User Comments - bodawei

Posted on: Applying for a Loan

Great dialogue, highlighting some extreme cultural differences!  Particularly the 才貌双全 line - it would be completely out of line in the West (guaranteeing a failed loan application) and yet it is kind of poetic.  (Is this line delivered with any self-consciousness at all in China?  It sounds to me so 1970s - I cannot imagine my students delivering such a line.)   

BTW, the Chinese don't need to be encouraged into the same mistakes we made in the West by creating 'toxic' loans (loans to people with no hope of repaying them.)  

中国还没有次贷危机，而且为全球金融海啸修了中国帮助别的人。

次贷危机 - cìdàiwēijī (sub-prime crisis).  This seems a poor translation - the Chinese version does not capture the irony of the word 'sub-prime'.  In the West, 'sub-prime' is a euphemism for the worst loans imaginable.   

全球金融海啸 - quánqiu 2jīnróng hǎixiào (Global Financial Crisis)  

Two different ways of expressing a crisis: 危机 wēijī (crisis) and 海啸 hǎixiào (tsunami). A question of degree?    

Posted on: Picking Up a Friend at the Airport

@siteng

In Australia we thank the bus driver when we get off the public bus.  In China this is not expected.. :-)  

Incidentally, in Australia we draw the line at thanking the train driver on the subway - that would take unusual effort.  

Posted on: Picking Up a Friend at the Airport

@matt,tal,john

Thanks for the further enlightenment on 辛苦了 xīnkǔ le etc.  I know I've got lots to learn about the cultural subtleties.  People here seem anxious to tell me how something is said in 云南 (Yunnan).  But I am still getting used to the odd inflections, eg. 个

gè is pronounced like a long 呱 guā !!  走 zǒu like 做 zuò etc.  

Incidentally I have had trouble accessing ChinesePod for the past couple of days - message says： ‘That page is not available'.  is that ChinesePod？ I have been able to access other Web sites.. seems odd.    

Posted on: Picking Up a Friend at the Airport

I have had a number of funny experiences being met at the airport.  It always seems slightly inefficient.  Once our whole family arrived (four people) and our friend's father felt obliged to meet us even though we could have organised ourselves.  The luggage was crammed in to the van and about half a kilometre later the door popped open under the strain.  We made an unscheduled stop at a service station where three still-strangers (friend's father, driver and me) then heaved our luggage back in - a very sweaty and slightly embarrassing introduction to China that time.  

We were met this year, again unnecessarily - the young man asked to 接我们 (pick us up) thought he was dropping us at a hotel near the airport, but we already had a friends place to stay at across town.  The trip took more than an hour and I could see that he and the driver were dying to get to their dinner.  

It is practical to 陪你的朋友到飞机场 péi nǐ de péngyou dào fēijīchǎng （take your friend to the airport.)  Departures can be very confusing.  In this city it is simply 机场 jīchǎng, never 飞机场.  陪 péi = 送 sòng. 

@changye

I use 请送我们一桶水 qǐng sòng wǒmen yī tǒng shuǐ (please deliver a bottle) too.  Actually I always say 麻烦你。。máfan nǐ (sorry to trouble you) first, even though they do it for a living.  Then I have to recite my address. I should say 辛苦你了 each time they arrive but that seems repetitive.  I usually comment on the weather. I buy 30 water bottle vouchers at a time and the ticket butts go in a raffle.  But how would I know if I won?  I have to trust them.    

Posted on: Varieties of Candy

There is a particularly bad 长龙 (Jacky Chan) film featuring a 小孩子 where the expression 宝贝 bǎobèi must be used a thousand times.  Despite this is the term 贝贝 bèibèi more usual?  Certainly easier to say.  

Posted on: Varieties of Candy

德芙 dé fú (Dove) chocolate is very common in China but the Chinese supermarkets don't seem to carry the full range. I prefer the 66 可可西亨(smooth?) 黑巧克力 (dark variety) - I've been told that it is only at the foreign supermarkets like Walmart.  

Does anyone know if there is a preference for 'milk' as opposed to 'dark' in the Chinese populace?  I can get 黑巧克力 (so called 'dark', but not really dark) at the Chinese supermarket locally - it is not as 'good' as '66'.  

I am wondering if I can go and convince the local supermarket to stock the '66' chocolate bar?  I might say that I am on a special diet that requires dark chocolate.    

Posted on: It's cold, wear more clothes!

@changye, wjefferys

As you have both probably worked out by now, 生词 does not translate as 'neologism' (although thanks Bill, we always like to learn new words.)  This is a case of a literal translation that doesn't work.  Generally in text books it is translated as 'vocabulary' but that does not encompass the meaning 'new to me' or 'likely to be new to students at this level'.

I use 生词 as a heading in my economics classes when I am discussing terms with my students that they know in Chinese but not in English. I also use it to introduce Australian English that they may not have encountered.    

Posted on: It's cold, wear more clothes!

Posted on: Anybody home?

@sarahk,ousijia

Ooh, now i feel like a bah humbug 的人.  I am afraid that when I was young or even getting to middle aged there was no such thing as Halloween.  Then when it hit Australia it was appropriated by the 13 - 23 age group roughly and it was an opportunity to run amok. Children were generally kept inside for safety ..    

Posted on: It's cold, wear more clothes!

My dictionary says 西装的上衣。。 xīzhuāng de shàngyī. I would rather not trust the dictionary .. and in any case it sounds a kind of silly expression.  What is a native speaker's view?  

(I am amused by the 西装的.. what comes to my mind is a warning that the object in question may not highly familiar to the Chinese population? If not, is the Chinese rendering likely to be either reliable or useful?)