User Comments - bodawei

Posted on: Dinosaurs

@pete

Just to clarify - it is the pdf with the problem, the vocab tab is fine. 

And from a quick glance it seems that the pdf has the list in the vocab tab reversed (I haven't checked the whole thing)

Posted on: Dinosaurs

@pete

my pdf is the same as xiaophil's, the vocab list is not ordered according to the dialogue

Posted on: Checking Baggage

@changye

Thanks for your explanation - it kind of proves the point that trying to analyse words, or even characters (even into their radicals) is more for entertainment than education, or more strictly 'learning'.  I know we had a long discussion about this elsewhere on CP (forgotten where).  While the origin of the word is interesting, you cannot 'solve' the meaning doing a textual analysis (ie. without context.)  The characters alone don't give you the full story.  You need the specific story (eg. about travelling officials).  Obviously I don't have enough stories yet. What is intriguing is that each character may have a thousand stories!

Thanks again Changye, your posts are A1.

Posted on: 把 Humbug

@rj

I also have mixed feelings - I don't even cheer for Australia in sporting fixtures (there, I said it.)

Tim Tams are currently Australia's biggest biscuit export product - hell, you can buy them in China.  I thought they might have found their way to the US along with Vegemite*.. I am pretty sure both brands are owned by American companies, whatever that means.  :-)

* Vegemite is not a biscuit.

Posted on: Checking Baggage

@ivor88

It is always tempting to pull a word apart, and fun when you find some 'connection'.  However the word is 行李 - pulling it apart is a bit like taking 'luggage' and trying to make sense of 'lugg' combined with 'age'.  80% of Chinese words are comprised of two characters, and many of these are simply two characters with the same or similar meaning.  This is probably an exception, where each character has a separate meaning, and the two characters taken together carry a new meaning.  So, my proposition is that both 行 and 李 orignally (or still) have some connection with a box like container you put your things into when travelling. 行 has connotations of a trip, as well as walking.  Perhaps 'luggage' was orignally made of wood.

Posted on: Grab Some Veggies From the Store

@orangina

Ha ha, that's a good joke.  Hadn't heard that one before - zucchini is not so prolific in Australia.  Reminds me of a walk in China where at one stop our hosts gave us a big bag of white raddish (for free), with instructions to have it cooked at our next overnight stop.  Too polite to refuse, we lugged this heavy bag of raddish for four or five hours to our destination, knowing that this vegetable was widely grown in the whole district.

Posted on: 把 Humbug

RJ, Orangina

RJ - thanks for your feedback about 'not being able to bring yourself to use Australian vernacular' (I assume by 'slang' you mean more than slang - calling it Australian slang could imply that you see it as regional variation on the dominant language, ouch!) .. it is interesting, we do feel strongly about these things but I wonder if our motivation is different.  For you, I imagine you don't see cookies at your local supermarket labelled 'biscuits'.  (Yes Oringana, biscuits are sweet, although like RJ I am unsure about dog biscuits.）  I view it as some kind of erosion of my culture to hear young people call all biscuits 'cookies'. I doubt that there is any remote danger of Aussie culture supplanting American culture; the risk runs the other direction.

I don't care if I see a packet of cookies in the Australian supermarket - that's fine - part of the rich fabric of life.  I welcome the variety.  There is no danger of American cookies replacing our home grown products.  Hey, Tim Tams rule.  I am OK with free trade.  It is the impact on language (and culture) that disturbs me.  But we will fight back. 

I heard a linguist recently saying that until the 1960s, the distinction between Australian and New Zealand pronunciation was barely detectable.  In the last few decades the sounds have actually grown apart, so that the accents are now quite distinct.  She suggested that the use of language could be linked to a rise in nationalism.  Now I don't want to be associated with that, at all.  But I would like to see culture respected - we are all richer for it.

Posted on: Grab Some Veggies From the Store

@orangina

Aaah .. free fruit.  I don't know 小胡瓜 (or forgotten) - I can understand the 黑莓 scenario.  Actually it is kind of a sterotype - who sang 'meaner than a junk yard dog?'

Posted on: 把 Humbug

@pete

Ok, I'll buy in - as a citizen of what used to be referred to as a member of the Commonwealth I have not heard the term 'ice lolly' before.  I'm guessing that it is an ice block (frozen flavoured water.)  Lollies are what I think Americans call 'candy'.  And while we are on the subject, biscuits are what Americans call 'cookies'.  I cannot bring myself to utter the words candy or cookie.  But what do Americans call an ice block?       

We used to have lolly water (eg. lemonade, ginger ale, passiona, sarsparilla) - it is now called the more generic 'soft drink' in Australia; I think that is what Americans call ' soda', or is it 'pop'?  I'm actually not clear about what a soda is in the US because we have soda water - it is just aerated water, something people put with whiskey?  Should that be ignorant people? (I'm not a scotch drinker - I learn about Scotch from film and books. I'd rather drink 白酒。)

Posted on: Grab Some Veggies From the Store

@orangina

That is definitely choko. Where I lived in Australia almost everyone in the city had a choko vine growing over the fence, so no-one actually paid for choko.  Like passionfruit, these vines grow very easily without any care and attention (except the need to water). But maybe a sub-tropical climate is necessary.  Come to think of it we never paid for bananas, paw paw or mangoes either.  I guess a yard is necessary as well as water.