.

So, yeah.... translation challenges.

Posted on: Advice for a Young Journalist

I really enjoyed doing this topic (even if it is a little serious).  Hope you guys enjoyed it and find it useful in your discussions!

Posted on: Everything is Entirely Complete

Ah, here I thought you were a big fan of the mouth rinse.

Worldview shattered.

Posted on: Christmas Gifts from China

True, but "with Chinese characteristics" is the standard historical translation, and you'll see it used quite a lot if you look.