User Comments - christine30550

Posted on: 学术抄袭

I was doing some research for my part-time job this afternoon, and - through Google - came across an interesting article written by a couple of Chinese scientists. Alas - I couldn't get ahold of the article on the online portal, as it had been retracted on grounds of plagiarism. The Chinese authors (professors all of them, as far as I know), it seems, had copied large amounts of text from an older American article on the same topic (urban planning). The authors of the later article claimed they were not plagiarizing since they had quoted the US authors, but to the editor of the online portal, this was not acceptable, given the amount copied, which in his view exceeded the usual purpose of citation. It's all a matter of measure, I guess. In any case, it made my life difficult this afternoon!

Posted on: Sorry and Thank You

It took me a while before I fully understood the 对不起 and the Chinese way of saying "to 对得起 a person".

So I can e.g. say "我对不起你了" (which I think means "I let you down"), or " 我要对得起他" (I don't want to let him down, or, more literally, I want to get it right to(wards) him.

As for not saying "thank you" all the time, I recall one of my old friends telling me not to thank him every time he passed the soy sauce to me etc. He said it made him feel uncomfortable if I thanked him for every little thing, as it created too much of a 客气-atmosphere, and that would make him feel as though we were strangers. It seems to me the closer, the more familiar people are, the less need there is for polite talk such as 谢谢。

Back to the "sorry" part. Yesterday my neighbour told me her dog had died. I wanted to show sympathy, but all I could think of in Chinese was "哦哟，真可惜!". Not sure if that's the right thing to say? I guess, after reading the comments above, I should have replied 不要太伤心.. but to me it seems awkward to say this after my neighbour just told me how very 伤心 they were about the dog passing away. Is it really what Chinese would usually say in such a situation?

Posted on: 小沈阳

Wow, this was really hard for me to follow. I only understood small parts of the dialogue... still, entertaining! And it was good to watch the video after listening to Jenny and Connie's comments. Thanks for this lesson!

Posted on: Finance Segment on TV

Another tricky expression (if I remember this correctly):

我差点摔倒了

我差点没摔倒了

both mean the same: I almost fell over.

Quite confusing!

Posted on: 风水与五行

Bababardwan, so what happened to those 朋友的朋友 after all those 风水 arrangements? Any positive outcome? Poor couple, in that hot bedroom!

Posted on: 学术抄袭

Hi Changye,

Many thanks for your detailed explanation! So - just to make sure I got this right - the 反映 here is actually a verb, and the core of the sentence would be

我好.....反映 -- it's easy for me to report (to the leader), or, with your translation:

"(Your proof) makes it easy for me to report to the leader." ?

Posted on: 学术抄袭

In the last sentence, the guy says 我好向校领导反映 (I'll get the school leaders' reaction). Is the 好向 in this sentence something like I "will very well get ahold of"? I don't quite understand the Chinese structure.... the 反映 in  校领导反映 is a noun, right?

Posted on: Health Check

我的一位好朋友（以前的语言伙伴， 是个男人）经常会对我说: "啊，你胖了!"。好像他比较高兴。 At least somebody's happy about it! The same way, if I lost weight, he would comment 你瘦了! I think to him, one way or the other, it doesn't make a difference, so telling me I got fat is just a neutral comment. Maybe even better than "shou", which, after all, comes with a 病字旁 (is it "旁"?) in Chinese. I think it's quite refreshing, the way Chinese people are direct. Once I was in an elevator with two shop clerks (both of them girls), and one said to the other: 今天你的皮肤不好! It seemed to me they were friends and the one who commented on the other's skin was just caring about the other's well-being.

Posted on: 盛唐风气

...maybe the gods are on a diet, too!

Posted on: All the Things You Can Hit: 打 (dǎ)

..actually, come to think of it, we "hit" a lot in other languages, too, without really beating others, like if we hit it big, hit the road, hit on somebody, hit sb up for cash (see recent Englishpod). Just some random examples that came to mind just now.