User Comments - bababardwan

Posted on: Sympathy for the Farmers -- 悯农

Pete,

Yet another sterling job mate.You never disappoint.Once again great on so many levels.I particularly liked the way each grain of rice on the dinner plate represented a drop of a farmer's sweat.This imagery will really reinforce how important it is that we appreciate each and every morsel of food on our plates,and ponder these matters.Your analysis and breakdown is superb.Thanks for some insights into the radicals in the characters too.Very interesting.It's wonderful the way these poems make one reflect on this important issues in life.Thankyou.

Posted on: Hong Kong Visa Run

reigau,

lol.Great reply mate.You've obviously been in China a while too 'cos that's a very modest Chinesey answer,hehe.Great to pull out that quote which came up in that recent QW about 千万 and 一定 [thousand ,ten thousand and certainly].I need to start using more vocab that's come out in the lessons to reinforce it,so thanks for bringing out that one.Very aptly applied too.你是聪明，我的朋友。[you ,to be,clever,my friend].I've seen plenty of pics of the 长城 [Great Wall] and have a great desire to go,so does that count for anything in the heroism stakes,hehe? If you're efforts amount to miniature hero status then perhaps I could qualify as a nanohero otherwise known in Chinese as a nan han,难汉 ？

"Learning shared like this is such a pleasure folks right?"

对[correct],对，对，对，对，对。。。。。。。。。。

Posted on: Hong Kong Visa Run

reigau,

Sorry for my tardiness in thanking you for answering my question and this subsequent discussion.Very interesting.I'm always interested in finding out more about these characters and their breakdown.I like your "bows" so I think I'll give it a crack.*bows*,hehe.

You've gotta be happy with the:

"hero, outstanding person, British"

I'm not hearing any protest from you about this eh? hehe.

Posted on: Does it Have Bones?

rich,

Thanks mate for confirming what I suspected as I thought it would be viscous and,yeah I noticed that it just looked like an ordinary diameter straw,not the sort of larger bored one I've used when having the cheap thrill of sucking up the tapioca pearls while drinking pearl milk tea [bubble tea]:

As the resistance to flow is directly proportional to the viscosity and inversly proportional to the 4th power of the radius,such a small increase in straw diameter makes a big difference.I suppose it also depends on the diameter of the marrow cavity as to what size straw will suit.Do they ever have specially made straws for this purpose? But as resistance is also proportional to the length of the straw,I think the straw is obviously just an etiquette thing,and it would be easier to ditch it and just suck directly from the bone.This chap seems to have the idea here.

Actually,looking at that photo again,I think he is posing as the plate it's on looks too small and clean.I think the original plate is the larger one in the foreground.

Posted on: Does it Have Bones?

..yeah,I noticed that yesterday when I was typing 骨.When you type g..u..and then hit the space bar to get your choices I noticed the little box at the top was on the left hand side but then when you select it ,it types the character with the box on the right side.Interesting.Thanks changye.

miantiao,

I noticed that character 筋 yesterday also as it came up in 皮筋 for rubber band and I noticed the 筋 component meant muscle,so I presumed it was there for muscles stretchy characteristics like rubber bands.I was initially a tad surprised that it's turned up in a word meaning grissel,as the 筋 component representing muscle is actually the meat,but you do have grissel where muscle and bone meet,so that seems to make sense.Thanks for that mate.

Posted on: Does it Have Bones?

A reason some are reticent to 吃骨头[eat bones].

Interesting that the word for fish bones is completely different 鱼刺。

软骨。。soft+bones=cartilage

Some people commonly eat salmon bones,a good source of calcium.

Posted on: Does it Have Bones?

It looks like sucking out the marrow could take some effort as this guys straw is dry so far [unless he's just posing]:

Is it easier than it looks?

Are there any other cultural implications/beliefs such as health benefits?

Posted on: Broken, Busted, and Smashed

searching,rj,miantiao,

Thanks for your responses.

This radical... 穴...at the top of 空 seems to be doing front splits in the font I must have written it in,whereas it appears to be doing the side splits in the character Pete wrote....空.At least on my computer I can see the difference.Perhaps some computers don't display them differently.I'm not trying to split hairs here.It's just that sometimes these differences do mean I've chosen a similar but wrong character from the list of multiple choices from my input editor.Anyhow,thanks again;you've confirmed my suspicions that it is more of a computer related thingy rather than any significant difference.Same character basically.

Posted on: Broken, Busted, and Smashed

Interesting that mdbg gave me:

沙锅...sha1 guo1 ....casserole

沙....granule,sand

锅...pot

[so I thought it may also be referring to casserole pot]

and did not recognise Pete's:

砂锅...clay cooking pot

砂...sand/gravel

锅...pot

Yet google images certainly concurred with Pete's translation with 676,000 results,and my erroneous entry only 95,600.If 沙锅 is indeed referring to the casserole itself cooked in the pot and not the pot itself then I'll be eating out of Pete's any day.World economic crisis and all but hopefully not to the stage where eating sand casseroles is "luxury",hehe.Reminds me of the old Monty Python skit.

"And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you."

ps not questioning the translation.Just trying to learn where I'm going wrong here,and what the diff may be between these similar words.

Posted on: Broken, Busted, and Smashed

In this sentence:

空调坏了

..how come my kong1 looks like this:

空

and Pete's looks like:

空

They both seem to be correct according to mdbg.Is there a difference here? Am I right in presuming they are the same and it has something to do with fonts or input method or something?