User Comments - John
John
Posted on: Deadly Complements of Degree
March 31, 2011 at 6:04 AMWow, thanks! That's really cool to hear. You've been really good about helping other learners on here. We all appreciate it!
“语言榜样”我不敢当，中国人才是真正的语言榜样！ :)
Posted on: Snoring Again
March 30, 2011 at 8:39 AMGlad it was useful.
First of all, with the character 着, you need to be clear whether you're talking about the reading "zhe" or "zháo". For 睡着, meaning "to fall alseep," it's usually going to be "shuìzháo", which is different from the usage of the particle 着 (zhe).
Am I right that there was some confusion on that point?
Posted on: Handsome Foreign Student
March 29, 2011 at 2:20 AMYou could say:
我太老了，已经不帅了。
Literally: "I'm too old; I'm not handsome anymore."
(Warning: a sentence like this will likely cause your admirers to start effusively reassuring you that you are, in fact, more handsome than ever.)
Try not to get stuck on patterns like "too... to be...." In many cases the most natural way to say it in Chinese will seem simpler.
Posted on: Handsome Foreign Student
March 29, 2011 at 2:17 AMRJ,
It's not just a feature of northern Chinese; it's a feature of "standard Mandarin" (普通话). So its absence in the south can be said to be an absence of "standard Mandarin" in the south. But most of us pragmatists don't get upset over it; that's just how people talk.
But yes, there are definitely certain words and phrases that take the 儿 ending much more often all over China, and certain ones that you'll probably hear only in the north.
Some of the more universal ones (also heard frequently in the south) are: 哪儿、那儿、这儿、点儿
Posted on: Handsome Foreign Student
March 29, 2011 at 2:12 AMNo, we don't really have a "default tone" in English. "Tone" in English varies with word stress and sentence intonation. I do feel like 4th tone is the most natural for many English speakers, though.
Posted on: Deadly Complements of Degree
March 29, 2011 at 2:05 AMYes, tingyun is right on. You could also say "truly regret" or "really regret;" anything that intensifies works for the translation!
Posted on: Sleepy
March 29, 2011 at 2:03 AMbaha17,
We actually had a big discussion about this before doing the lesson, and the native speakers felt that it was much more likely in a situation like this to so that she was bored rather than that the guy was boring. But both interpretations are possible.
Posted on: Cabbie Culture and Driving in China
March 29, 2011 at 1:58 AM你可以说：“不好意思，师傅，我有一点累。”
然后装睡！
Posted on: Help at the ATM
March 29, 2011 at 1:49 AMChris, oops, see my reply below!
Posted on: Handsome Foreign Student
March 31, 2011 at 8:48 AMYou're right that the 儿化 (érhuà) usually applies to nouns, and occasionally measure words. In some cases it even indicates that a verb has become a noun, as in 画画儿 (huà huàr).
玩儿 (wánr seems to be an exception to this rule; we can't think of any other verbs that take 儿化 (érhuà).