User Comments - Purrfecdizzo

Posted on: Hamsters, Snakes, and Owls

My ex-girlfriend owned a snake and she would buy mice for it to eat. One day I asked her what she would do if the mouse ended up eating the snake --- if we came home and saw a long tail sticking out of the mouse's mouth... For some reason, she didn't think it was funny, and didn't talk to me for a few hours... I thought the idea was funny... I don't know.. I was secretly routing for the mouse, don't care much for snakes.

Posted on: Hamsters, Snakes, and Owls

Dear Mr. Richwarm2,

Im glad you can see where I am coming from, I was a little worried. I did quote directly from your post, and responded in a sloppy way. I am glad you were able to understand my intent. Really, I wasn't coming from a bad place.

Sincerely,

George

Posted on: Hamsters, Snakes, and Owls

Dear fellow poddies,

"Actually, in English, we don't have a colloquial term for "muroid rodent", in the way that Chinese has 老鼠, so you could say that it's *English* that comes up short here. " You know, generally speaking.... I always thought of a mouse as somewhat informal, and maybe friendly.. I am talking about the idea associated with the word, not so much with the animal associated with the word... I.E., Mickey/Minnie (hey can't just say Mickey, got to be equal opportunity here) Mouse, Jerry mouse, etc... These mice are somewhat warm. When I think of rats, I don't think of animals that are so friendly... again, I am thinking about the idea associated with the word, not the actual animal. I have worked in a rat lab before, and the rats were very docile and friendly -- not scary at all -- so long as they saw my hand before I put it in the cage and they knew it wasn't food. If people are willing to accept this assessment ( and they may not be, and I am cool with that... just trying to offer a perspective of how these two words are used generally, not trying to start a shitstorm) then we may say that English does have a word that does represent these animals (but not the whole class of muroid rodents as Mr. Richwarm2 points out). Again, I am not looking for a fight or trying to instigate anything, but I wanted to chime in with this observation. Thats all I have to say on the matter.

Most sincerely and respectfully,

George

Posted on: Difficult Cake Choices

Hey guys, got a question...

The word 控 was introduced as 'addicted' and examples were giving.. i.e., mango addict etc.. and I think Ive got it, but I want to ask a clarifying question to be sure...

The overall meaning here is of a general word that describes a strong preference to something, but not an addiction such as a medical addiction such as heroine or cocaine. I may say that I am a 巧克力控 and my meaning is that I really enjoy chocolate, but not necessarily chemical dependent. This explanation is what I believe is intended.

If it truly is used to describe a medical addiction, how could I distinguish it from a word such as 酒鬼 or 赌鬼?

I hope everyone gets a gist of the intent of my question.

thanks,

George

Posted on: Difficult Cake Choices

Hey guys, got a question...

In this lesson, it was pointed out that 夸张 is a 形容词 not a 动词. This is unfortunate because I have been using it as a verb since I first learned this word over two years ago. Anyhow, my question is,... In some cases, it is used as a verb in Chinese? or when the Chinese people understood my meaning, were they simply guessing or using their understanding of English to grasp my meaning?

Thanks,

George

Posted on: Difficult Cake Choices

Dear Chinesepod staff and 'Poddies'

Before I listened to this lesson, I looked over the vocab and I saw the translation for 抹茶, I was thinking that the data entry people had a 'fat finger' moment and accidentally hit the 't', and their intended meaning was Mocha as in Mocha Coffee, A.K.A., Cafe Mocha. Sometimes, I will review the vocabulary for a lesson, but I don't always necessarily listen to the lesson right way, (and I am assuming that perhaps some of you are this way as well), so I want to take a moment to point out that the spelling in the lesson is correct, but they are not referring to Cafe Mocha. As explained in the lesson, it refers to the Japanese matcha which is a type of green tea flavor. 

Anyway, hope this helps!

George

Posted on: Difficult Cake Choices

Hello everyone!

I guess I will start the discussion for this lesson. First, I want to comment about the voice actresses.. Again, I think they did a good job! Not to say that I have any qualification to make this type of evaluation (I don't think my three years living in country qualify me), but I felt that the emotion expressed was, although a bit strong, quite suitable and pleasing to hear. The pronunciation and language flow was good, and I didn't find much difficulty understanding them. They did a good job balancing the emotion (when teaching English, I sometimes exaggerate my emotion so my students can notice it better) with natural language delivery.

Anyway, I wanted to ask a question about these type of shops in China. Maybe it is just me (probably just me), but I can't seem to find a name for these types of shops. The ones I normally see will have a given name, and sometimes the English word 'bakery' written above the area. When I approach what I would think of a bakery, I normally see a sign that has the Chinese characters 蛋糕 near the entrance, but I don't know what this catagory of store is called in Chinese. Can someone help? Maybe 蛋糕店? seems like a fitting word, but I would prefer to learn the correct one rather than simply guessing.

Anyhow, thanks.

George

Posted on: For the Love of Pale Skin

Mr. Trendy, Makes sense to me! The idea that if an ugly woman has white skin may attract men would convince a woman to purchase this type of product would be 'the power of culture'..

Posted on: For the Love of Pale Skin

At first, I thought that he may be referring to Liliang in Yunnan province, but then I went back and listened to the lesson again and realized that it could not be. I suspect you are referring to the sentence that begins at 9:14? If so, I don't know either.

Posted on: You talking about me?

Hey guys.... Here are the example sentences for this lesson (I hope I made no mistakes);

你在说我吗 ni3zai4shuo1wo3ma

我们没说你，我们在说Amber wo3menmei2shuo1ni3,wo3menzai4shuo1Amber

我们在说新年去哪里玩 wo3menzai4shuo1xin1nian2qu4na3li3wan2

我们在说篮球 wo3menzai4shuo1lan2qiu2

我们再说老板 wo3menzai4shuo1lao3ban

我跟朋友在一起的时候，经常说文学 wo3gen1peng2youzai4yi1qi3deshi2hou4,jing1chang2shuo1wen2xue2

我跟朋友在一起的时候，经常说衣服wo3gen1peng2youzai4yi1qi3deshi2hou4,jing1chang2shuo1yi1fu

我们说女孩子 and 体育 wo3menshuo1nv3hai2zi and ti3yu4

... 说曹操，曹操到 shuo1cao2cao1, cao2cao1dao4

Hope this helps.

George