User Comments - bababardwan

Posted on: Sign Here, Please

calkins,changye,and zhenlijiang

Thankyou for your helpful replies.Very interesting.

changye,

I was a tad dubious about:

"you can see both rising sun in the east and setting full moon in the west at the same time in the early morning, which means the start of a new day.

I guess this is the reason why 明 (sun + moon) has a derivative meaning "next" in Chinese."

...as this only happens around the time of full moon of course and not every day of the month.But perhaps you are right.However it does seem possible from what you are saying that the dawning of a new brightness then derived into the meaning next.Thanks also for pointing out the derivation of the character for ming as being from sun+moon,the two brightest celestial bodies.Perhaps moonlings could derive a character for bright based on ri4 and di4qiu2.

Posted on: Sign Here, Please

Pete,

Thanks heaps for explaining that.I'm starting to gain some insight into the characters but can anyone direct me to where I may learn more about how to recognise which part of the character is the radical,which part is the signific and which is the phonetic,etc ?

btw Pete,from what you've said above,does that not mean that 签字 would have been the better of the two to use in this podcast? I think of an autograph as something you get from a celebrity and a signature as applying to everything else,but perhaps others use these terms differently.I note that 签名 was also the word chosen in the Ellie lesson "Leaving luggage with the hotel".Perhaps this elevates all tourists to celebrity status?

I'm also interested in this character 明 which mainly seems to mean clear or bright,and they way it is added to a second character to get a new word.So in the supplementary vocab we have it in 明星 combining bright and star to basically mean star [I wonder what supernova is then?....I mean some stars aren't very bright at all....even when you take light pollution out of the equation which just makes it possible to see fainter ones you couldn't otherwise see and the faint ones become brighter...you'd think ming would be reserved for the brighter ones ]。We have it in 明白 clear and white...to be clear ,ie to understand.So this has led me to wonder about it's use in 明天 for tomorrow.I see ming can also mean next ,so that it just means next day.But I can't help but wonder if it was originally some ancient optimism that the next day would actually be a clear/bright day.

Posted on: Sign Here, Please

A few vocab questions:

What is the difference between 签名 and 签字 ? If they do mean the same thing,then are they used in different circumstances?

The di4 in 快递 looks a little like it has the 第 character for little brother as part of it's character.Is this like a pronunciation radical or something?

Posted on: I want coffee!

jjks

You need to indicate that the shang is neutral by the number 5 after it:

zao3shang5

I have verified that it accepts this as the correct answer in the first listen and type.

Posted on: 麻将风波

Pete,

Thanks mate.More great sayings.I love the imagery they both conjure up.Very funny.

The second one reminds me a little of Mammy from Gone with the Wind saying to Scarlet:

"You ain' nuthin' but a mule in hawse harness"

..[which she then went to expound beautifully ]

哈哈大笑

I wonder why mah jiang wasn't allowed in the park? I remember locals playing some game in Yamingshan NP north of Taipei when I was there ,but I don't think it was mah jong.

changye,

Let's hope this year sees your dog in leather 哈哈 .恭喜发财。

Posted on: Talking with Numbers

matt_c,

Great story.I like your spirit mate.At least with mobiles I presume you could just offer them a different number.When I was selling my last house,we had some Chinese come to look as prospective buyers and we were lucky enough to be number 8.I was aware of feng shui at the time also and as far as I could see there was nothing untoward and I thought we had 8 on our side.But it ended up being sold to someone else.But it must be hard selling your dwelling in China if the numbers are bad.Is it like the hotels here that don't have a 13th floor? ie do they skip the bad numbers?

Posted on: 麻将风波

Pete,

"天高，皇帝远-- Heaven is high, and the Emperor is far away."

There's nothing I love more than a good Chinese Proverb,and this one's a beauty..哈哈 Much better than the English equivalent [when the cat's away ,the mice will play ].Can you/you ge ren direct me to some more good 'uns?

Posted on: February Update

Well said davidtzau. All else is just fine tuning.

Posted on: Pregnancy Series 2: Pregnancy House Ar-rest

tvan,

A chook is a chicken.

Posted on: Swimming Pools and the Beijing Accent

changbiyuan,

I laughed at the story about your bald mate.I'm guessing he probably had mixed emotions about being required to wear a cap.hehe