User Comments - bodawei

Posted on: Good Morning!

@john and barbs

All good points guys. I think there is a cut off at about 9 am but maybe that varies a bit across the country.

In my 小区 no-one says 早 unless I say it first. Sometimes 出去 or 走啊 when I leave. Mostly just a nod and/or wave. But you've got to blow kisses to the toddlers.

Posted on: Slippery Ground

I know that we like a debate on ChinesePod but this fortunately won't reach those heights. (If it becomes a debate it will be of low level importance.) Your accent is fine by me Jenny, don't change a thing if you don't want to.  I am not here to learn English from you.  :-)  

Posted on: Designing the New Apartment 3

我同意自己做太麻烦了，而且工人很便宜，但是最近有几个很大的DIY店。大概多半有人喜欢逛街和明牌家具的东西买了，然后请工人修复了。

Posted on: Good Morning!

Ha ha Barbs - exactly, that's my point. There is a whole Chinese vocab used exclusively by foreigners! :-) Why is ChinesePod perpetuating this??

Okay - how about this. Chinese is such an abbreviated language that Westerners feel uncomfortable about it. My story about getting more holes in my belt is a case in point. I practised a whole sentence to impress the shoe repairer and he just said 打印! Which incidentally also passes for describing a printer, 打印机. No wonder Mao needed only a couple of thousand characters for his entire collected works.

Posted on: Snacks

土豆 is not generally used by native speakers in the South West in my admittedly limited experience - but I have never seen it on a menu, and I am a keen reader of menus. China is a big country! Nor do they use 地瓜 for sweet potato - sorry I can't think, I think 红薯 is the word they use. In my experience 土豆 is understood but 地瓜 is not.

Posted on: The Shanghai Literary Festival

Just checked the promo; Jenny opened with the words ‘Six years ago, when author Frank Moorhouse ruminated on the martini in literature in the newly opened Glamour Bar, he started an annual Shanghai tradition: Shanghai International Literary Festival...'  (Incidentally, if you Google you find those exact words on ShanghaiDaily.com and on M on the Bund website.)  Frank is probably a bit grumpy about being used in the promo.. 

The media has also given a lot of coverage to the refusal of a visa to Robert Dessaix.  ABC: China's 8th annual Shanghai Literary Festival is underway with a delegation of Australian authors taking part - with the exception of one prominent novelist.  Robert Dessaix had his visa application knocked back by the Chinese government on what he believes to be health grounds.  

New Zealand Herald:  Australian writer Robert Dessaix has been refused a visa to enter China because he is HIV-positive.  Dessaix, 65, was part of an Australian delegation of authors and publishers due to travel to China next week, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. The prizewinning author had been scheduled to speak at the Shangai International Literary Festival, the country's biggest showcase of foreign writers. Last night Dessaix's name was still on the festival programme.

Sydney Morning Herald: The guidelines for the application stated that HIV status had no prejudicial bearing. In good faith, he declared it.  Dessaix had had no political involvement in matters concerning China, and said he had been told by Australian officials that although China did not give reasons for the visa refusal, his health status was the issue.  'It's medieval. I feel snubbed and insulted, of course, and also humiliated,'' Dessaix said. ''There had been interventions at the highest level on my behalf, but they were refused, so I see it as a snub to Australia, not just to me.''   

Posted on: The Shanghai Literary Festival

Thanks Jenny, interesting.  I was attracted to the mention of Frank Moorehouse, first because I studied Frank Moorehouse's short stories at university about 35 years ago - he must be an old codger by now - but secondly because in February 2010 it was widely reported that the acclaimed Australian novelist, short story writer and screenwriter, was boycotting the major writers' tour of China in protest against the recent gaoling of the Chinese writer Liu Xiaobo.  

A strange promo, from someone who went out on a limb only a couple of months ago criticising the CCP.   

Just a small criticism - FT - people want to know what it means.  Remember, we, some of us, hate acronyms.. :-)

Posted on: Good Morning!

I have personally never heard a native speaker say 早上好, it is always just 早.. maybe three syllables are too much effort first thing in the morning.   

Posted on: Finishing Work for the Weekend

I've confused everyone - sorry Executer. A 加工店 is a place that processes or 'finishes' something - a manufacturing process. I will at the next opportunity go and poke my head in to see what kind of things are 加工的. ：-）

Posted on: Snacks

I have asked a number of people about this (I am fond of potato) and I come to the conclusion that no-one agrees. The 《现代汉语词典》is right but no-one is reading it! (Except you and me of course.)