User Comments - John
John
Posted on: International vs. Local Schools
January 25, 2011 at 1:53 AMcl,
The rule when writing pinyin is to separate words with spaces. This is much harder to do than it sounds, because the boundaries between words are often not clear. Your example is a good one.
The reason we split it that way is that "libi" can stand alone as a word, but "you libi" cannot. If you want to use "you" with "libi", then it's going to be as a part of "ge you libi".
Hence, "ge," "you," and "libi" can be fairly readily understood as separate words, and in this case they work together as a set phrase.
Posted on: Marco Polo in China
January 25, 2011 at 1:46 AMIt's a phenomenon that has been pretty widely recognized by foreigners in China, but this particular name is not very well known.
Posted on: Marco Polo in China
January 25, 2011 at 1:43 AMMark,
I agree with Catherine. You can be pretty sure you have MPS if a new foreigner that speaks Chinese comes to "your turf" and you start getting all jealous because you feel you might be dethroned as the resident 中国通 (Zhōngguó tōng).
Posted on: International vs. Local Schools
January 25, 2011 at 1:35 AMA heavy emphasis on memorization (read: writing characters over and over and over and over), tons of homework, plus lots of pressure to fill a child's every waking minute with tons of "cultural enrichment" activities mean that most kids have very, very little time to just play and be a kid. Playing, pretending, exploring, letting one's mind wander, and being silly are all ways to nurture one's imagination. And not nurturing one's imagination at all is to let it slowly wither.
Posted on: Making the Most of 最 (zui)
January 22, 2011 at 10:06 AMAnd we love getting good questions!
Posted on: International vs. Local Schools
January 20, 2011 at 2:56 AM创新能力呢？
The kid may have learned discipline at a young age at the local school, but could he also have had his imagination quashed?
Posted on: Piano Class
January 20, 2011 at 2:50 AMYou could say solfege is "more relative" because it can apply to any key. But you can go up and down the octaves for a, b, c, d etc., so it's not really absolute. ("Middle C" would be absolute.)
Posted on: How to Address Someone
January 20, 2011 at 2:06 AMYeah, I started pretty young. It was my dad's computer, though.
But I listened to the Beach Boys growing up. And the Carpenters. My parents played those records a lot...
Posted on: Concern over a Love Letter
January 20, 2011 at 2:04 AMJohan,
No problem! That's what we're here for.
Posted on: Actually
January 25, 2011 at 2:24 AMwatyamacallit,
You're very perceptive to notice that! It's true that 其实 is pretty universally regarded as an adverb by Chinese academia, but you're right to notice that its position in sentences is more similar to conjunctions, especially the way it doesn't have to immediately precede the verb like many adverbs do. You're also right that 其实 does include some meaning of "but." The second sentence you gave is very similar in meaning to the original one.
Then why can't we just say that 其实 is a conjunction? Well, it violates one of the characteristics of Chinese conjunctions: Chinese conjunctions may not be doubled up at the same phrase level. So if you have a conjunction connecting two simple sentences to for a complex sentence, you can say:
__________，但是___________。
You cannot say this:
*__________，但是可是___________。
However, you CAN say:
__________，但是其实___________。
I know, it's probably not the most satisfying reason why 其实 is not considered a conjunction, but modern Chinese grammar can often be quite messy when you look close enough (and you're looking quite closely!).