User Comments - hamshank

Posted on: Rice First

Thanks for the clarification John. Much appreciated.

Posted on: Rice First

In the expansion sentences the expression 差不多 chà bù duō is used to mean "Almost"...

I thought the meaning was "the difference is not much" i.e it could be "Almost" but it could be "More than"...

So the sentence 他在這裡住了差不多五年了。 tā zài zhèlǐ zhù le chàbùduō wǔ nián le is currently translated as something along the lines of "he has lived here for almost 5 years"......could it also mean "he has lived here for around 5 years?"

I just want to make sure I am not currently using 差不多 wrongly.

Posted on: Negotiating Price

Thanks toianw that does help. Now knowing it is a set phrase means I won't sweat too much over it now.

Posted on: Negotiating Price

This question was asked earlier but went unanswered so I will repeat ;)

How does 看 上去 不 怎麼樣 translate to "does not look good"?? 怎麼樣...The deeper I get into the language, I am finding it seems to have more and more usages. 

Cheers

Posted on: Considering an iPad

I would love to see an IPAD app for the site. Using the browser doesn't work very well (I'm guessing because it uses a lot of flash?!?!)

Posted on: Utensils in the New Kitchen

I've spent the past few days hammering the vocab from the from this lesson and I think it rubbed off on me.

Today I went to the local 鍋貼 place and ended up asking for a 菜刀 instead of a 菜單...I think the poor lady thought I wanted to kill someone!

Posted on: Reinstalling Windows

This is going to seem incredibly anal but during the dialogue the male counterpart says the following

到保存到移動硬盤

I'm really having trouble with the 移動硬盤. When he says 硬, it sounds to me like either a 2nd tone or maybe even the audio is being screwed up. I can hardly hear the pronunciation to be honest.

I'm kind of in limbo here. I don't know whether its just my listening skill that cannot handle it or whether it's the speakers accent or perhaps even an audio issue?!? 

I'm not having trouble with hearing the pronunciation with any of the rest of the dialogue which was making me wonder. I've even gone to the lengths of slowing it down but it still sounds a little odd to me.

If anyone else can hear this or just confirm to me it is my ears that are the problem then that would be great as it has me stumped!

Cheers

Posted on: Language Power Struggle

I agree...Accents are killers to the untrained ear because we just assume its a new word rather than one we know with an accent. I get it all the time in Taiwan...I will learn stuff here and be comfortable with it then I will hear it by a local and be completely confused the first few times I hear it.

I have kicked myself loads of times for that.

Another case for easy errors are the words with double meanings. Especially if you get into the habit of using just one meaning most of the time. I find that when simple sentences using the other meaning come along, they can really stump me and I end up kicking myself afterwards.

The other week someone I was eating with said to me in a restaurant "你想爸爸媽媽嗎?" I instantly was thinking "Why would I want my mum and Dad?"..."Did I hear the tones wrong? Is 爸爸媽媽嗎 actually some weird food they want to order?"....Nope I just forgot to twig that 想 can also mean "miss" rather than always being "would like".

Posted on: Language Power Struggle

I was exactly the same. Although I still have a looonnng way to go, It is starting to get better bit by bit now.

my advice would be this....

1) Never try and translate every word in a sentence as the words you don't know will just confuse you or you will misinterpret them. Just listen for Key words in the sentence and try assume/assemble the meaning from the bits you do know.

The thing is, native speakers are always going to throw words in that you have not covered in a lesson and most of the time they are not crucial to the overall meaning of the sentence. For example if someone says to you "Could you just turn off the Radio next to the fridge please mate?" and the only words you know are "Turn off", "Radio" and "next to"...you will know what to do and you are functioning on the level that is required for that scenario. You might even be able to pick up a new word "Fridge" from knowing "next to" once you have spotted the radio. :)

2) Go with your gut feeling and wing it. You will win some and lose some but you won't feel as overwhelmed or pressured to always understand everything every time.

Posted on: Set the Alarm Clock

謝謝妳lujiaojie. The corrections are much appreciated. I'm quite happy to see that I was not a million miles off on some of my sentences.