User Comments - jimijames

Posted on: Which tone was that again?

rodswithoutnumber,

army camp is 军营 jūnyīng

so 化学营 huàxué yīng makes sense for Chemistry Camp

Possibly some more translations of interest related to types of camps.

band camp 音乐队营　yīnyuèduìyīng

music camp 音乐营　yīnyuèyīng

summer camp 夏令营　xiàlìngyīng

"There was one time at band camp....."

有一段时间在音乐队营。。。。

yǒuyíduànshíjiànzàiyīnyuèduìyīng........

Posted on: Which tone was that again?

To me they is a slight difference in these two sentence about "liking skiing"

你是不是喜欢滑雪？This sentence is confirming what you may already know from information you may already have about someone who likes to ski. "You must like to ski" why? because before you said this sentence you may have known that the person talks about skiing all the time, or you may know that he/she goes to ski often.

你喜欢滑雪，是吧？The sentence is more forceful but polite because the 是吧 is added to tone down your forwardness to find out if the person you are talking to likes to ski.

I hope this little analysis helps.

Also I may say the second sentence as

你喜欢滑雪，是吗？

You like skiing, right.

Cpod teachers....do you have any further clarification?

Posted on: Lovey-Dovey Terminology

Another one for a married wife, called by her husband is 媳妇儿, in Beijing I usually hear is as second tone and then neutral tone. As in xífur

我媳妇儿来了！wǒxífurláile! My wife is coming!

Posted on: Lovey-Dovey Terminology

When my wife and I were first dating she wanted to call me 臭臭 chòuchòu "stinky stinky", she wanted me to call her 香香 xiāngxiāng "sweet sweet" or "fragrant fragrant"

Posted on: Lovey-Dovey Terminology

Here are some lovey-dovey terminology I have come across.

甜瓜 sweet melon tiánguā  term of endearment for the girl from her boyfriend.

臭瓜 stinky melon chòuguā term of endearment for the boy from his girlfriend.

Posted on: Meeting ChinesePod's Teachers

Cattywompus means disarray.

Chinese is 太乱 tàiluàn

Cattywompus can also mean askew

Chinese is 歪的 wàide

Cheers

Posted on: The Red Spectrum of Meaning

开门红 kāiménhóng

Means to get off to a good start or make a good beginning.

Posted on: The Black Spectrum of Meaning

For Newbies to Chinese, if you use the character 黑hēi and write a small 口kǒu to the left of it so it becomes a new chinese character, that chinese character is still typed in pinying as "hei" but it is one of the characters used to describe the audible sound of laughing as in 嘿嘿嘿! typed hei hei hei and really meaning in English like the sound of Hee Hee Hee!!

That's positive use of the character 黑

:)

Posted on: How to Start a Conversation with Chinese People

Thanks for the feedback.

Though each time I asked this question to all of the chinese people I spoke to, of which were not over the age of 50 years all opened up to this type of conversation continued to speak with me. They enjoyed my level of communication and interest in them, so they continue to speak with me. And as they smiled, they at times did speak about their families' children; and to see on the faces of what those children enjoyed doing too, made the person was speaking with happy aswell.

Just as interesting, in my personal experience this last week in Beijing, I and my non-chinese colleges have seen Chinese people of all ages, children and adults, enjoying themselves letting off firecrackers.

All the best

Posted on: How to Start a Conversation with Chinese People

He is some conversation starters I used lately.

过年好　guòniánhǎo

新年快乐　xīnniánkuàile happy new year

你放炮了没？　nǐfàngpàolemei? Did you let off some firecrackers?

If the person did not, usually they were so excited to hear these questions that they would reply.

没有就看别的人放了 méiyǒujiùkànbiéderénfàngle No, I just watched allow people let off firecrackers.

I would reply, 好玩儿吗？hǎowánma? Was that fun?

The reply was, 好玩！hǎowán! Good fun!

The exclaimation mark really means something, because after this short dialogue, the person I am talking to is usually very happy and excited that you are concerned about how they enjoyed they Chinese New Year. 

I did not bother ask if they received red bags of money or who they enjoyed their time with, for a college or stranger that would be too much to 打扰 dǎrǎo (disturb or trouble)

During 2009, Beijing went through the "Kaixin001.com craze" and many local chinese were busy "growing" "electronic" vegetables. A common way of starting conversation during that time was "今天你偷了没？" jīntiānnǐtōulemei? Meaning have you stolen vegetables from your friends "electronic vegetable patch" today?

Besides compliments on a person's beauty the best next thing to really start conversation is to understand what is it that the person wants to talk about, and then knowing how to say it. During that time, everyone wanted to talk about how they were "stealing" vegetable product in a web based game.

If at eating time i.e. breakfast, lunch or dinner time, then 你吃了吗？is a common greating because it is common sense that what is on the mind of someone during that time is the act of eating, the thinking about eating soon or the satisfaction of eating after the meal. You can choose how to answer, in order to to have a long or short conversation.

 All the best