User Comments - bababardwan

Posted on: Asking to Be Paid Back

bodawei,

thanks mate. Very interesting. I assumed that females had close male friends, but my question was more whether females can use the term 铁哥们儿 [so while your answer is very interesting and I'm always interested in the social and cultural aspects, this question was more about word usage than cultural though of course the two are linked]. Perhaps your answer above is implying they can, but sorry I'm still unclear. Anyhow, I think I should have spelt out it out a bit more. I'm wondering if a female can use it for her close male friends. Also wondering if a female could use it for her closest friends where it is a mixture of male and females. Also wondering if a female can use it for her closest female friends. Is there a certain age group this is more appropriate to use it in? Is there a female equivalent for this word, and if so, how is it used?

Posted on: Asking to Be Paid Back

At 3:20 Dilu says this 铁哥们儿 is used 在男人之间 for very close friends. Can females ever use this for close male friends? I'm guessing probably not. Also, is there a female equivalent for this term? Is 姐妹 used for example, or 铁姐妹？

Posted on: Difficult Cake Choices

"No, mate ... you should put it on even thicker. .. :)"

...exactly...well said mate. That was clearly his problem. We'll need to coach him I can see, but when the penny drops, he'll really appreciate we went to the trouble. Then we can sit him in front of "The Castle" and explain it all to him...but I think he'll need the vegemite on board [and thickly so] to get it...

Posted on: Getting Ready for a Dinner Party

沙发

Posted on: Difficult Cake Choices

"may be your patriotic duty to pretend you like it"

哈哈，外国人都有这样的看法，但是我这个人真的很喜欢咸味酱，很好吃。。。你应该好好尝尝，我保证终于你一定会变成咸味酱控

Posted on: Rice with Soy Sauce

I havent listened but its important to acknowlede others present even if u r only adressing one specifically

Posted on: Time for a Holiday

我觉得圣诞节在星期六的时候下一个情人节不是在星期六不过闰年的话上个情人节也是在星期六

Posted on: Difficult Cake Choices

很有意思。。。多谢真 ：）

Posted on: Difficult Cake Choices

"Hey Baba, you asked what I thought of Google searches for finding high frequency words"

...hmm, well I kinda knew what you thought [not much] but was more interested in hearing how you could explain away so many hits [certainly some can be explained away] and maintain that the word isn't really valid.

"Incidentally this bread maker could explain some of those hits you have for 面包房, hey? "

haha, now for fessin up time. I was using artistic license here [not wanting the truth to get in the way of a little joke]...in the same way as we might struggle for the right word in English and say something like "you know, a bakery machine thingy, you know for making bread at home" I "coined" the term "面包房机" [and thus the hits were for the number of specimens and not that particular word, hehe ;) ], deliberately keeping the 房 in there when they are actually more simply called 面包机, so no I don't think they are accounting for all my other fair dinkum hits [this is the first time I've tried to pull a swifty ].

"Your 面包房机 (home bread maker) gave me twice as many Google hits as 烤炉"

...I got away with this because you mustn't be including quotation marks in your search, which you must do to accurately search a term. If you don't you will just get any entries with those characters in it, something like that, but by including the quotation marks the hit has to have that exact term. Also, you've gotta check google hasn't "corrected" your search going to what it thinks is a more correct term. Thus, if you enter 面包房机 you will get 6,810,000 results but you'll notice that google has actually searched for 面包房. So if you then insist it searches for 面包房机 you will get 7,180,000 hits, but note well, if you do the proper search and add quotation marks and search for "面包房机" it will yield only about 4,560 hits, quite small compared with 5,610,000 for "烤炉"..but this latter is less than the proper term for a bread maker... 8,150,000 results for "面包机"

ps I never got your email with the Beijing photo

Posted on: Difficult Cake Choices

"I was hurriedly checking that there wasn't one in my own street"

haha, mate, forget needing to step outside, I just found a 面包房机 [there are 9,210,000 hits for these specimens so there are closet home bakeries also] in your cupboard [you really need to clean it out more often]: