User Comments - andrew_c
andrew_c
Posted on: Cheering
July 3, 2008 at 7:24 PMIs it really such an insult? I don't feel particularly insulted being referred to as 安德鲁 instead of "Andrew" (as a native speaker of American English would pronounce it).
If it really were so insulting, people in the media would be obliged to learn to pronounce names in every major language correctly. Is that practical?
Posted on: Cheering
July 3, 2008 at 4:25 PMIt's not really fair to expect everyone to know how to pronounce Pinyin correctly. If my name were Zheng Jie and I wanted non-Chinese speakers to pronounce it as accurately as possible, I would definitely not write my name in Pinyin.
Posted on: Lao Wang's Office 1: A New Manager
June 26, 2008 at 11:36 AMI'm not sure if this was pointed out already or not. But, my wife overheard me practicing the expansion sentences and pointed out another play on words:
海待 sounds like 海带 which is a kind of sea weed. So one could hear the sentence as saying: "What's so impressive about sea turtles? A lot of them don't work hard and end up turning into sea weed."
It kind of makes sense in a way. Even if it's unintentional, I think that at the very least it's a good mnemonic.
Posted on: Lao Wang's Office 1: A New Manager
June 24, 2008 at 2:30 PMHi Goulniky,
I was confused about the translation "we've got your back" and happened to have asked my wife (she's a native speaker) that same question and she concurs with your translation of 我们支持你.
Posted on: Bangkok
June 22, 2008 at 8:54 PMReally interesting, thanks guys.
Posted on: Bangkok
June 22, 2008 at 3:20 PMSorry, this is only tangentially related to the lesson. Are people with Chinese ancestry in Thailand generally very assimilated compared to people with Chinese ancestry elsewhere in Southeast Asia?
By ancestry, one of my 同学 is half-Chinese, and my wife's coworker's girlfriend is full-Chinese. However, culturally they're both 100% Thai, they speak Thai and not Chinese, are more into Thai cuisine, call themselves Thai, etc.
On the other hand, whenever I meet Vietnamese people with Chinese ancestry they are still culturally very much Chinese. Needless to say that's also true of Singaporean/Malaysian people with Chinese ancestry, but I think the situation is probably not as comparable.
If anyone would be willing to elaborate on the situation underlying my observations, I'd be really interested! Thanks!
Posted on: Regional Accents Part II
June 10, 2008 at 3:46 AMI second wangming's suggestion. I'm particularly interested in hearing the Sichuan accent. I never hear it, even at the local 川菜厅...
Posted on: Using ChinesePod
June 5, 2008 at 11:51 AMWhat does 他 contribute to the expansion sentence: 这几天我收集了很多有关他的资料。 Thanks for all the help.
Posted on: Using ChinesePod
June 4, 2008 at 11:34 AMWoops, sorry for not being specific. When I put my mouse over these two characters in the fifth sentence, the english translation that pops up is the one that says date. My vocabulary list has the same translation.
Posted on: Hungry Traveler: Macao
July 5, 2008 at 10:30 PMI have a question regarding one of the supplemental生词. Is the name for Portugal totally a phonetic translation, and it's just a coincidence that Porto is famous for 葡萄酒? Or is it one of those translations which is both phonetic and based on meaning?