User Comments - John
John
Posted on: Turn Right, Turn Left
October 16, 2009 at 9:20 AMdreiundzwanzig,
You can say both 拐 (guǎi) or 转 (zhuǎn) to mean "turn," and if you combine them with "left" and "right" you get 左拐 (zuǒ guǎi), 右拐 (yòu guǎi) and 左转 (zuǒ zhuǎn), 右转 (yòu zhuǎn).. Both verbs have a "fuller" 2-character version (meaning "to turn") as well: 转弯 (zhuǎnwān) and 拐弯 (guǎiwān).
The interesting thing about the "big turn" and "little turn" is that they're relative to the traffic conventions of the country you're in. If you leave China and go to Japan, right becomes left and left becomes right!
Posted on: Chinese Idol 2
October 15, 2009 at 5:23 AMli4wei3,
轮到 is in the key vocabulary. It's also now properly appearing on the dialogue page.
Posted on: Light and Dark Colors of Clothing
October 14, 2009 at 9:53 AMsimonpettersson,
I really want to see your image, but Typepad is blocked in China. Any way you could host it on Flickr, or Drop.io or some other unblocked place?
Posted on: Light and Dark Colors of Clothing
October 14, 2009 at 2:35 AMtimbrace,
Yeah, I find these usage distinctions quite interesting as well... If you don't learn them, you tend to either get offended or offend people. I guess that's all part of the fun of learning a language, though!
You may know this already, but the study of how we use language is known in linguistics as pragmatics. It's a fascinating field. My most interesting classes in graduate school were on pragmatics.
Posted on: A Trip to the Dry Cleaner's
October 13, 2009 at 8:26 AMpretzellogic,
Thanks for the feedback. We'll make that change to the search soon.
As for measure words, I'm glad you found that method useful, but I'm afraid there are many, many cases where it does work.
Some examples: a person, a dog, an elephant, a zoo, a school, an army, a table, a chair, a car, an airplane, etc.
Posted on: Light and Dark Colors of Clothing
October 13, 2009 at 8:09 AMjgwilson,
The character 嗯 doesn't have a totally standard way of writing it in pinyin, which is why you will find both "ng" and "en." That is why in some dictionaries, like Wenlin, you'll find crazy entries like this:
嗯 [ń] [ň] [ǹ] [ńg] [ňg] [ǹg] (a non-verbal exclamation)
嗯 ńg* intj. What?; Huh?
嗯 ňg intj. How come?; Why?
嗯 ǹg intj. O.K.; Agreed!
(Maybe one day field linguists will discover the elusive first tone 嗯!)
Posted on: Light and Dark Colors of Clothing
October 13, 2009 at 4:50 AMli4wei3,
Brilliant mnemonic!
I just checked the actual etymology, and it's not nearly as useful (or straightforward).
Posted on: Nothing More Than Only and Just
October 17, 2009 at 3:34 AMchangye,
Great explanation! We considered adding other words (including 而已), but in the end decided to keep it simpler.