User Comments - bodawei

Posted on: Computer Problems and Tech Support

那你可能中毒了 (You've probably got a virus.)  It occurs to me that this expression is more 'descriptive' than the English, because it implies that the computer is affected, or even poisoned, by something.  Virus is a mysterious term to apply to those problems we have with our computers, although it does convey the sense of being passed from one computer to another, something lacking from the above Chinese expression. 

I wonder if 中毒 is an abbreviation of 中病毒 because 病毒 bìngdú means virus. If so, the expression loses the description alluded to above.  

Other expressions using the word 中毒 zhòngdú (v. be affected or poisoned - note that 中 here means 'suffer' and 毒 means 'poison'):  

酒精中毒病人 (alcoholic - someone who is 'affected' or poisoned by alcohol - actually not a common expression, see 酒鬼 below.) 

and 食物中毒 shiwuzhongdu (food poisoning) 

By the way, 酒鬼 jiǔguǐ; and 嗜酒者 shìjiǔzhe (both meaning alcoholic) - these three Chinese expressions for alcoholic seem problematic from a Western point of view; maybe because they sound non-scientific.  But they are colourful and idiomatic.   

Posted on: Fire in the Hallway!

The scholars did a good job as you say, but the pictures created by the traditional forms are even better! I particularly like the 災 character; the water radical looks like the vapour that rises when water is thrown on a fire! Thanks for that Changye.

Posted on: Fire in the Hallway!

On a related point, 灾 zai1 paints an equally vivid picture - a fire inside a house = calamity.

Posted on: Fire in the Hallway!

Taking precautions.

Posted on: Calling an Ambulance

@Barbs

I'd love to share your enthusiasm for learning how to say CPR, but you realise that you are lucky to find a bottle of oxygen in the back of an ambulance? They are not fitted out like Australian ambulances. (Actually there is sure to be a drip - a drip is required in every medical situation in China.)

[While I think of it I think I will post a quote I just read, made by a 100 year old TCM practicioner here in my city.]

Posted on: Calling an Ambulance

I think that drivers in China are very accommodating; I think that this goes back to Confucius. Vehicles give way (move ever so lightly) to allow someone higher in the pecking order through. The pecking order would make for some interesting discussions; obviously black sedans head the list. Then vehicles moving quickly are given precedence over those moving more slowly. Larger vehicles over smaller vehicles. More expensive vehicles over cheaper vehicles. Cars over e-scooters and bicycles. People of course have to get out of the way for all vehicles. But where I live there is a growing backlash; pedestrians are starting to assert themselves. A change is coming.

Oh - ambulances. Well, if they are travelling fast I think people would move over for them. But round here they never seem to be in a hurry, even when the red light and siren are on.

Posted on: Celebrating the New Year with Visitors

@Barbs

I do agree with you that there must be 'shades of grey' but this does not rule out categories of students. In Australia, or at least NSW, we do have a 'background speaker' class, for every foreign language - students with Chinese parents (or maybe it is grandparents, I'm not sure) do not compete with students without a Chinese family background.

Posted on: Moving In Together

@Barbs

"..read about 随便 recently in which a character suggested it was "the only phrase in Chinese you need"

:-) 

A couple of years ago (before I knew better) I started a list of words with 'no clear English translation'.. [says my notebook]. Top of the list was 随便.  The others (where dictionary definitions never quite grasp the idea, perhaps because of many and varied applications) are: 

讨厌

麻烦

幽默  

方便  

小人, and its opposite   

君子  

走狗   

Then I stopped because there are too many expressions in this amusing category.  

Posted on: Weather and Seasons

At first blush it might look like 台风 is a transliteration of typhoon but I'd like to hazard a guess that it goes the other way. That is, the word 台风 has been transliterated into typhoon. Changye - help?!

@prindy - are you saying that typhoon, hurricane and cyclone are all the same thing, meteorologically speaking? I thought that hurricane is a different thing? We certainly don't use the terms cyclone and hurricane interchangeably in Australia. And while you are at it, what about tornado? I thought that was like a hurricane. How do you distinguish a tornado? Is that one of those 'twisters' we do get in Australia?

Posted on: Weather and Seasons

Hi Connie

What's a cyclone in Chinese? My dictionary says 旋风 xuan4feng1 or qi4xuan2. I am interested in the tones changing from 4 to 2 on those two expressions. [It appears that we don't have tone markers in the new threading.] I thought a cyclone was the 'same' as a typhoon - typhoon in Northern Hemsiphere and cyclone in Southern Hemisphere. They actually twist in different directions - one goes clockwise and the other anti-clockwise. A hurricane can occur in either hemisphere I think - we have them in Australia and I think they have them in the United States. In Australia they take a straight trajectory. Both cyclones and hurricanes dissipate over land I think. And a tornado - we don't have them in Australia, so that might be another Northern Hemisphere thing - is it the same as a hurricane I wonder? We may get a meteorologist to put us straight. :-)