User Comments - bodawei

Posted on: Shopping for a Rice Cooker

Thanks Peter - having received this I just checked above and the characters in question are now visible. I hope I haven't put you and the team to needless work. I don't understand - there was a period of maybe 24 - 36 hours when these three particular characters would not appear. I will do another test here - if you can see the characters then I think the problem has been resolved.

国　中国的国

跟　跟班的跟

翻　翻译的翻　

Okay - they are working again for me. Cancel the work order!!

Posted on: Transportation Card

I am a bit puzzled by this question from jackfrombelgium & yourself - the sentence reads fine to me. Maybe it is a difference in phone systems. Here in China a pre-paid arrangement involves you offering 100 RMB (actually I usually put on just 20) and saying 我想充值一百块。　The guy types your number on to his computer screen, then the number 100, you agree that the details are right, and it's done. Takes less than a minute. They usually ask you to write your mobile number into a book as well to help them keep their records. :) You don't actually buy a physical card as such. You can if you like call to get the balance (but you get to listen to several advertisements before they say the balance.) And in any case you get an automatic SMS stating the amount you have just charged to your phone. We only buy pre-paid cards for calling international.

Posted on: Getting the Correct Change

I have a couple of vocabulary questions that are more written than oral - I have never entirely understood the invoice you get when buying something at the supermarket, in particular the expressions 小计 and 实收:

小计 - price for each item (数量x单价) [small, count?]

合计　- total for all items (合是'combined'的意思)

实收人民币 - what is 实收 exactly (I get that it is the amount of money you hand over, but why 实收)?  

找零　- your change (in 零, cash)  

So, an example - I buy two small items: 

红豆绿豆　- 小计 = 1.50 

千层雪迷你巧克力杯　- 小计 = 3.50 

合计 = 5.00

实收人民币　= 10.00 

找零　= 5.00 

PS: someone might like to guess what I bought! The second item is common in the West.  

Posted on: Shopping for a Rice Cooker

Ellen 谢谢你，明白了。　这个老的功能很有用的。　

Posted on: Going to the Gas Station

By the way - I haven't seen you around before - welcome! Do you live in China? If so, do you drive a car in China?

Posted on: Going to the Gas Station

If there is a problem (and I don't think there is - petrol in China is still well under-priced because it does not account for environmental damage of uses) the answer is better regulation. This is because competition of the kind you have in mind, sufficient to impact on price, is really unavailable in petrol retailing. If you left it to private companies you would end up with three or four companies at most, all charging the same price more or less. (See the United States and Europe for example.)

Posted on: Shopping for a Rice Cooker

oh thanks a lot Catherine - I just sent a more detailed note to Peter as email - i wondered if the same problem occurs for me on the IM system but of course I cannot see the message once sent.

Posted on: Shopping for a Rice Cooker

‘那种老式的’这是什么意思？　都是电饭煲肯定可以做饭这样，对吧？还小的电饭煲有两个地方，对吗？　　

Posted on: Transportation Card

the 交通卡　is pretty standard in Chinese cities even out in the wild west.  But China is perhaps more hooked into stored value cards than in Australia anyway.  They are widely used on university campuses (used for just about everything including having showers), restaurants and in supermarkets.  Generally they deliver a discount to the cash price - for transport and at the supermarket this is true.  At some restaurants you can only use a stored value card so the concept of 'discount' doesn't arise.  The buses here have different kinds of 交通卡 (eg. aged persons, students, standard) - each (except 'standard') when scanned announces what kind of card it is. I'm not sure what purpose that serves apart from preventing fraud - perhaps it can alert the bus driver to a young person using an old person's card. 

Getting each card offers its own language challenge.  The supermarket card was the hardest for me - there was reams of paperwork and I was told a dozen times that it was not worth the effort, only 5% discount.  (I kind of agree now - except for the language learning.) 

Posted on: Shopping for a Rice Cooker

Here's something - there is no problem with these characters when I type in other programs (I just did a test in Word for example.)

Next I checked in other applications on Chrome - no problem there as well.

So at the moment I can only reproduce the problem on ChinesePod.

This seems to rule out both my computer and Chrome as the problem?