User Comments - auntie68
auntie68
Posted on: Getting Dressed
December 4, 2007 at 4:54 AMHello again everybody. For what it's worth, I think that 系 seems to have sense of "to do up" in the sense of closing something up. Eg. in my dictionary, the example sentence is "把衣服的扣子系上" ("do up the buttons“). Whereas with 打, the emphasis seems to be on making a knot. To tie a knot is 打结。Btw, in my mixed-up Overseas Chinese family, we say "daa2neck1tie1" in Cantonese when we are in a code-switching mood. I have one more question for poor Amber: How do you say, "make a braid" in PRC Mandarin? In Cantonese, I have heard "comb a braid" (梳; shu1), but that could be mere slang. Thanks! And here is an OTT question, regarding input methods: When typing in ITABC, is there any way to speed up the predictive function by inputting the tone as well (to limit the search)? My ITABC suddenly began acting very strangely this morning, it seems to take me through many layers of exotic characters before I get to the common one I want. Maybe it "knows" that I finally reached the Advanced lesson on Chinese input methods. Thanks so much!
Posted on: Give Me a Kiss
November 25, 2007 at 5:54 AMIn the Cantonese dialect, there is a very graphic slang term for kissing -- "jyut jyut" (literally, "suck suck") -- which is used when you are winding somebody up by sounding artificially coy/innocent. I wonder whether Mandarin speakers ever use "吮吮“ (shun3 shun3) in the same way? Just curious -- Auntie
Posted on: Give Me a Kiss
November 24, 2007 at 4:33 AMHello changye 老师。Oops, now I have to confess: That dog isn't mine, he's actually an unusual client of mine (freelance portrait photography). This Auntie thinks dogs look cute, but she wouldn't even begin to know how to care for one! It was my first "pet" shoot, quite a shock for me because my usual clients don't have their faces combed during a shoot! I wish you and Patricia a happy weekend! P/s you are right, this one was a linguist. Because he is a miniature schnauzer -- champion barker. He yapped so much that my ears were ringing after the shoot (normally only my eyes are tired).
Posted on: Give Me a Kiss
November 24, 2007 at 2:26 AMHello changye. Do you know that famous Shanghai song, 给我一个吻“？ ("Give me a Kiss") Try singing it to Patricia and see what she does, she sounds like such a clever dog. Happy weekend!
Posted on: Romance in the Beauty Pageant
November 18, 2007 at 11:55 PMDear changye老师, thanks again, that article really hits the nail on the head! It also turned my morning coffee into an unscheduled Chinese lesson, with me flipping industriously through my dictionary for once, instead of goofing in some F1 news site. Keeping in mind your wise point about "the who" being a key to whether it's safe (or not) to describe oneself as having 主见, I see that Wen Jiabao (!) was the speaker. Btw, I like the way that Wen Jiabao juxtaposed this quality with 温和 ("Although people usually think of me as being 温和, I'm actually 很有主见，信念，敢负责任..."), softening the strong effect of the words in a rather nice way. Thank you!
Posted on: Romance in the Beauty Pageant
November 18, 2007 at 12:07 PMAnd thank you for the kind welcome!
Posted on: Romance in the Beauty Pageant
November 18, 2007 at 12:05 PMDear changye 老师, thank you for riding to the rescue once again! My only lingering question is: Can Ember say -- safely -- of herself that she 很有主见? Would you dare to say that of yourself? Just wondering...
Posted on: Romance in the Beauty Pageant
November 18, 2007 at 12:50 AMDear wildyaks, I think you're right about 单纯 meaning "simple and unsophisticated in a positive sense", as opposed to "naive". In fact, I believe it even has connotations of "pure"/"clean"/"innocent" (vs slutty or disingenuous). Hmm... this tells you rather a lot about what many Chinese men are hard-wired to value in a woman! In my country, Singapore, if you were to ask ten blue-collar Chinese men to try to explain the unique advantages of mail-order brides from rural Vietnam (despite the near-total language barrier), maybe eight of them wouldn't take even three seconds to say, "Vietnamese girls are pure. And obedient, too." Hmm...
Posted on: Romance in the Beauty Pageant
November 18, 2007 at 12:21 AMHello Ember. Hang in there, your first question is a difficult one, and I think it might take a changye (or Henning or Connie) to answer it properly. But just to keep you going until help comes, I have the feeling that it would be very hard to express what you describe without sounding arrogant or pushy. The strongest expression I can think of, that is reasonably safe, is "tan3bai2" (坦白）。However, I can't imagine a Chinese person using that to describe himself or herself, rather than a third person, as it would be self-praise. If you want to convey that you feel very strongly about a specific cause or principle, perhaps you could stress that it 很有意思. I think that seems to say a lot more than its literal meaning in English. Good luck!
Posted on: Getting Dressed
December 4, 2007 at 5:00 AMOh, sorry, I've just answered my own question about ITABC. God, I'm dense. I was hitting the "return" key instead of the space bar. Now the predictive function is giving me the most common characters first. 对不起!