User Comments - aprilwhite

Posted on: Lili and Zhang Liang 14: Seeking Comfort

I know 安慰 from the lyrics to the song 我会好好的 (I'll Be Fine) by Cyndi Wang (王心凌)

我 要 你 默 默 走,  不 回 头
Wo Yao Ni Mo Mo Zou,  Bu Hui Tou
I want you to walk away silently. Don't look back

我 会 清 楚 明 白 你 要 的 是 什 么
Wo Hui Qing Chu Ming Bai Ni Yao De Shi She Me
I'll clearly understand what you really want

不 许 勉 强 的 安 慰 我,  说 奇 怪 的 理 由
Wu Xi Mian Qiang De An Wei Wo,  Shuo Qi Guai De Li You
You don't need to force yourself to comfort me or tell me strange reasons

http://cipto-kh.blogspot.com/2007/06/wo-hui-hao-hao-de-cyndi-wang-xin-ling_07.html

Posted on: Lili and Zhang Liang 11: Confiding in a Conniving Friend

The end of the lesson sounded as though it was going to cue the chorus of my favorite Jolin song (檸檬草的味道):

我們都沒錯只是不適合我要的我現在才懂得
快樂是我的不是你給的寂寞要自己負責

Cool.

Posted on: Lili and Zhang Liang 10: The Other Woman

motti, The voice reading the expansion also uses non-standard pronunciation but, hey, high speed and non-standard pronunciation are what you can expect if you talk to anybody from China, especially the conversation is taking place in China. I do think Chinese people are polite enough to slow down and speak clearly when they are speaking to foreigners but if you want to understand, say, what people are saying on TV then that's how fast it'll be.

Posted on: Lili and Zhang Liang 5: Love Letter

I'm answering my own question, in a way: I just listened to a recording of Cyndi Wang in concert (as opposed to on her album) and I heard her pronounce 甜言蜜语 as tian2yan2mi4yu3.  I don't know what to make of it.

Posted on: Interviewing an Ayi

For question 7 of Exercise 1 both answers are being marked wrong.

Posted on: Internet Slang

I've seen the letter G used to refer to chicken at a restaurant here in Taiwan.

Posted on: Lili and Zhang Liang 6: An Old Flame

Doesn't 以为 mean "suppose"?  In exrecise 2 it matches with "to (mistakenly) recognize" and "suppose" isn't even one of the choices. 

Posted on: Lili and Zhang Liang 5: Love Letter

In the song Honey, Cyndi Wang pronounces 甜言蜜语 as tian2yan2mi4mi5.  Did she say it incorrectly or is this another way of saying the same thing?

Posted on: Is China Scary?

Oh, by the way, Xiaophil, when did I ever say that I was against the U.S, being involed in any war?  All I was doing was comparing the U.S. and China on a point by point basis to see how both countries could be considered scary.  It's a question of point of view.  I didn't make a single value judgement.  I especially didn't say the civil right movement was a bad thing: nor did I say that giving Uighers the right to protest in Xinjiang would be a bad thing.  I was making an analogy between the two issues.

Posted on: Is China Scary?

xiaophil,

Sorry, I was just responding to the most recent posts.

The question was "Is China scary?' and there seems to be some assumption that saying "Yes" is being anti-Chinese.  Similarly, when people like the British or French criticize the U.S. they are accused of being anti-American.  The fact is that China and the U.S. are both big countries but the U.S. is probably scarier only in the sense that it has been involved in a lot of wars over the past two hundred years.

As for the war of 1812, have you ever heard of the term "Mainfest Destiny"?

"Manifest Destiny is a term that was used in the 19th century to designate the belief that the United States was destined, even divinely ordained,^[1] to expand across the North American continent, from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific Ocean. Sometimes Manifest Destiny was interpreted so broadly as to include the eventual absorption of all North America: Canada, Mexico, Cuba and Central America. Advocates of Manifest Destiny believed that expansion was not only ethical but that it was readily apparent ("manifest") and inexorable ("destiny"). Although initially used as a catch phrase to inspire the United States' expansion across the North American continent, the 19th century phrase eventually became a standard historical term."

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_Destiny

The idea that territory "manifestly" belongs to your country is a familiar one (Iraq vis-a-vis Kuwait, Argentina vis-a-vis The Falkland Islands, Russia vis-a-vis Chechnya, Israel vis-a-vis East Jerusalem, China vis-a-vis Tibet, Serbia vis-a-vis Kosovo) and it rarely ever ends well.