User Comments - aert
aert
Posted on: Hard of Hearing
November 17, 2007 at 7:32 PMThe Paris drivers soon found a way around the ban on horns. They would slam on the brakes instead. The scream of tires is much more alarming than any horn..
Posted on: Forget It
November 15, 2007 at 3:35 PMSorry again, that should be qu4 ba. Btw, Du writes ba1, but he generally ignores the neutral tone. And I forgot to congratulate Jenny. Prosit, Jenny!
Posted on: Forget It
November 15, 2007 at 2:55 PMThanking everybody for their interesting comments, I'll try to contribute my bit. As to zou3 kai1, in the JiZhou lesson to which a link is given, it is used without any overtones, because it tells someone NOT to leave because it's dangerous. It occurs also also in 0683 Scary Clown, repeated. It is possible that the mere request to remove oneself from the scene may come over as impolite, as may have been the case with the street vendor. I looked up the strongest expression in Dutch I could think of for "go away!" in my Dutch-Chinese dictionary (Beijing 2003), viz. "donder op" = jian4 gui3 qu1 ba, but dr.Du's Chinese-Dutch dictionary translates this as the equivalent of "drop dead!", so it may just mean something like "go to the devil" With gun3 Du gives two imperatives: gun3 chu1 qu4 and gun3 dan4 (with the dan4 of several other disapproving expressions).
Posted on: Romance in the Beauty Pageant
November 13, 2007 at 10:15 PMhi everybody The comments to this lesson are as interesting as the lesson itself, both on language and on humor. The word naive came via French to most European languages, and French inherited it from Latin nativus "innate, natural". In French it originally had the meaning "sans finesse" ie plenty of nature, little nurture. Such words can develop in different ways, eg in English childish vs. childlike, only the first one of which is clearly negative. In the lanuages I know naive has usually a mildly negative flavor, you are a bit patronising when you call somebody naive, implying you yourself are better acquainted with the ways of the world. Since the guy is chatting the girl up, Wildyaks' suggestions fit better, and in one of the Expansion sentences his translation "simple" is used. -- Curiously, the word right before it, xiang3 fa3, poses the reverse problem. I don't find it in my dictionaries as a noun, also not in phrases beginning with you3, but "your own opinions" or "a mind of your own" seem alright. But in one sentence it is translated as "opinionated". This also means that the speaker knows better, but also that he is dogmatic and conceited. Here I doubt if this negative meaning is correct. If so, how would you say "he has a mind of his own" ? As to humor, I am interested in the general subject and of course also in the jokes themselves. Thanks for your references, Changye. I appreciated especially the first. As to the OJSimpson ones, I found them a little weak in comparison to the "sick jokes" of he mid-20th century. The one about the ounces of brains is an old German one where those of the East Frisians were the most expensive. Jokes, like fairy tales, travel all over, and you never know where and why they will fall flat, as Lostinasia found. Well, there are people who laugh three times at every joke: (1) when it is told, (2) when it is explained and (3) later, when they finally understand.
Posted on: Romance in the Beauty Pageant
November 12, 2007 at 10:42 PMhi Auntie My computer guru duly read your suggestions, and I can now type a1 etc. as in regular pinyin, except for the letter ü. Things became difficult after the last "Options", which differed from yours. He'll try to sort it out and come again. I'll keep you informed.
Posted on: Romance in the Beauty Pageant
November 12, 2007 at 10:27 PMhi, Dutch and Flemish fellow-pupils of Chinesepod, het volgende is n.a.v. het bovenstaande. Een paar jaar geleden hoorde ik bij de Begische nieuwsberichten (Vlaams programma) dat de Belgenmoppen aan het verdwijnen waren, en dat er nu moppen over de Russen in opkomst waren. "Dus" -- zo eindigde de nieuwslezer -- "nu kunnen de Russen gebelgd en de Belgen gerust zijn.."
Posted on: Romance in the Beauty Pageant
November 12, 2007 at 10:12 PMRomance and true-love-with-a-question-mark may or may not be better than plastic surgery, but anyway the Chinese was as good as ever. Suggestions for future lessons (1) a situation or dialogue showing a couple just reaching the misunderstanding stage (as people in the public eye say when rumors start), (2) one about the technicalities of the divorce court. Or (3) one with an average but real Chinese news broadcast. Or (4) best of all, one with Chinese jokes. Is there a place in China that is the butt of jokes, as eg the Newfies in Canada, the Hamburgers and East Frisians in Germany? The next comment, a quotaton from the Belgian radio, must be in Dutch, because it contains a pun.
Posted on: Getting a Library Card
November 10, 2007 at 9:39 PMHi, Pulosm I had more or less the same experience as you in the Columbia University library in 1952. They didn.t ask me for a passport or a deposit, but for proof that I had medical insurance. I had no such insurance and was't going to take one out. Eventually I got my library pass, I don't remember how, probably asked to see the boss. Later I befriended an old professor who came from Vienna, where he was used to having the library staff at his beck and call. This is not the way things work in the egalitarian USA, so he had problems with the library all the time, which he asked me to sort out for him. Once his problem was as follows. A new two-volume edition of the Old Persion inscriptions had appeared. The first part contained photographs of the rock inscriptions and a transription, with translation and comments. The second part contained the dictionary. The Cataloguing department, seeing all those pictures, had assigned the first volume to the Fine Arts room, from which nothing may be taken out. The second volume went, as all dictionaries, to the Reference room, from which likewise nothing may be removed, so that the old man's problem was: how to get the pair on one and the same table in front of him. This one was easily solved by going "higher up". Btw, that word is "inappropriate" ie not fitting. There is also a word "malapropos" with the same meaning.
Posted on: 特殊奥运会
November 9, 2007 at 4:45 PMDear auntie Thanks a lot for your helpful suggestions. I had given up on it and didn't look at this page for a while, that's why I'm so late with this message. Next week my computer guru is coming, and I'll pass your information on to him, for if I start messing around with the computer (Windows XP) myself I am afraid of losing even the things it does for me as is.
Posted on: Hard of Hearing
November 18, 2007 at 10:40 AMHi Woodstock Don't worry, you're not the oldest (by 17 years). When in danger of jinxing yourself, touch wood.