User Comments - changye

Posted on: I want coffee!

Hi simon

Thanks a lot for your invitation. Let me add a few more things to your comment. “汉语欧化” (Westernization of Mandarin) gradually started in the second half of the 19th century, and it was expedited after The May Fourth Movement （五四运动） in 1919, which also triggered “白话运动” (colloquialization movement) in China.

Actually such westernization was mainly seen in Chinese grammar and structure, which I think was caused through translation from foreign languages such as English and Japanese to Chinese. Japanese began to be westernized earlier than Chinese did, and so I suspect "westernized Japanese" also grammatically influenced Chinese at that time.

Vocabulary-wise, Chinese borrowed much more words from Japanese than from English from the late 19th century to the early 20th century, which are called “和制汉语/日制汉语” in Chinese. In those days, tons of Western words and concepts were first translated into Japanese, and later exported to China by Chinese students/intelligentsia who studied in Japan, or defected to Japan. The same process is almost true for modern Korean.

Pronunciations of northern Chinese started to change "dramatically" around the 10th century, when northern ethnic groups, Mongolian included, occupied northern China. The Mongolian rule (元朝，1271-1368) and the Manchuria rule (清朝，1644-1912) of course heavily influenced the Chinese language, mainly northern dialects.

Posted on: Comparing Buts: 但 and 却

Hi tvan

Look at the sentence this way, i.e. “她明明在家，（她）却不接电话。” On the other hand, you can't say “她明明在家，她但是不接电话” as “但是” is a conjunction. The correct one is “她明明在家，但是她不接电话。” The same is true for the adverb “也” in the sentence “我们唱歌，（我们）也跳舞” , for example.

Posted on: Going to the Toy Store

人就那样！

Posted on: Transportation

Hi John

How bout 怎样 and 如何 ?

Posted on: Going to the Toy Store

Toy Story 《玩具总动员》

Posted on: Outdoor Survivors (Part 2)

哎哟，我太伤心了！是不是因为有人欺负你？呵呵

Posted on: 理财

日本有一句俗话说，“看不起一块钱的人将会为一块钱而哭泣。”

Posted on: Separable Verbs

To be honest, I always thought that “吃饭” was NOT a so-called "separable verb" but merely a verb “吃” plus an object “饭”.

Posted on: Separable Verbs

You have a point. It might be a little difficult to tell which verb is separable if you don't have a dictionary that shows it. There is the book titled 《现代汉语离合词用法词典》 (for foreign learers) in China, and it contains about 1700 separable verbs and their usages ......... wow! I think that chanelle77 might get a copy of this book before she leaves China, hehe.

http://product.dangdang.com/product.aspx?product_id=9306306

That said, fortunately there is rule of thumb, that is, "separable verbs have a VO structure", but unfortunately the opposite is not always true, hehe. Here are some commonly used separable verbs, which I think are just enough for us learners here in Chinesepod.

碍事，安心，办公，办学，帮忙，报名，毕业，闭幕，编号，贬值，拨款，播音，拆台，超产，吵架，唱歌，吃饭，出差，出境，出口，出面，出院，出丑，创业，辞职，存款，打架，打针，怠工，贷款，担保，担心，道歉，登记，点火，订婚，定性，丢人，懂事，动身，对话，发病。发愁，发火，发言，罚款，放心，放学，分工，分手，付款，鼓掌，害羞，回信，灰心，汇款，会客，革命，集邮，加班，接吻，减产，见面，见效，结婚，结业，尽力，看病，考试，旷课，劳驾，理发，离婚，聊天，留学，露面，录像，录音，冒险，纳闷儿，拼命，签名，请客，缺席，让步，散步，上当，上班，扫兴，生病，生气，生效，失学，失业，梳头，睡觉，说话，算数，叹气，探亲，听话，跳舞，剃头，投资，问好，握手，洗脸，洗头，洗澡，下班，像样，泄气，疑心，用力，用心，有用，游泳，造反，照相，住院，着急，坐班，做梦

Posted on: Separable Verbs

"Separable verbs" is really one of the most difficult parts of learning Mandarin, but I would say it's much less annyoing than "separable verbs" in German, prefixes of which are often placed at the end of a sentence. I just hate them.