User Comments - joeborn

Posted on: Meeting in Real Life

In the expansion sentences, "我的家人都不支持我" is translated as "none of my family members support me."  How would you instead say "Not even my family members support me"?

Posted on: Meeting in Real Life

In Mandarin must one resort to context to infer the contrary-to-fact sense that in English we can use the subjunctive mood to signal?  Specifically, the expansion sentence "如果他是个穷小子，你肯嫁给他吗？" is translated as "If he was [sic, were] a poor boy would you still be willing to marry him?" (subjunctive), but could it just as correctly mean "If he's  a poor boy will you still be willing to marry him?" (indicative)? 

As another example, would Mandarin make no distinction between "You get in for half price if you're over sixty" and "You'd get in for half price if you were over sixty"?

Posted on: Having Spare Keys Made

Thanks a lot, Jenny.

Posted on: Having Spare Keys Made

From the English translation, namely, "you should protect your wife," of the expansion-sentence clause 你应该要保护好自己的妻子, it's not clear what 要's function  is.  Can 要 be omitted and leave that clause with the same meaning?  Or is a closer translation "you should be prepared to protect your wife" or "you should be willing to protect your wife"?

Posted on: Having Spare Keys Made

My guess was the same as yours:

(1) the "ask" in the translation may have been misleading; i.e., the Chinese probably just means he borrowed rather then he asked to borrow.

(2) although 向 usually means "toward," it's probably better translated as "from" in this context.

It would be helpful, though, if a native speaker could confirm those guesses for us.

Posted on: Monthly Data Plan

Thanks so much to you and toianw. I'm still turning it over in my mind, but it appears from what you two said that 原来 is used in situations in which some native English speakers might say, "[It] turns out it was because. . . ."

Thanks again.

Posted on: Monthly Data Plan

Thanks, Jenny.

Posted on: Monthly Data Plan

Can anyone explain the function of 原来 expansion sentence 原来对面新开了一家,which is translated as "There was a new shop that opened right across the street"?  Hovering over that word gives the meaning "all along," and MDBG translates it as "at first; originally; formerly; so . . . actually," but none of those meanings seems consistent with the translation above.  The best I can come up with is that 原来's actually part of a set phrase with 开了 that means "opened for business" or "first opened for business," but that seems a stretch.  Does anyone know?

Posted on: Monthly Data Plan

In the first expansion sentence for  难怪, does anyone else hear the audio pronounce 男朋友 as something like "num hou you"?

Posted on: Help with the Baby

Thanks a lot. I guess I'll have to get a mobile device so I can use Pleco. MDBG, which is what I've been using, doesn't have an entry for 很有, and I would never have guessed that meaning. (I'm familiar with constructions like 很有钱, but in those the 有 retains a "have"-like meaning instead of a "be"-like one.)

Again, thanks for the help.