User Comments - John
John
Posted on: Wang Wei's Diary: Food and Girls
October 8, 2007 at 3:23 PMKyle, Heh... Well, the name of the person who wrote this dialogue does indeed begin with a J, but as for her exact identity, that's top secret! Or, errr... what Ken said.
Posted on: Of Beauty Pageants and Plastic Surgery
October 8, 2007 at 2:09 AMGlad people are liking the series! More interesting vocab coming... Ashtangi, sorry, I'm not sure exactly how to say "production company." This is mainly a place to discuss the lesson content, though. Off-topic stuff can also be posted in the Conversations section and might get a better reply from the community there.
Posted on: Superman
October 8, 2007 at 1:50 AMRich, You asked about this sentence: 小鸟飞得又快又高。 (The bird flew both high and fast.) Actually, either order is fine in Chinese. We should have made the adjective order consistent so as not to confuse you. I will have to berate Amber soundly for that one. :D
Posted on: Superman
October 8, 2007 at 1:47 AMSorry for the slow replies, people. We've been on National Day holiday. Thanks for your patience. Man2Toe, As for why 俠 (xiá) and not 人 (rén), or 人 (rén) and not 俠 (xiá), it's mostly just a matter of what sounds best to the Chinese. 俠 (xiá) does have connotations of "knight" or "hero" (often in the kung fu sense) though.
Posted on: Missing Persons in Jizhou
October 8, 2007 at 1:37 AMtripletrounce, "Cheesy" is definitely a difficult word to translate. I've struggled with it myself. There doesn't seem to be any perfect translation, but I'll let Jenny give it a try.
Posted on: Missing Persons in Jizhou
October 8, 2007 at 1:27 AMGlad you are all liking the series so far! Although it was tempting to make it a never-ending Lost-like story (where we the writers don't even know where it's going), we did actually nail the storyline and finish it already. (Jenny and I wrote the story.) Enjoy!
Posted on: #17
September 24, 2007 at 7:55 AMI find it amusing that Dave did not recognize the reference to the CGI used to move the animals' mouths in both Babe and Babe 2. How did you think they were getting their mouths to match up so perfectly, Dave? :)
Posted on: Traveling and Chopsticks
September 24, 2007 at 7:35 AMLantian, There are lots of books and audio resources for practicing for the 普通话测试. Any major bookstore in China should have them. (I've seen them, and even own one or two.)
Posted on: Traveling and Chopsticks
September 23, 2007 at 9:48 AMtianfeng, You raise another interesting question there: would it be easier for a native speaker (NS) of Chinese to differentiate accents, or for a high-level non-native speaker (NNS)? If the NS isn't a teacher with significant experience, I'd give the edge to the NNS, particularly if the NNS has spent a lot of time studying in China with people of various nationalities. Sorry for getting all linguisticky on you, Amber... :)
Posted on: Wang Wei's Diary: Food and Girls
October 8, 2007 at 3:27 PMjazz, 的 (de) is a bit tricky and can't be explained in a few words (or even one Qing Wen episode). In the case of 意大利菜 (Yìdàlì-cài), I think it might help to just think of it as one word meaning "Italian food. " Saying 意大利的菜 (Yìdàlì de cài) is not totally wrong, but it would be more like saying "the food of Italy," and wouldn't be as commonly used.