User Comments - daizi
daizi
Posted on: Microsoft
July 30, 2008 at 2:49 PMInland,
Two of the primary ways foreign words are brought into Chinese are translation 翻译 fānyì, and transliteration or transcription 音译 yīnyì (i.e, approximating the sound).
With transliteration, the characters used often have little if any meaning related to the original word. Some examples are:
kāfēi 咖啡 (coffee)
báibái 拜拜 (bye-bye)
módēng 摩登 (modern)
Àolínpǐkè 奥林匹克 (Olympic)
Bùshí 总统 (Bush, president/war criminal)
yǎpíshì 雅皮士 (yuppie)
Posted on: The Non-Chinese Speaking Tourist and Toilets
January 14, 2008 at 5:30 PMSquatters on trains will really test your mettle (not to mention your calf muscles and balance). Probably the worst cèsuǒ I've ever seen was a public roadside three-holer in rural Harbin. The only thing that allowed me to stand on the piles of human waste surrounding the holes was the minus 30 degree temperatures. That helped with the smell as well.
Posted on: The Non-Chinese Speaking Tourist and Toilets
January 14, 2008 at 5:30 PMSquatters on trains will really test your mettle (not to mention your calf muscles and balance). Probably the worst cèsuǒ I've ever seen was a public roadside three-holer in rural Harbin. The only thing that allowed me to stand on the piles of human waste surrounding the holes was the minus 30 degree temperatures. That helped with the smell as well.
Posted on: Good Morning!
January 9, 2008 at 8:08 PMAll I can say about this lesson is: 好久不见! Hǎojiǔbujiàn! Long time no see!
Posted on: A Present from Santa Claus
December 26, 2007 at 5:40 PMListen to David Sedaris' "Live at Carnegie Hall" for a truly hilarious accounting of the Dutch tradition.
Posted on: A Present from Santa Claus
December 25, 2007 at 9:57 PMkriskringle: Yes, Lǎozi (老子）: the supposed writer of the self-titled book "The Laozi." FuDaWei: Santa probably was beating an elf, child labor being what it is today.
Posted on: 定做的噩梦
December 25, 2007 at 4:10 PMMerry X-Holiday , everyone. 祝大家X-节快乐！ An old Mexican hangover cure is a bowl of menudo (tripe soup). I tried it many moons ago, when I ate meat. It's pretty disgusting so it must have worked. For my money, though, nothing works like a little "hair of the dog." So what if it's 9 a.m.? It's noon somewhere.
Posted on: Most Frequently Asked Question in China
December 23, 2007 at 4:42 AMAnd one can also often leave out the 是 : 你哪儿的？ 你哪国人？
Posted on: What does 厉害 (lìhai) mean, anyway?
December 23, 2007 at 1:40 AMsimilar to "bad" in American English, which can mean: good, bad, vulgar, hip, cool, mean, cruel, stylish, etc... and finding its obverse in: knowing jack, and not knowing jack
Posted on: Tool Delivery
August 2, 2008 at 6:42 PMFunny & sick. Caesarean psycho.
Suburbanite:
Hardware store=五金店 wǔjīndiàn and it's measure word is 家 jiā