User Comments - calicartel

Posted on: Love Tangle 4: Baby Plans

I think this woman is proposing getting pregnant because she suspects she's pregnant already (by the other guy).

Posted on: 扎着麻花辫的女孩

I have a query about 任 in the third line of the main text "... 任课老师" is translated as "... many teachers ...". I don't see where the "many" comes from. I agree there may have been more than one teacher involved, but what about 任? Souldn't it read "... the teacher(s) in charge of the classes ..."?

Posted on: 经济适用男

I'm trying to pinpoint the meaning of expansion sentence number 8: 我们这么多朋友中，就数他性格最张扬. This is translated as  "Among all of our many friends, his personality is the most open and chatty". A I right in assuming that 数 means "number (= count)"? In which case a closer rendering would be "... his personality is considered to be the most open and chatty".

Posted on: Christmas Dinner

Gosh, the Chinese do have a quantitative approach! I give them full-marks for that.

Posted on: Christmas Dinner

Two cooking-related questions occured to me while doing the expansion sentences.

1) Expansion sentence number 6 begins with "七分熟的牛肉", translated as "Medium-well cooked beef". Which is it? I mean "medium" or "well done". Or something in between? A well-done steak is one where no trace of blood or reddish coulour is detectable. Medium is with some red in the middle.

2) There are 3 words meaning "Chinese dumplings" in the expansions :

点心
饺子
笼包

When Googled they throw up pretty much the same pics. Are they roughly interchangeable? "Dim sum" is the word used by foreigners. I assume it derives from a non-madarin source.

Posted on: Drunk Driving

In one expansion sentence 你最近要特别注意 is translated as "You should be particularly attentive in the next little while". Am I right in concluding that 最近 denotes proximity in time not only for the past, but also for the future?

Posted on: Moving In Together

In 我们两个在一起也有个照应, the word "照应" is translated as "to take care of (each other)". My Firefox Chinese toolbar throws up an additional meaning for 照应 which is "to correspond", "to correlate". Wouldn't this meaning better fit the sentence? I mean it's not easy to see how "有个照应" can translate into "we can take care of each other".

Incidentally, same sentence: "我有好多同学" is rendered as "... my ex-classmates". Should be "... my classmates" (no "ex").

Posted on: Munich

München: die toteste Hose südlich von Flensburg.

Posted on: New Year's Wishes

Some complaining of my own: in this podcast one third of Jenny's lines peter out in some English word or expression. This is bad for learning. Even struggling intermediate learners are better off missing the odd Chinese term than memorizing sentences that contain English placeholders.

Posted on: New Year's Wishes

motti   said:

"What is wrong with the lady that reads the expansion, this is a Lesson not a race, once I hear the speed of reading I loose my willingness to keep studying."

I once experienced the same frustration ... until I reached UI and advanced level and realized upon reviewing intermediate lessons that the pace had been OK. I guess it's a trade-off between making the sentences accessible for students at lower levels while keeping them interesting in the long term for reviewing students. What you can do is download the review file so that you can listen to the expansion sentences over and over again. You can cut out the stand-alone vocab and keep only the sentences using the freeware mp3DirectCut.