User Comments - aert
aert
Posted on: Are you OK?
November 3, 2007 at 10:20 AMHi Wolson Thanks for your suggestion. It is so simple that it has the ring of truth. hao3 ren2 means a good person as such, without singling out any particular quality, so you're probably right. But I'm no judge here. In the first expression you learn, viz. ni3 hao3 the original meaning is not "are you a nice person?'.(meaning 3) , so I don't know how the slogan would sound to a real speaker of Chinese. With language, one never knows...
Posted on: I'm bored
November 2, 2007 at 6:00 PMHello everybody Browsing in the Discussion sections I have occasionally seen tempers rise, but never like here! All because of one critical remark. Only once I made one myself, but this was because the character biao1 "mark, sign,etc" was printed with the hand-radical instead of the tree one. (How can there be such a font?) Anyhow, I agree with Ingmar that this Pandora (one r, please!) box can be closed.
Posted on: Are you OK?
November 2, 2007 at 2:18 PMAs always, the newbie lesson and accompanying discussion (what a brilliant idea to have the latter!) is instructive. The notion "OK" or "all right" can mean one of three things: (1) that no bad things are the matter with you, (2) that you are not in want of any good things, (3) that you yourself belong to the good things. (1) is the case of the lesson. (2) is the case eg. when you offer a guest more food and this is declined."No, thanks, I'm fine" would be the standard answer. (3) was the case in the slogan "I'm OK, you're OK, too", in the late 1960's, the years of fraternity and flower power (only you had to be under 30, which let me out). I mistakenly thought this was the idea of the slogan of the Special Olympics (see Discussion to lesson 0679 New York City), but here abilities and not the persons as such are meant. This leaves the question what the "fraternal" slogan would be in Chinese. All I can come up with from dictionaries is ke3 jie1 shou4 de (too long for a slogan) or he2 ge2 (ke3 ai4 seems too strong). Anyway, it should be the opposite of ying1 shou4 qian3 ze2, and applicable to people.
Posted on: Cold Will Kill You
November 1, 2007 at 2:43 PMI think worrying too much about your health is bad for your health.
Posted on: A Ghost Outside
October 31, 2007 at 8:30 PMHi Shanyisheng, goedemorgen/-middag/avond (depending on where you are), I want to explain "nuchter" to those who don't know Dutch. I think in the sense you mean the closest English translation would be "level-headed". Like English "sober", it means in addition the opposite of "drunk", but you could not use it to translate "a sober dress", etc. On the other hand, "een nuchtere maag" is in English an empty stomach. The connotations of "nuchter" are mostly negative: "not given to flights of fancy or excessive enthusiasms, "not high-strung", etc. These characteristics plus the fact that due to geographical position and lack of natural resources we are a trading nation explain why we are (or used to be?) called "the Chinese of the West".
Posted on: Resisting Relocation
October 30, 2007 at 3:14 PMHi, Xiaohu I spent some time on the middle character of your tai4 biao1 chun3, but didn't find it. It should have been written with the tree radical, not the hand one. I am learning Chinese outside the environment, and mainly to read it.
Posted on: 特殊奥运会
October 30, 2007 at 12:57 PMPPSS I know there has been a lesson (I forget which) where this question comes up in the discussion. But all that was way over my head.
Posted on: 特殊奥运会
October 30, 2007 at 12:47 PMWhy so few comments to this lesson? Is the subject jin4ji4? I found it very useful and interesting. The same goes for Connie's and Changye's comments. Thanks to everybody! PS zhàngài is ambiguous and needs the apostrophe (2nd and 4th tones are the only ones I can type without using numerals at the end, and the dictionary does not accept the latter. If there is by now a SIMPLE way to convert numeral to diacritic notation I would appreciate a tip to that effect. If not, I can ask a neighbor to install some font. I hate to spend time on computer skills rather than Chinese).
Posted on: New York City
October 29, 2007 at 9:16 AMHi, Clayroup So there is only one slogan after all. Thanks for clearing up everybody's confusion and for teaching me yet another meaning of xing2. It just goes to show how useful the Discussion secion is.
Posted on: A Jizhou Child's Warning
November 3, 2007 at 7:30 PMHi Jenny and John Thanks for another fine lesson! This one was particularly useful for me because I had lost the thread of the story, had paid little attention to names, didn't know A. from B., man's name from woman's name, etc. If you aimed at confusion, you certainly succeeded. I had to re-read and listen again to the earlier episodes before everything was clear. Good exercise! I am looking forward to the next instalment.