User Comments - bodawei

Posted on: Celebrating a Baby's First Month

唉，两个，三个红蛋是什么意思呢？ 我找不到了。 

Posted on: Old China Hand

Yeah, Charlie keeps beating Richie in the drinking game, but only because Charlie keeps changing the rules. (Richie hasn't worked this out yet - he still thinks that the rules are so arcane they are beyond all but a few Westerners, and he is nearly there.)

Posted on: License Plate Characters

Thanks for that. So.. going back to what we were trying to say originally (this has become a little confused and I contributed to that) ..

云的发音被神秘笼罩。 A被Bverb。 云的发音(pronunciation of 'yun')被神秘shen2mi4(n. mystery)笼罩long3zhao4(wrapped/shrouded in)?

(The pronunciation of 'yun' is shrouded in mystery.)

Of course you may not agree John?? I loaded that car number plate app and the pronunciation of yun is actually pretty good in my extremely humble opinion. :)

Posted on: License Plate Characters

Hey chris.k, thanks for that - need to 复习 。。

I did think of that structure, but does 神秘了 work as a verb? I just didn't know.

Posted on: Old China Hand

Ha ha. Are you on to me???.. perhaps I didn't make it all up. :)

Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)

Was there really a character called Dick Benson? Omigod, I thought I was being original.

Posted on: Old China Hand

The guy on the left? His name is Richard Benson, of Norwegian descent and originally from a small town in Minnesota, he now lives in Boulder Colorado where his company is starting to do some business in China. The guy on the right is Charlie Wong; Charlie is helping Richard's business establish some contacts in Hong Kong. Charlie was born in California but has visited China a couple of times on business and once took his family for a holiday when they visited Hong Kong, Hangzhou and Yellow Mountain. It is nearly at the end of a long night; both men have had too much to drink and they have ordered rice to help the scotch go down. I just made all of that up.

Posted on: Renting an Apartment through an Agent

Hi aisini

This is where a good search engine would come in handy - this has been discussed a number of times on these boards I'm sure. Anyway - in brief, both the terminology and conventions do vary from place to place in China. There are generally 3 important components to identify at your street address:

Your 'block' number

Your entrance (most blocks have multiple entries)

Your apartment/room number (the first digit will indicate the level you are on & the ground floor is designated level number 1.)

Let's say you live in block #8, entrance #3, apartment number 412 (on the fourth level).

That being, your address is 八栋，三单元，412号。

栋 dòng (building)

单元 dānyuán (entrance to a section of the block; this word also means a module)

号 hao (number [of your apartment])

Also,

房子 fángzi /公寓 gōngyù (apartment)

公寓 大楼 gōngyù dàlóu (apartment building)

If you ever have to refer to the floor or level that you live on specifically, this also varies from place to place - 层 céng and 楼 lóu are common. So to answer your question if you want to say you live in block 8 on the 7th floor you would say: 八栋, 七楼` (ba dong, qi lou).

Posted on: Old China Hand

'Could it be a recognition that you no longer need encouragement ? Is there a feeling of being threatened, or of being let in too much on a secret, something sacred?'

I wish I knew the answer to this. I think it is some of what you say, but of course it varies greatly from person to person. Let's say that some 'traditional' types might not like the idea of foreigners getting too proficient with their language, there is a certain arrogance about Chinese culture, but in my experience it is fairly rare.

Another category is also interesting - some Chinese people I come across have a fairly low level of literacy - quite a few of course never finish high school. And here you are sprouting your Chinese. How would you feel if you were them - it is hard to put yourself in their shoes. Just recently I had such an experience that was a little embarrassing for me - indeed a little on both sides. Some people are acutely aware of their limited character writing skills. There was no room for a jokey '中国通‘ comment.

Posted on: License Plate Characters

Baba, I think John is saying he IS Korean in the 对话，but he is played by an actor. The actor is a ChinesePod employee, native Chinese. John comments that some Koreans speak Chinese pretty well. Dilu asks ..'so you just ASSUMED he is Korean?' meaning when you heard the dialogue did you assume that he is a Korean character for some reason. John reiterates, no he IS Korean, meaning that the script writers wrote a Korean part.

Actually there is not much justifying the Korean character in this dialogue, except that it is someone who speaks good Chinese but lacks knowledge about contemporary Chinese culture. Could be any number of nationalities. How they would get to speaking at this level of Chinese without knowing about this pretty simple cultural artifact is questionable. :)

Anyway, John mentions a range of other foreign characters who have appeared in the dialogues; this one is no less authentic than those others. Those speaking excellent Chinese but asking dumb questions do lack a little authenticity. :) But they HAVE to speak excellent Chinese for educational purposes.

Posted on: License Plate Characters

‘你可以说:云发音被神秘云了’

I’m almost certain I know what you mean but I can’t quite turn it into a被bei sentence. (Thanks for making me try!)

You mean: Pronunciation of ‘yun’ is a cloud of mystery? It is ‘wrapped’ in mystery?

You need to know or identify what made the pronunciation of ‘yun’ a mystery in order to turn this into a 把字句or a 被字句, don’t you? The pronunciation of ‘yun’is (made) mysterious by virtue of it’s cloudiness? I went back to ‘wrapped in mystery’.

云的发音笼罩在神秘的气氛之中。

(The pronunciation of ‘yun’ is wrapped in mystery.)

云的发音笼罩long3zhao4(wrapped)在神秘shen2mi4(n. mystery)的气氛qi4fen1(atmosphere)之中zhi1zhong1(in the midst of). Courtesy of the dictionary so I am actually not at all confident this is right.

More simply 云的发音是个谜。 (The pronunciation of 云 is a mystery.)

Or …云的发音之能是这一个问题变得复杂起来。

(Pronunciation of ‘yun’ only clouds the issue.) ..Okay, not at all sure about that one; I also bastardized this one out of the dictionary. :)