User Comments - auntie68
auntie68
Posted on: Regional Accents Part I
April 22, 2008 at 3:06 AMHee hee. Great lesson. My beloved Hakka (ke4jia1; 客家) grandmother, who spoke no English, used to communicate with me, her English-speaking granddaughter using a mixture of the simplest Mandarin words she could think of, with a few helpful Cantonese words thrown in if it looked like the Mandarin wasn't doing the trick. All in a heavy Hakka accent of course. "喜欢部喜欢？“ (xi3huan1 bu4 xi3huan1; "Do you like it?") sounded like "xi3fan1 bu4 xi3fan1?". God bless my Hakka grandmother.
Posted on: Choosing a Chinese Name and Safety
April 22, 2008 at 2:04 AMlujiaojie, thank you so much! I agree with you that 玉仁 is a bit ambiguous, gender-wise. My primary school Chinese teachers really didn't like the name; there was one who used to deliberately change it to "仁玉" during the 点名 (dian3ming2; roll-call), EVERY morning!
Posted on: Choosing a Chinese Name and Safety
April 22, 2008 at 1:48 AMDear lujiaojie, I have a delicate question for you. Please don't be shy to answer it frankly! Did my parents accidentally give me a Chinese name that is back-to-front? I am female, my personal name is 玉仁 (yu4ren2). Neither parent could speak any Mandarin, let alone read Chinese characters. I am told that the name was chosen by my mother's father, who was highly literate in Classical Chinese (he actually was preparing for the exam to become "官" before switching to engineering). I think my name is back-to-front because nearly everybody I meet (including many of my primary school teachers!) tell me that my name is incorrect, it should be 仁玉. Thank you so much for clearing this up for me. Even if my name is wrong, I am happy with it because it was chosen by my grandfather.
Posted on: Ping Pong Nation
April 20, 2008 at 11:35 PMFor me, "民族尊严" ("national dignity") was the most striking new vocab in this lesson. It stopped me in my tracks. To an English-speaking mind, "national dignity" is less of an everyday concept than, say, "patriotism" (爱国主义 ; ai4guo2zhu3yi4), which sounds more neutral to me. It's so hard to find the proper words to frame what I am trying to say! I guess what I am struggling to say is that this particular combination of words -- "national dignity" -- is sufficiently remote from my everyday thought, as to accidentally touch off unwarranted associations with words such as "nationalism", or even "chauvinism". I mean, I simply can't imagine any mainstream German (or English or French etc) politician using "national dignity" in any slogan! After all, the seeds of German military aggression were laid during the Weimar Republic precisely by appeals to national dignity, at a time when the burden of WWI reparations had left many Germans with a definite feeling that they were a "被压迫的民族". Ditto for the Japan that was sliding towards the Pacific War during approximately the same period. Please don't misunderstand my intent, I am not being critical of China or her "peaceful rise" in any way. But I think it's worth exploring what Chinese people understand by such terms as 民族尊严, in order to understand the hearts of Chinese people.
Posted on: Ping Pong Nation
April 19, 2008 at 2:14 AMHere is a nice page on the history and origins of table tennis/ Ping-Pong, courtesy of the International Table Tennis Federation: http://www.ittf.com/museum/history.html Sounds like "Ping-Pong" was an an English word/name first?
Posted on: Ping Pong Nation
April 19, 2008 at 1:12 AMDear changye, I am wiping tears (of laughter) from my eyes because of the "Matrix Ping Pong" clip. Good thing I didn't have a sip of coffee in my mouth when I opened the clip, because my keyboard is not waterproof. Will try again to open the 福原爱 clip. It sounds like she is very much cherished and respected both in her native Japan, as well as in China, the Ping Pong Nation. Thanks again.
Posted on: What is a Chengyu?
April 19, 2008 at 12:32 AMHi hitokiri6993, I'm afraid I'm not changye, but I'll have a go at answering your question. I believe there are two meanings of 重 depending on whether it is pronounced as zhong4 ("important", "heavy") or chong2 ("repeated" or "from the beginning, again" or "stacked"): As zhong4: 重视 zhong4shi4 重量 zhong4liang4 重大 zhong4da4 看重 kan4zhong4 As chong2: 重复 chong2fu4 重新 chong2xin1 重考 chong2kao3 重叠 chong2die2 万重山 wan4chong2shan1 重重困难 chong2chong2 kun4nan
Posted on: What is a Chengyu?
April 18, 2008 at 12:59 PMDon't worry, I'm cool. You're welcome, that was a really good lesson ("A Jealous Friend"), exactly on point for you. And the voice actors were really brilliant, too!
Posted on: What is a Chengyu?
April 18, 2008 at 12:43 PMHi hitokiri6993, I think this one was "done" in the intermediate lesson, "Jealous Friend" (or something like that). Can't say if it's a 成语, but I understand the meaning to be: "favour (重) [male-female relationship], neglect or despise (轻）[relationship with friends]". It conveys the idea of forgetting your close, dear friends because you are distracted by a new love interest. That lesson also gave another example, if I recall correctly: 重男轻女, as in to favour boys over girls. Good luck!
Posted on: Regional Accents Part I
April 22, 2008 at 3:07 AMSorry for the typo: 喜欢不喜欢？