User Comments - johnb
johnb
Posted on: Chinese Baijiu and the Best of the Worst
February 11, 2011 at 1:38 AMYeah, I'm seeing it too. It's not really an advert -- it's says: "This photo is from QQ Spaces and is being used without authorization." I'll get rid of the offending photo.
Posted on: Inside the Baozi Business
February 9, 2011 at 2:20 AM早点铺 financial auditing doesn't make for particularly interesting listening, me thinks. Plus, at full speed from a native speaker (who is neither a voice actor nor a 对外汉语 educator), without a transcript, it would have been pretty much inaccessible to the vast majority of the audience.
If you're interested in the nitty gritty details, 中国行业研究报告网 might be a good place to start looking.
Posted on: What's in a name?
February 1, 2011 at 1:56 AMHey baba,
It's 撼, which is most commonly used in 震撼 [zhènhàn]. It's not a super common character, and I don't remember if I mentioned in the podcast or not, but lots of people don't know how to write it (despite it being relatively simple). I have to tell people how to write it pretty frequently, and have been told that such a character doesn't exist from time to time.
Posted on: Marco Polo in China
January 24, 2011 at 9:31 AMThe Chinese definitely knew about tones before the Jesuits. The original incarnation of 反切 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanqie) from the Three Kingdoms era encoded the tone in the second character of the combination, so there was an understanding and study of tones in Chinese dating from at least then (and almost certainly quite a bit earlier).
Posted on: Which is better: China or the USA?
December 30, 2010 at 9:14 AMThis is actually something that bugs the heck out of me, too, zhelijiang. Even labels like "American" are problematic when talking about culture (the Deep South and the Pacific Northwest are more than just distant geographically), let alone clumping in everyone from Alaska to Athens to Helsinki into a single noun.
My feeling is that Chinese, for better or worse, tend to use 西方人 as a stand-in for 白人, whereas "Westerners" tend to use it to mean "folks heavily influenced by Euro-American culture" (which sometimes extends to Japan/Korea, parts of the Middle East, etc.).
I try not to use it, but its so common in discourse here that I'm sure I do.
Posted on: Which is better: China or the USA?
December 30, 2010 at 9:01 AMMy all-time favorite taxi conversation was in late 2004 or early 2005, just after Bush was elected to a second term. My driver told me, after confirming that I was indeed American, that he thought George Bush was a great president. This was surprising because most Chinese at the time could list a variety of reasons why they felt the opposite.
I asked him why. "Because," he said, "if George Bush were the President of China, he would have taken care of Taiwan a long time ago."
真。丢。脸。
Posted on: River Town Tourism
December 20, 2010 at 7:32 AMClaudielo, you're not the first to ask that question: http://wenwen.soso.com/z/q85868619.htm
From the second answer: 《碟中谍》取意是第一部电影中各方人马争夺的美国在东欧线人的名单，存于一张光碟中，两部续集得情节已经与光碟无关，但由于习惯仍沿用原译名了。Basically, the name came from the first movie, where they were trying to get the list of names of American agents in eastern Europe (which was on a disc), and the second and third movies continued to be called that even though the plot didn't involve discs. :)
Posted on: The Rising Cost of Food
December 14, 2010 at 7:03 AMAs you all know, food is an enormously important part of staying alive. So it really freaks people out that basic food costs are rising.
Posted on: How to Protect the Environment
December 13, 2010 at 7:03 AM对不起，你好像听错了。记得吧，汉语是他们的母语，对于他们来讲“公交”和“公江”之差异非常大，不会随意搞错。像我要说bus的时候无疑地说blart一样罕见。:)
Posted on: Chinese Baijiu and the Best of the Worst
February 11, 2011 at 1:39 AMDone. Sorry about that, and thanks much for the head's up.
I swear, though, if I ever drink anything that gives me QQ advert hallucinations, I'm giving up alcohol forever. :D