User Comments - bodawei

Posted on: Expressing Location with 边 and 面

@john

I've also just noticed that you corrected my tones too, thanks. If i was to say 靠路边停车 it would be kàolùbiān tíngchē.  Because 边 here is a noun (or part of a verb 靠路边) and not a .. suffix. 

Posted on: Expressing Location with 边 and 面

@wadecloudfly

ooops, just noticed your post, sorry.  you seem to have answered my question even though I worded it incorrectly! Thanks.  

Posted on: Expressing Location with 边 and 面

john

thanks, 

I was mixing myself up*; I meant to ask can you say 靠路边（停车）rather than just 靠边停车。 I was meaning to ask if 靠路边 is a more explicit form of 靠边.. specifying 'near the edge of the road' rather than just 'near the edge'.  If you are sitting in a taxi the context is clear, but if you were relating a story to someone could you say '我们靠路边了‘ (we pulled over to the edge of the road)?  

* One of my many Chinese errors is to switch two characters in a word! 

Posted on: Expressing Location with 边 and 面

Another super QingWen, thanks guys. 

靠边停车！ (Stop near the kerb!) 

After hearing about 路边摊？lùbiantān（food stores on the side of the street - what was that word, is it 摊?), does that mean that 路靠边停车 would also be correct, when asking someone to pull over？ 

Posted on: Using a Character Dictionary

我在文具店买了一个字典叫‘小学生识字与组词手册’，它有五百个汉字。  每词条有拼音，多少画，部，上中下结构， 手法，比如说第一笔是點，第二笔是横，第三笔是竖，等等。 而且这个字典有一个简释（釋义还有词的例如），又容易又方便。  

Posted on: Finding a Seat at the Movies

@tucsonmichael

Most places you access from the back, and the system is designed to organise people as they walk towards their seats.  So, 'right' or 'left' is described from the perspective of someone walking from the main entrance at the back of the theatre/cinema, towards the stage/screen at the front.  Perspective actually doesn't matter for this system; evens are on one side and odds on the other.  

Posted on: Dinner with Friends

@Bendidelaowai

I don't believe there is much danger of cooking skills disappearing.. if anything there is a trend back in China to 'slow food' amongst the more affluent,  rather like in the West.  It is now cool to shop at farmer markets and eat at 'farmer' restaurants.  People are going for 'free range' chickens and 'free range' goat (I am not making this up.)  Organic produce is beginning to make inroads. 

The less affluent will not forget their cooking skills, for economic reasons.  There is still a good billion people in that category - so no cause for alarm just yet.   

 I doubt most of the restaurants, including foreign chains.

I see few foreign 'chain' restaurants - do you mean the Japanese ones (none out my way), or the MacDonalds/ KFC/ Starbucks thing?   

Sorry to butt in on your question to Jenny but I am wondering what 'food quality' issues worry you?  Context suggests that you are implying 'compared to the West'.  Is it cleanliness (risk of Hepatitis A), food additives, residual herbicides and pesticides, use of human excrement as fertilizer, heavy metals in the food chain, genetic engineering, freshness, worms, cooking style, cancer-inducing ingredients, labelling shortcomings, nutrition levels, diet?  Not to forget adulteration.  It would be great to get some informed comment, and some guidance on talking in Chinese about such things!  

Posted on: Finding a Seat at the Movies

I think the Chinese system of seat numbering in theatres and cinemas etc. is one of their great inventions. I love it. In Australia we don't have a system.   

Recently I went to a big stadium for a concert. Inside we could easily find our way to the right half of the stadium by our even-numbered tickets.   

但是。。 dànshì.. BUT (as my teacher used to say when I made a mistake), finding our entrance was chaotic.  And bags were checked at a different building on the far side of a busy road..which you were told just as you were about to enter the stadium.    

Posted on: 郎咸平谈中美股市

Thanks for the great lesson - some of my students love talking about this stuff. 

他经常叫错学生们的名字，每次叫错，全班同学都哄堂大笑

In China you just have to get the tone wrong to have this effect.  

Posted on: A Phone Call to the Moving Company

@Lujiaojie, Changye

Thanks both of you.  Sometimes on ChinesePod I am re-learning something I have learnt in the past and forgotten, but this I have never learnt before. ( 舍得 at least.)  Now I have to practice it! And there are a number of subtleties to learn.  

BTW Lujiaojie - stingy can mean that you don't want to lose, give up or spend something - it means that you are 'sparing'. Commonly it refers to time or anything of value but it could be emotions. The most common meaning is very thrifty!  Admittedly it does not have the meaning of not wanting to leave sb.