User Comments - TomMangione

Posted on: Buying Diapers

You could definitely translate this as "let's have another" or "let's have another drink".

As this is an elementary lesson, I decided to translate the sentence a bit more literally to show what the Chinese is doing.

Personally, I could see myself saying "Let's drink another glass", but only if I were talking about something specifically sold by the glass (like wine for example).

Posted on: Chinese Universities

You are correct. Literally, the sentence could be translated as "What schools do you plan to test for?" It's been rendered the way you see it in the translation to make it more natural sounding.

Posted on: Elevator Emergency

One way to think about the difference between 怎么会 and 怎么回事 is that 怎么会 is in reference to something that the speaker already has knowledge of, while 怎么回事 is in reference to something that is unknown to the speaker.

If you hear a window smash and run to see what's the matter, you'd probably run in and say 怎么回事? (or 怎么了?), not knowing what had happened. If you see someone smash the window, you might say something like 你怎么会打碎窗户?

Posted on: So Many Airport Fees

It should be "invite an ayi". The translation has been corrected!

Posted on: Long Time No See!

怎么样 (zěnme yàng) is used to talk about the status or quality of a thing. Depending on what thing it's used with, it can mean both "How are things?" and "How about?"

For example, something like 你怎么样？(nǐ zěnme yàng?) literally means "what is the status of things with regards to you". So in the lesson, it's translated simply as "How are things?" The often heard phrase 最近怎么样？(zuìjìn zěnme yàng?, lit. "what is the status with recent times?") could also be rendered in this way.

As for "how about", 怎么样 can also be paired with nouns to inquire about their quality. Like 晚饭 (wǎnfàn, dinner), you might say 晚饭怎么样？or "How was your dinner?" or maybe "How about that dinner?"

I hope this helps to clarify.

Posted on: Annual Meeting Raffle

The spelling error has been corrected!

Posted on: Annual Meeting Raffle

You're correct. The sentence was translated incorrectly. For the sentence to mean "I've heard that the most recent historical drama is very popular", there would have to be a 的 between 最近 and 古装剧.

The translation has been changed. Thanks!

Posted on: Making Soup

1. John's correct. 开水 should be translated as 'boiled water' and not 'to boil water'. The entry in the Supplementary Vocab has been changed!

2. 带 could equally be translated as 'bring' in this sentence.

3. The meaning of 坐 in this sentence would be clear to a native speaker. The word 坐 can mean 'to sit' and 'to ride' (a bus, train, etc.) depending on the context. Since in the first clause of the sentence the speaker is talking about being able to get off at the next station, its pretty clear that sentence has something to do some kind of transportation transfer, so 'to ride' is a better fit than 'to sit'.

Thanks for your comments!

Posted on: Don't Spank the Kid

The typo has been fixed! Thanks!

Posted on: The Wives of Gay Men

Hey all! In defense of the translation, John and I discussed how exactly to translate the "beards" lines in question. As has already been noted, a literal translation of the sentences would lose the word play between the words 同性恋 ('homosexual') and 共同 ('common' or 'together'), while one that retained it would veer from what the text is literally saying.

We felt that for an upper intermediate level lesson veering from the text on these lines would be appropriate as the Chinese in them is pretty straight forward. The idea was between the translation, the annotations and the learners' current understanding of Chinese, they'd be able to figure out everything that was going on, literally and otherwise.