User Comments - go_manly

Posted on: April Fool's Day Car

Clearly 笑 needs some sort of complement.

Other than 笑起来, we can also use 笑着.

Are there any more complements that can be used with 笑 ?

Posted on: Lao Wang's Office 12: A Dodgy Opportunity

Now if that's a joke, its a bit of a stretch.

Posted on: Beards Are for Old Men

I've had a look at some of the sample sentences from Nciku. To me it seems that 看起来 implies you are about to draw a conclusion based on a momentary glimpse. Such as looking up at the sky, and saying 'it looks like rain'. As a result, a number of these sentences end with but ... . In other words, 'on first glimpse it looks like this, but actually its like this'. So, 'it looks difficult, but in fact its easy', or 'the car looks like a bomb, but it drives like a rocket'. Most of these sentences don't have this 'but', but there is still the feeling that you are drawing a conclusion from outward appearances alone.

看上去 on the other hand seems to indicate that you have reached your conclusion based on more in-depth analysis. While 看起来 tends to be near the start of a sentence, 看上去 tends to be closer to the end, preceded by the details of your observation. Such as 'Those subtle patterns on the silk look elegant', 'There are plenty of cypresses in the garden, making it look lush and green'.

Having said that, there are many examples I can't explain with what I have just said. Nevertheless, there does seem to be a pattern there. I really recommend looking at the Nciku sample sentences. Meanings are often best discovered by comparing and contrasting many examples.

Anyway, thanks for the question, its the first time I've looked at the difference between these two.

Posted on: NGO Guy

OK, I'm not at this level, so I had to make extensive use of a dictionary, but here is what I've got:

对。那通常的中国公益广告都需要你要讲礼貌啊。什么上公共汽车要给老人小孩儿让座。要不要随地吐痰，之类的。

Duì. Nà tōngcháng de Zhōngguó gōngyì guănggào dōu xūyào nĭ yào jiăng lĭmào a. Shénme shàng gōnggòng qìchē yào gĕi lăorén xiăoháir ràngzuò. Yào búyào suídì tŭtán, zhīlèi de.

I'm sure the beginning of the last sentence is not correct, but I couldn't think of anything better.

Posted on: Lao Wang's Office 12: A Dodgy Opportunity

Why does CPod keep editing my posts?

This post said something like 'It looks like CPod has removed my word list again, so here it is again'.

Why do they have such a problem admitting they made a mistake?

No doubt this comment will be deleted come Monday morning.

And its not just that this is in a lesson thread. They would not allow me to post my complaint in general discussion.

OK, so I can't place Expansion sentence vocabulary - accepted - grudgingly.

But you made a mistake in deleting ALL my posts without reading them properly - now its your turn to accept the situation.

And I'm posting here because John won't return my PM.

Posted on: April Fool's Day Car

When you look up 笑起来 in the CPod Glossary, you get 2 examples. In one, it means 'smile', in the other it means 'laugh'.

edit:

I looked on Nciku, and all the examples there where 笑起来 referred to laughter seem to indicate that someone is starting to laugh, or that laughter broke out, so it seems to refer to the onset of laughter only. I'm guessing from those examples that you couldn't use it to say someone is 'always laughing'.

The question still remains - how do you distinguish between someone smiling, and laughter breaking out? Let me guess - context?

Posted on: (W)rapping It All Up

No Qingwen today?

Posted on: How was your flight?

pretzellogic

Just letting you know (in case you didn't already) that you can enter ü by typing v.

Posted on: How was your flight?

Some corrections/suggestions:

Firstly, that xié. Do you mean xiē (些). That is a measure word. You wouldn't have two consecutive measure words.

Secondly, yìgōng. I could be wrong, but I think that should be placed after the time.

Thirdly, xiǎoshī should be xiǎoshí.

Fourthly, lútú should be lǚtú.

I'm thinking it should be:

Zhège (or zhèxiē) hángbān xūyào shíbā ge xiǎoshí de shíjiān yìgōng.

Posted on: Lili and Zhang Liang 7: A Guy's Advice on Women

Here is a transcript of the Podcast. It is based on Richy's work in the 32 transcripts.

Word Version

PDF Version