User Comments - bodawei
bodawei
Posted on: Audit
December 30, 2009 at 2:53 AMHi Changye
It is no joke. When I was young I used to love watching a TV series with my father where a family of embezzlers each week fleeced some really awful rich guy - we naturally cheered for the embezzlers. Here it is the Chinese taxpayer being fleeced. Hey, I'm one myself.
I am kind of interested in what 'embezzle' means in these statistics - there are many shades of grey in that part of the world.
Posted on: Audit
December 30, 2009 at 2:16 AMIn China, auditors discovered that 234.7 billion yuan (A$38.5bn) disappeared from public funds in the first 11 months of this year, state media has reported. Cases involving 67 senior officials and 164 others were handed over to judicial authorities. Premier Wen Jiabao has called on state auditors to review public-investment projects to help avoid embezzlement and waste, Xinhua news agency reported. The auditors said that in addition to the money that government officials embezzled, 16.3 billion yuan was wasted during the same period, Xinhua reported. (The Australian, December 30, 2009)
It seems puzzling that only '16.3 billion yuan was wasted' in the 11 month period - does embezzlement have an unintended consequence of keeping 'waste' to a minimum?
Posted on: What have you done in 2009?
December 29, 2009 at 12:01 PMIt is interesting that the Chinese 爱上了...('fall' in love with...) The expression suggests upward movement (no doubt to a state of bliss), while Westerners fall...to a similar state of bliss I'm sure. I'm told that an upward movement is more favourable than a downward movement in the Chinese cosmos.
你不是会说中文了吗？(Didn't you just learn Chinese?)
Can 才 and/or 刚才 (just or just recently) be used to convey the same meaning and, if so, are they used in combination with 了？
刚才你不是会说中文了吗？
OR 刚才你不是会说中文吗？
Incidentally, educational value aside, 'Didn't you just learn Chinese?' seems an amusing question to me; like it was as easy as catching a cold.
Posted on: Office Christmas Party
December 23, 2009 at 3:31 PM最近我跟我的同事参加圣诞节晚会，老板给我们绿色的白酒，味道真怪！
他也发礼物了，我们都收到了个人的礼物。 我的礼物是一条皮带，就需要的。 不错！
Posted on: I Want a Thick Blanket
December 17, 2009 at 3:25 PM@(helen,jason,orangina
thanks.. I'm going to take orangina's cleverly voiced advice, and what I learnt here, and chill out .. or (I can't help myself) as we say in Australia because we saw it on American TV, 'chill'.
I knew that about quilts, and to this point I had avoided mentioning that in Australia we also refer to doonas as 'Continental' quilts, hence my question to Channelle. 不管怎么样.. (helen, hope I used that correctly) very touchy area - some people are as emotional about quilts as we are about language. I was bowing to other views expressed that 'quilt' sounds fairly generic. Not in Jason's mother's house. I think we should respect that. :-)
Posted on: I Want a Thick Blanket
December 17, 2009 at 2:23 AM@pauley
You need to consult a Chinese atlas of Australia for the conventional name in Chinese (is that the Sunshine Coast you mean?)
Posted on: I Want a Thick Blanket
December 17, 2009 at 2:08 AM
I am usually an easy-going member of the community but I reckon ChinesePod is diving under the doona here.
I reckon you should correct the translations of 被子 in 'I Want a Blanket' - it is plainly incorrect. Notwithstanding the 'reference' to Wikipaedia. It needs to be changed in the lesson title and in the vocab lists. Remember that you can only search lessons in English, so this will create another Search problem. No English speaker in the world describes a 被子 (ie. the item under discussion in the lesson, actually described in some detail by Jenny) as a 'blanket' (am I right?).
Common sense required.
Otherwise, a good lesson as usual.
Posted on: I Want a Thick Blanket
December 16, 2009 at 9:12 AM@helen
谢谢你，回答得很好，中文和英语都是丰富的，对吧？
Your 'Wikipaedia' quote is 'selective'！！.. :-) It actually says that a blanket is 'generally speaking' (ie. in most cases) a piece of cloth, usually wool, used to cover the bed... etc. In the English speaking world the word blanket is not, generally speaking, used to refer to a doona or a duvet. The latter are 'bags' with a filling.
anyway..(中文怎么说？）。。我同意，毯子是没有填充物的。 棉被我不一定，我觉得棉被通常是填充物的。可是，有两种填充物的， 第一个可能填料脱出来，第二个不可能， 明白吗？
PS. doona is a word in English that refers to the 'bag' design discussed above. It is not a blanket. It derives from the brand of a famous manufacturer of these contraptions, rather like 'esky' became the accepted word in English for a portable cooler made with polystyrene and plastic. (It is not slang - perish the thought!)
Posted on: I Want a Thick Blanket
December 16, 2009 at 2:10 AM@Helen
A duvet is just a doona, quilt, etc. - it can be filled with a variety of things, including down (ie. very small feathers). In my experience a duvet or doona is sewn in panels (lengthwise) so that you can shake the filling down to the end if you want a lighter cover. Very versatile! Our heavier Chinese (silk) doonas are sewn this way too, but the lighter ones here in China are sewn in a cross-hatch pattern so that you cannot shift the filling.
Posted on: Audit
December 30, 2009 at 3:15 AMHi Changye
Yes, I see what you mean, but they are also one of the most profitable jobs in the West.. :-)