User Comments - bababardwan

Posted on: Essential Math Terms

haha, you're on a roll. Jiayou :)

Posted on: Taking the Train to Beijing

"so frequently impossible to get the 'correct' translation"

...I wouldn't be too worried about getting the exact same translation. What's important is that you got the same meaning. Often there is no exact correct translation. The other thing is word for word direct literal translations often sound unnatural and confuse some folk as Chinese expresses things differently. I think the above examples you've given are as good a translation as any. Yeah, the subject can depend on context which is lacking there, but don't let that worry you. As long as you could see that in many cases it would have been "we" for example ,but if you spot "I" working just as well then that's fine.

Posted on: Shopping for the Husband

"I am my own person, goddamitt. An individual."

haha, very good mate. An individual with a good sense of humour too I see. I was wondering if Tal would appear to express a similar outrage, haha.

6 points well made. For what it's worth, with regards to point 6, this is what I thought you were getting at in the first place and I also agree with you. But my point was that I don't know that that was clear [for example I don't think bodawei interpreted it that way until later] and I think it's this unclearness that leads to people strongly disagreeing when in fact they have 2 different things in mind that they are talking about.

Personally I celebrate both our common humanity as well as our individual differences. I think they're both add to the richness of our experience of life. As lovely and charming as Uncle Arthur is, we don't want everyone to be exactly like him. But yes, I agree with the big picture stuff that you're talking about, and as mundane as our mate finds it, I think it's worth iterating on occasion.

Posted on: Shopping for the Husband

"a general statement that made perfect sense to me"

..yes, I'm sure it made perfect sense to you mate. My point is that everyone will have their own interpretation of it that may also make perfect sense to them, but it is too vague, too unclear to know if everyone was going to be interpreting it the same way.

Posted on: Shopping for the Husband

No worries mate. Yeah, only the first paragraph was up when I replied...as you realised, we had posted at the same time. Thanks for clearing that up. hehe, don't know anything about Shaoxing hats but I'll take your word for it. I do like hats in general anyway.

Posted on: Shopping for the Husband

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Posted on: Shopping for the Husband

"I'm sure you don't need me to remind, was Beijing's official English-language slogan for the 2008 Games"

yes, of course I remember. Sounds very nice, but I still don't know the specifics of the dream. But I get the drift, or should I say the sentiment of it. Perhaps it's something like let us be unified in our purposes, strive together in peace, for we are one, a united world something like that.

"I hope that adds so specificity to my 'we are all the same' claim?"

...well I guess you've expanded on your thoughts a bit. But it seems to me that you're placing more of a value judgement on the things that make us different as individuals and completely negating them [putting them into the insignificant category] and perhaps by expansion, differences in our cultures, and bundling it up all nicely into the things that we have in common as being what counts. That's fine [though it sounds a little simplistic for mine], I wasn't commenting on what was important or not, just stating that on different levels there are things that are the same and things that are different, so it depended on what was being referred to as to whether one could agree or disagree. I'd still say it's pretty vague though, sorry. I guess I don't overly go for sweeping generalisations [and I'm coming at this more from that angle than any penchant for the value of individuals. But it's big picture/ little picture stuff...once again depends what you're talking about]. Hehe, you definitely are starting to sound like tal. It reminds me strongly of a specific comment he made once. Anyhow, all good stuff mate. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Posted on: Shopping for the Husband

for mine, the trouble with an argument like this is that it is so poorly defined. What is statement like "we are all the same" really trying to say? I mean I only have to look at the bloke next to me to see that we are not all the same. Every person is different. Even identical twins raised in the same culture, the same family, same environment will have some differences. We all have differences in our genetic makeup [except identical twins], differences in our physical characteristics, differences in our personalities, differences in our beliefs, our world views, or aspirations. But we also have many things in common on a fundamental level. We are all humans, feel pain, need love, etc etc. So yes, there is so much about us all that is the same. This reminds me a little of the nature nurture argument and also the recent adoption lesson. Adopt a Chinese baby and raise it in American culture and you will see what the dna has prescribed and what the culture has prescribed. The other trouble with an argument like this is that it is so black and white. Just take one thing, say physical characteristics. We are all different...that's how we recognise an individual so easily..it's immediately apparent...and yet we all have so many physical characteristics in common....it's also immediately apparent that we're all humans.

Ties, belts, wallet, jeans belong to culture, not our fundamental humanness , but this I guess was the joking part of what you said.

"One dream"

...well what dream is that? I'm sure we all have a lot of things we dream of in common [eg love, security, success], but there are also a lot of differences [ not everyone dreams of being fluent in Chinese..shock horror!, ...our worldviews may differ]. So I think this is a statement you could either agree with or disagree with depending on what you took it to mean.

Posted on: Thanksgiving Turkey

谢给火鸡节快乐【happy thanksgiving day] !!

Posted on: Teaching Japanese Go

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