User Comments - dangrayson
dangrayson
Posted on: Lao Wang's Office 11: Wang in the Doghouse
June 10, 2009 at 1:04 PMRaygo and Pete, thanks for the detailed explanation. I very much like Raygo's suggestion to translate it as something like "You are the sort of person who just knows how to waste time", because it addresses that grammatical unit. Now if I could find it somewhere in my grammar books...
If I insert 是 to get 你是这个人就知道混日子, do I get something correct that means the same thing?
Posted on: Lao Wang's Office 11: Wang in the Doghouse
June 9, 2009 at 3:58 PMCan someone explain what happened to "这个人" in the translation of 你这个人就知道混日子, which was "You just know how to coast along"? And the grammar, too? Another plausible translation would be "These people of yours just know how to waste time", at least if you pay attention to that extra noun phrase. Is it wrong?
Posted on: Why are You Studying Chinese?
June 6, 2009 at 9:34 PMI accepted an invitation to lecture at the math institute at Hangzhou University in 2007, so to prepare for that I hired a tutor and studied the language for 4 months, managing to learn to read 600 characters. I stayed in China for 5 weeks, but the frustrating thing was that I had such a hard time understanding what people were saying to me. I hope the ChinesePod dialogues and discussions will help me learn to hear the language quickly enough to understand, but it all seems so fast still. Meanwhile, my new motivation is that my new grandchild is half Chinese, he'll be learning Chinese, and the other grandparents don't speak English. Also, I want to be able to read the recipes in the Szechuan cookbooks I bought in Shanghai. I would like to return to China for extended stays, studying Chinese and thinking about math.
Posted on: Lao Wang's Office 11: Wang in the Doghouse
June 3, 2009 at 5:04 PMraygo, re : "at 3:25, should 钱用的差不多了 be 钱用得差不多了 (twice)?", my suggestion was actually to change 的 to 得 in 2 places where it occurs.
zhenlijiang: thanks, I'll make one post next time.
raygo: about my pronunciation query, thanks, yes, in quick speech pronunciation can vary, but I'd like to learn the common ways it varies and not waste time learning the uncommon ones or the mispronunciations: I don't know how to distinguish those. Also, I'm wondering whether my hearing "zia" instead of "xing2" indicates that the performer took a liberty and added a "a5" to the end of the sentence, which is part of why I'm seeking specific feedback about specific points of pronunciation. Perhaps I even have difficulties with my ears of my headphones, and other people will tell me they don't hear "zia". In case it would help, here is the sentence: oops, I don't see a way to insert an mp3 file.
Posted on: Lao Wang's Office 11: Wang in the Doghouse
June 2, 2009 at 10:01 PMCould a native speaker of Chinese tell me what they actually hear when LaoWang says 你支持我一下行不行 ? The last syllable sounds like "zia" to me, and the other 行 is truncated, losing its terminal consonant sound.
Posted on: Lao Wang's Office 11: Wang in the Doghouse
June 2, 2009 at 4:44 PMraygo, at 7:23 remove 是 from 这个就是说你很不努力
Posted on: Lao Wang's Office 11: Wang in the Doghouse
June 2, 2009 at 4:34 PMraygo, at 6:44 I hear a 那 just before 你可以说别跟我闹了
Posted on: Lao Wang's Office 11: Wang in the Doghouse
June 2, 2009 at 4:25 PMraygo, at 5:49 I suggest changing 他当然不高兴啊 to 他当然很不高兴啦
Posted on: Lao Wang's Office 11: Wang in the Doghouse
June 10, 2009 at 4:23 PMAnd if I insert 的 to get 你的这个人就知道混日子, do I get something correct that means the same thing?