User Comments - aeflow
aeflow
Posted on: Death by Ninja
September 12, 2007 at 7:17 PMNinjas learn to say: "Hasta la vista, baby" SpanishSense pays off Goods arriving soon? In a manner of speaking Sooner than you think
Posted on: Death by Ninja
September 12, 2007 at 6:52 PMIn keeping with the Japanese theme, I think Peter deserves a little memorial haiku tribute: The nail that sticks out is soon hammered by ninjas Manager Li laughs New management style: Customer satisfaction is overrated You find out too late It's not prices we're slashing Nothing personal
Posted on: Death by Ninja
September 12, 2007 at 4:39 PMSadly, the voice actor who did the Peter character had to be written out of the series after holding out in a nasty contract dispute. Don't believe the spin his agent put out about "creative differences" and "spending more time with his family", it was all about ego and salary. Man, you should have seen those contract riders... "Presidential Suite" hotel accomodations? I don't think so. The catering section alone ran to six pages. Let me tell you, people have long memories in the tight-knit Chinese language podcast industry. Folks do lunch and word gets around. Cross the wrong person and you're history. He'll never work in this language again. He'll be lucky to find bit parts in Volapük podcasts with tinny RealAudio 1.0 codecs.
Posted on: Lili and Zhang Liang 14: Seeking Comfort
September 11, 2007 at 12:27 AMThe various uses of 到底 (as I understand it): You're watching a TV soap opera with your friends. In a season-ending cliffhanger episode, Lili storms out the door after arguing with Zhang Liang, and the credits roll. You argue endlessly with your friends: does this mean they've broken up? 他们到底分手了没有？The TV show producers deliberately left it vague, that's why it's a cliffhanger. Some argue yes they did, others say no, it was just an argument and they'll make up and stay together. [This is the "getting to the bottom of it" meaning, used in question sentences] Next season, it turns out that they did in fact break up. You're describing the show and its characters to another friend who's never watched it before. You say, they swore they would love each other to the end (爱你到底), but they kept arguing and fighting, and after going through all kinds of ups and downs and twists and turns, in the end they broke up. 到底分手了. [The first is the "to the end" meaning, eg 支持到底, 进行到底, which comes at the end of a sentence. The second is the "in the end", "finally" meaning] Then you add, it's no surprise they broke up, after all they were both young and presumably immature. 到底还是年轻啊 [This is the "after all", "in the final analysis" meaning, similar to 毕竟. Sometimes it's 说到底] I could be wrong, after all I'm just a student (我到底只是个学生).
Posted on: Lili and Zhang Liang 14: Seeking Comfort
September 10, 2007 at 11:00 PMLantian, In 你到底怎么了, I think the 到底 just adds a "getting to the bottom of this" tone to the question. As in: A: What's the matter? B: Oh... nothing... A: [realizes that something is indeed the matter, and wants to get to the bottom of it, to get B to spill all the details, asks again using 到底] In the dialog, Lili first says her mood is not very good (我心情不太好) and Liu Xiang asks what's wrong (怎么了). She replies by saying she can't laugh anymore (笑不出来), and that's when Liu Xiang asks more insistently (你到底怎么了), and then Lili tells him that she broke up with Zhang Liang. Chinese-English dictionaries usually translate 到底 as "in the end; after all; in the final analysis". This only indirectly addresses the notion of using it in a question, for instance in pushing past a vague answer or incomplete information and pressing for a more clearcut or deeper answer. The Xiandai Hanyu Cidian gives a definition for 到底 that more directly addresses this: 用在问句里,表示深究 (深究 = "investigate thoroughly"). Some examples: 你到底爱不爱我 "do you love me? [yes or no; don't give me a vague answer]" 你到底爱谁 "who do you love? [her or me; make up your mind] 他们到底在隐瞒着什么？"what is it that they're hiding?" [hmm, something's fishy, let's get to the bottom of this] A和B到底分手了没有？"have A and B broken up?" [I keep reading stories about this celebrity couple in the tabloids -- what's the scoop?] Overall, I think the use of 到底 in the lesson dialog is pretty much standard as per its dictionary definition, nothing particularly unusual about it. There's no connection to 道理.
Posted on: Parking Lot Rage
September 10, 2007 at 6:45 PMRegarding 才, according to a couple of dictionaries, the 呢 at the end is very often associated with this usage of it. In other words, 你才笨呢! is perhaps more natural than just 你才笨!
Posted on: Introducing the Fix
September 8, 2007 at 1:24 PMmatthiask, The sample sentences used in the Fix are invariably the same as the sentences used in the Expansion section for that lesson. So you can use that as a reference for vocabulary.
Posted on: A Chinese-Style Contradiction
September 8, 2007 at 3:06 AMMore on 自相矛盾: http://imandarinpod.com/hoola/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=90&Itemid=33 (intermediate level; all Chinese, no English; transcript and podcast)
Posted on: Beauty Pageant for Bloggers
September 6, 2007 at 4:38 PMOne of the expansion sentences is: 工作跟考大学没有什么关系吧。 That 吧 certainly doesn't fit any notion of uncertainty or conjecture. Perhaps it's the "mild imperative" 吧, adding a connotation of "snap out of your delusional thinking" ?
Posted on: Death by Ninja
September 14, 2007 at 5:40 PMUh, first sentence in the Expansion page is a bit careless with the pronouns...