User Comments - joeborn

Posted on: 都......了Already

Am I correct in assuming that it would be safer for a non-native speaker to say 不关你的事 than to say 关你屁事？

Posted on: City Series: Bali

rjberki:

   What I inferred (possibly incorrectly) about defecation expressions from the elementary lesson entitled "Number Two" is that 上大號 is considered more delicate/less coarse than 拉大便.  Can any native speakers shed more light on this?

Posted on: Grammar Lesson

Thanks, tal_, that sounds right (although in truth I have too little experience with the language to make that judgment).  But I wonder how much this all depends on context. 

For example, I'm guessing that, devoid of any context, "我要到那儿去" can equally well mean "I want to go there," "I'm going to go there," and "I should go there."  In contrast, it could be that "我们" and "喜欢" are enough context to disambiguate the meaning of 要 in  "我们要喜欢它" to "ought."  Or maybe a native speaker would additionally need to rely on the fact that the sentence comes from a teacher and is preceded by the statement that "grammar is your good friend." 

On the other hand, maybe the sentence actually is ambiguous even in its context?

Posted on: Grammar Lesson

Jenny,

     Of course, grammar generally has less value for native speakers than for others, since the native speaker has heard many more patterns repeated very frequently.

     But I'm guessing that English grammar is more valuable for native English speakers than Chinese grammar is for native Chinese speakers.  I don't know how it is in Chinese, but patterns do arise in written English that even native speakers have not acquired by osmosis, and failure to construct those patterns correctly can compromise--albeit only slightly--a writer's persuasiveness for some audiences.  Some of us who learned grammar back in the 1950s, for example, find it annoying to hear now-routine violations of (what were then considered) grammar rules. 

Posted on: Grammar Lesson

bodawei,

    Diagram means to parse in a graphic way; there were conventional ways of writing the words on intersecting lines to show which ones were the subject, object of the preposition, etc.  I question the value of that skill. 

Posted on: Grammar Lesson

    When I first listened to the dialog, I thought that the teacher meant "We're going to like it" when he said, "我們要喜歡它."  I now recognize that "should" was meant rather than "are going to."  But now I don't know how you'd say "We're going to like it."

Posted on: Lao Wang's Office 14: The Finale

tal_, thanks for the tip; I'll keep trying to hear it.  (No luck so far, though.)

Posted on: Lao Wang's Office 14: The Finale

Has anyone else had difficulty mapping the audio to the "ni3 zhe4ge ren2" in what follow's Wang's wife's "wo3 shi4 wei4 ni3 hao3"?  I've listened quite a few times, but I can't hear "ni3 zhe4ge ren2" in it. 

Posted on: Wang Wei's Diary: The Importance of Brains

changye:

    Thanks again.  That clears it up for me, and it adds to the sentence patterns I can learn.

shenyajin:

    Thanks for your response, too.  Just to be clear, though, I'll stray from Chinese and point out what the corresponding English means.  

    The English "Your grandfather wouldn't want to see you like that" is subjunctive--in contrast to the indicative "Your grandfather doesn't want to see you like that"--because it does indeed state something that's contrary to fact: it states the consequence of an implicit contrary-to-fact condition, which is that Grandpa could still care.  The fact of the matter is that Grandpa is past caring, so it's meaningless to talk about whether he wants [indicative] to see you like that.  But if he were [contrary to fact, so subjunctive] still alive, then he wouldn't want [again, subjunctive] to see you like that. 

     As to the other English-sentence pair, the "I wish" and "I hope" sentences are both indicative in their main clauses: "I wish" and "I hope" are both indicative.  But those sentences have a mood difference in their subordinate clauses, i.e., in the noun clauses that are respectively the objects of "hope" and "wish."  "Have" in "I hope we have tests every day" is indicative: the speaker is implying that as far as he knows there may indeed be tests every day.  But "had" in "I wish we had tests every day" is subjunctive because the speaker is implying that in fact they don't have tests everyday. 

    Yes, the subjunctive mood is difficult in English; even we native English speakers routinely get it wrong--and we get the subjunctive mood wrong even more when we try to speak other European languages; their subjunctive usages do not track English's.

    Sorry to have run on like that.  Since I've already written it, though, I'll allow it to remain in case it helps any non-native speakers of English who may be reading this.  

     Again, thanks for your help. 

Posted on: Wang Wei's Diary: The Importance of Brains

Changye,

    Thanks so much for your response.  I infer from it that, e.g., 但愿每天考试 unambiguously signifies what we use the subjunctive for in English.  That is, I infer that 但愿每天考试 unambiguously signifies that 每天考试 is a statement contrary to fact. 

    But I wonder if I might impose upon you further.  The translations of both 我希望每天考試 and 你爺爺也不希望看到你這樣 into English used the subjunctive, indicating conditions contrary to fact.  Was I nonetheless right in surmising that, at least in the absence of context, a native speaker could instead have attributed to them the indicative--i.e., not-necessarily-contrary-to-fact--meanings I gave them above?