User Comments - bodawei

Posted on: Finding a Street Number

Connie,svik

谢谢你们。路盲不在我的现代汉语词典，很奇怪啊！是不是新的词？  

Posted on: Finding a Street Number

Jenny,John, 

Great lesson. 

In my experience 对面 is a kind of difficult concept - Changye and I discussed this recently at length on another board. Your explanation as 'across' neatly sums it up.  When it is 'across the road' no problems. But 'across' can be a long way away!  

At the risk of confusing poddies, where I live the street naming works differently to your explanation along the lines that you have Yan'an Xi and Yan'an Zhong because the streets are 'broken up'.  That is one way they work but not the only way.  

Where I live you have 延安南路 running east-west, crossing 延安东路. 延安北路 also runs east-west but crosses no other Yan'an streets. 延安西路 runs north-south parallel to 延安东路 and crosses no other Yan'an streets.  延安街 is another separate short street in the area that crosses  延安东路.  

Some of these are broken up along their length as you suggest in the podcast. So 延安东路 has 北，中 sections.     

In the same city we have 人民西路，人民中路， 人民东路 running as a continuous street, broken up along their length as you say in the podcast.    

BTW, our numbers get higher from south to north.  

@Connie

路盲是什么意思， 是方向感的意思吗？ 这个词对我的词典没有了，找不到了。 我认为路盲是犹如你是盲的意思。明白吗？ - 不好意思，我的中文写不清楚。 

Posted on: Finding a Street Number

哈哈。。 

延安西路

延安东路

延安北路

延安南路

延安中路

延安西路北

延安西路南

延安南路西

延安南路东等等。。 

延安街。。。

都可以， 都不一样。    

迷路了吗？  

Posted on: Playing Wii

you can also use 玩 wán, so long as you are having fun.. :-)  

Actually I'm not sure if you are referring to all computer games, or games in general?  

Board games, cards, etc, use  玩 as the verb to play as well. 比如 '打 扑克' dǎpūkè 或者 '玩 牌' wánpái (both mean 'play cards'.)  Other games too, I think you can say both 打篮球 and 玩篮球 (play basketball).  I was told by my tennis partner not so say 玩网球 wǎn wǎngqiǔ, but that might be because he is deadly serious about his sport.   :-) 

I'm sure that someone will jump in with more.. 

Posted on: Expressing Location with 边 and 面

Thanks Changye. Thinking about my 'direction' problem again, it is just that when someone points at the skyline and says 对面 (opposite)，it is not always clear how far away the target is.  That is why I considered it slightly vague, compared to 前面，左面，右面， 后面， 等等。  I'm a lot clearer; I hope that I haven't confused other people.  Thanks again for your clarification. 

Posted on: Expressing Location with 边 and 面

@Changye

So does that mean 对面 is used in giving directions rather like 旁边?  A 是 B 对面 或者 X 是 Y 旁边 A is 'face to face' with (opposite) B or X is beside Y.  

Posted on: Expressing Location with 边 and 面

不能说对边.. 

But 对面 is a word that can be confusing if used in directions, as it commonly is. It is kind of vague.  Someone will point in a direction and say 对面 which means 'opposite' .. often you see a street with buildings but you cannot see what you are after, and I am compelled to ask 后面还是前面？ (Behind .. or in front?)  Or 有多远？ (how far?)  Which often brings another less than useful answer. I am now prepared to ask for directions every thirty metres or so.  :-)   

Posted on: Expressing Location with 边 and 面

@wadecloudfly

thanks for the sentence correction, and the tip about the 国骂。I can see how the sentence works now. 

But I don't exactly understand the 飞行 version - is it a verb or a noun here?  

I'll leave it to you to respond to monix.  

Posted on: Expressing Location with 边 and 面

@Barbs

A very cool question - I hope we get a definitive answer. My attempt is: 

鸟在中间湖靠湖面飞着 。 

I just wanted to get in a use of 靠.. but I'm not sure if it can be used in the vertical:-)

Posted on: Finding a Seat at the Movies

@charlenesabin

Q1. I am wondering if the question should be 'why is 哪儿 just one 'word' in pinyin'?  哪儿 is actually made up of nǎ and er; the sounds run together, sounding like nar3.  Tricky? (I've just noticed that the 'convert to tone marks' does not recognise nar as a word in pinyin, so your query is justifiable! 

Q2. Using one of a number of little applications you type the pinyin for a character and the character pops up.  For the vast majority of characters you have a choice - you need to select the correct character.