User Comments - bodawei

Posted on: Earlier and Later than Expected: 才and 就

Clairebaer & Pete

I will follow this if it moves to a separate post - I just wanted to say that I did an MA program in Oz which includes a semester in China (the parallel u/g program requires a year in China.)  I voluntarily extended until I couldn't stand 8am classes anymore.  Regardless of how many semesters completed in your home country, almost everyone starts at the same level (2) - it is good advice to go straight to China!

Posted on: What's Your Job?

Hi Pete, Carlos

Thanks for the good wishes.

现在我有一点害怕的，我觉得大学生喜欢开玩笑。

Posted on: What's Your Job?

I've just arrived in China to teach at university, so I am a little disappointed to see a dialogue that goes:

你做什么工作？  

我没有工作。

那你是。。？ 

我是学生。

:-)

Posted on: 疑病症

@barbs

Thanks for your help with the word for coeliac.  My understanding is that the translation is unsatisfactory because the disease does not occur in Han Chinese (although I have read that a similar condition related to a different gene set mutation to our own has been identified.)  I drew a total blank with a doctor in Guangzhou using the dictionary definition.  I don't think using the English word would register unless the audience had a very special interest in the subject - like an Australian doctor taking an interest in scurvy?

Posted on: Why Are You at Home?

@xiaophil

I understand that the 45 minute class， 一节课， a Chinese teaching hour, is the result of hard-fought negotiation for teachers' working conditions. （I think that was one of my older teachers said.)  The theory is that teachers have 15 minutes to 'prepare.'  (If only that was possible.)  My experience with various courses was that the teacher was always there for the 15 minutes non-teaching time, always willing to chat. But the teaching always began abruptly on the hour and stopped just as abruptly 45 minutes later, unless it was a 'double'.  :-)

Posted on: 疑病症

大家好

我不能吃任何小麦， 面粉，面筋， 加工肉品，黑麦，大麦， 燕麦， 酱油， 肉汁， 糊状物， 麦面食品， 凡是用面粉如果我吃到，会发生病了。 我对面筋过敏，其实我得了‘coeliac disease'。 在词典coeliac disease 意思‘乳糜泻‘， 但是我觉得这个词不普通的。而且乳糜泻好像是意思不对。  Can anyone help me with a contemporary word for coeliac disease that would be recognised by doctors in China?   

Posted on: Are You Happy, Content, or Delighted?

@pete

I would prefer cabbage to turnips - I had never met a turnip until I ate with my wife's family and I (quietly) found them hard work.  They have the reputation as  food for horses.  However, in the postmodern era, restaurants charge a premium for dishes containing turnips.  Maybe they have to compensate the chef using them for loss of reputation?   Actually turnips taste good beside a staple in Papua New Guinea, the humble taro.

Posted on: Amusement Park

I'm sure others have noticed by now but there are glitches in the PDF (apart from unsimplified characters.)  On just a quick read there are words/characters missing. 

Posted on: Football (Soccer)

@desluo929

Thanks for straightening out my history - yes, I was referring to the Steve Roach incident.  Wow, back in the days when they fed balls into the scrum between two front rows.

Posted on: Measure Words for Food

@melbourne,changye,bellefly

This discussion about oranges and orange-coloured fruit encourages me to make one of my big statements - there is very little agreement.  I sat in a class one day for half an hour while a Chinese teacher and several students with Chinese heritage argued about what is what (with no resolution.) 

My Oxford, the 汉英中华文化图解词典 and A New Chinese Classified Dictionary has:

橙 cheng or 广柑 guanggan or 柑橘 ganju as orange, with a number of further variations: 甜橙, 新会橙 and 脐橙  - all sweet oranges. 新会 is Xinhui; 脐橙  is possibly what we call a navel orange as 脐 is 'navel' or 'umbilicus'. 酸橙 - sour orange. 香橙 and 蟹橙 xiecheng - fragrant orange. 黄岩蜜橘 - Huangyan orange.  

蜜橘 miju - mandarin (also commonly referred to as 橘子)

红皮橘 hongpiju or 小橘 xiaoju or 橘子 juzi - tangarine 

To make matters worse, orange juice is referred to as 橘汁 juzhi （or as bellefly says above, 橘子水）

Maybe it is like snow with the Inuit and wattle with the Australian aborigines - if it is important to you, you find lots of ways of expressing yourself about it?