User Comments - bluealvarez

Posted on: The Final Show

Amber, thank you for all your hard work on Qing Wen, you and Clay (who is also long gone now) were the reason I decided to subscribe to Cpod in the first place.  As many other people have said, I will sorely miss your humor.

But, being in Boston myself, I can understand why you'd like to try the east coast here for a while.  ;)  If I ever manage to get down to NYC to take an HSK test, you'll be in the back of my mind.  Best of luck to you!

Posted on: Personal Ad

@reigau:

Thanks for the link to the Guardian article, it made me a little weepy!  I think it definitely mirrored some of what Pete was saying. 

As for the big-eyed obsession, speaking as a Helenically cow-eyed female, I can't complain. ;)

@baba:

"I think 2nd tone is appropriate for 眉 as one does raise one's 眉 when one sees a 美眉"

Ha!  Brilliant.

Posted on: Personal Ad

@Pete

Thanks for the thoughtful response!  The tragedy is that this kind of "don't ask don't tell" nonsense has been going on for eons in every country, it just seems so much more tragic now because it's happening in China against a 21st century international backdrop that is finally becoming more accepting.

At bare minimum, at least the policy of ignoring LGBTs has got to be preferable than the American-style violent persecution they faced (er, face).  Or maybe the mainland has that too, but hopefully not.

Anyway, 真对不起！Didn't mean to totally derail this thread.  Hopefully if I hang around here long enough I'll be able to have conversations like this without resorting to using so much 英语。　：）

Posted on: Taking it all off

Okay, as cool as it was to learn 脱, I have to second the notion expressed by others here that not following that up with 摘 wasn't "more accessible", it was just more "WTF?" 

As a disclaimer, let me just say that I love Cpod and especially Qing Wen, as that's the show that got me hooked on Cpod in the first place.  But the reason it hooked me was because of the Amber-Clay rapport.  Now, I'm not saying that's the way to go for the future, 因为他们有时候缠夹不请。不过，我觉得“请问”需要是少serious, 多spontaneous, or goofy even.  I learned as much from their interludes as I did from the planned dialogue.  越夷旷越好！

Posted on: Personal Ad

@Pete:

See, I would have taken 雷声大雨点小 as "All bark and no bite", which I wouldn't use in the same situations as  "actions speak louder than words". But it's a very cool phrase to know, all the same. :)

@zhenlijiang:

老姑娘 - Wow, never thought I'd learn how to say "spinster" in Mandarin!  I think that concept is so passe in America, the word only comes up when one is reading Jane Austen or something.

But speaking of that, and especially with the pressure to own real estate and the hush-hush (unfortunately) on homosexuality, is there any age by which people on the mainland start to look at *men* askance if they're not married yet?

Posted on: 麻烦你 (Máfan Nǐ) to Say Please

@Pete, re: "sea of strokes and squiggles", 我同意。 I learned how to use a radical-entry sorted dictionary this week and it completely changed how I view the characters.  Now I find it far less 麻烦 than before, albeit still 有点儿难.

Now there's a word I'd love to find an equivalent for: albeit!

Posted on: Even you can use the (连...都...) pattern

"You can simply regard reading and writing Chinese as Electives"

When I started my studies a year ago I felt like this, but now I'm glad I put more effort into learning what few characters I currently know.  I was trying to read an advertisement on the T the other day and realized this horrible frustration must be what it feels like to be an illiterate adult.  I couldn't imagine how difficult that must be for someone in their 1st tongue, never mind a second or third.  So I am resolved to learn full reading an writing as well, even if that comes slower than the speaking.

Besides, 如果连我都看汉子，就我觉得谁都会看汉子！  Now I just have to work on my 语法 (which was probably all wrong in that sentence) and I'll be all set. ;)