User Comments - bodawei

Posted on: Discussing a Thesis Topic with an Advisor

"引导他们参与健康的娱乐活动"

好主意啊！ 比如说。。 ？？ 那个。。

Posted on: Smelly Cheese

Where have the posts gone? It seems that the majority have disappeared.  Are they being kept safe?  

Posted on: Smelly Cheese

We need a Related Lesson link to Hungry Traveller: Yunnan - I believe that there were cheese related stories there. People visiting here return home with 乳饼 rubing (goats cheese) in their ports. [I threw the 'ports' in for you, John - that is how they say 'bag' in Queensland.]

Posted on: Outdoor Survivors (Part 2)

Hi Barbs

I was thinking along similar lines, but it would be interesting to know the methodology used. To take the oft quoted (possibly inaccurate and slightly extreme) story about the Inuit who are supposed to have a large number of words expressing the idea of snow. And perhaps few words expressing ideas about .. say, surfing. What selection of words would be used and how would coverage be tested if Inuit was included in the sample? Different cultures presumably have a lot of words about things that matter to them. Cross cultural comparisons must be particularly difficult - what is used as a standard for 'coverage'? The front page of a popular newspaper?

Are we then to believe that French is relatively 'easy' because you can read the front page using fewer words (from the list of top 1,000 common words for example) than is the case in Japan? (Barto seems to be serious about leaping to this conclusion, at least in respect of vocabulary, but of course he/she could be joking.)

Posted on: Outdoor Survivors (Part 2)

Like a lot of research I think this tells only part of the story - but I would like to know what 'coverage' is, and how it is measured? Somewhere else on ChinesePod we discussed how tok pisin has relatively few words - which should I think make it 'easy' according to the above post. In fact I don't think it is that easy to comprehend despite the limited number of words at your disposal. (That is assuming that you miraculously understand every sound that is made.) To make up for having few words, tok pisin has circuitous discussion (using those few words) to convey meanings, and the use of idioms. You have to look at what people do to overcome the 'drawback' of having few words at their disposal.

Posted on: A Magazine Subscription

Jenny, covert advertising does exist of course (eg. cash for comment) but an advertorial is not covert.

Posted on: A Magazine Subscription

不好意思，我不明白。 外什么含糊不清的？

Posted on: Sex Education Class

Hi barto

Hee hee, maybe it is 茎子 。。 look I am sure there are dozens of colloquial terms for penis in various parts of the country. As there are 24 documented terms for potato (see my Potato Atlas) I am sure that there would be 124 terms for something much more 'interesting' than the lowly potato. :)

Yeh, thanks for 油 yóu - it's a bit hard to correct, once it is done it is done. I am not careful and have little patience for checking.

Posted on: Sex Education Class

Yeah, thanks xiao_phil, I am aware of the dictionary meaning, just noting the colloquial use of the word, at least according to my student informants. :)

Posted on: Reviewing in Class

At the risk of confusing everyone ..

I think there are three ideas to be expressed:

1. often, or many times (referring to frequency) 'He is often late for class'

2. commonly/usually, or many cases (in the extreme this gets to 'all the time') 'Christopher is commonly called Chris.'

3. a majority of the time, mostly, probably. Where I live it mostly snows in Winter. (A majority of Winters.)

In normal Chinese I hear the most common (!) ways of expressing these three are:

1. 常常

2. 一般

3. 多半，大多

I'd be interested in getting any feedback, supporting or otherwise.

I think these Chinese expressions are self-explanatory, as follows:

常常, the repetition signifies frequency

一般, the 一 suggests to me something that just goes on continually (eg. 一直)

多半, signifies something that occurs more than half the time.