User Comments - light487

Posted on: How many family members do you have?

Nope.. they are the same as if I were to ask my "mum" or my "dad" for something. I would say, "Mum, can I have some more food?" or "Dad, can you help me with this?".. you would use 妈妈 and 爸爸 the same way.

你妈妈身体好吗？

nǐ māma shēntǐ hǎo ma?

Your mother's health good? (literal)

How's your mother doing?

Or perhaps more casually..

你爸爸怎么样？

nǐ bàba zěnme yàng?

Your father how is he? (literal)

How's your father going?

Posted on: Connecting with Email

Didn't really answer my own question..

I was asking if perhaps 目录 mùlù was talking about the "list of files" (or "contents") of a folder rather than being the folder (or "container") the "directory" itself. Before Windows came along, we used the term "directory" instead of "folder". In terms of computers, they mean the same thing and since these are computer related words, I am trying to understand the difference between 目录 mùlù and 文件夹 wénjiànjiā.

I'm not asking for an explanation of what a folder or directory is.. but what the Chinese terms for them are.. does that make sense?

Just to clarify, from what I am understanding:

文件夹 is to 杯子, as 目录 is to 咖啡.

That is.. The folder is the container, just like a cup is a container. The "directory" is the contents, as the coffee is the contents of the cup.

Posted on: Anybody home?

I'm not sure it would be bù but I could understand it being ba (neutral tone).

我们快跑吧

wǒmen kuàipǎo ba...

Let's run fast...

bù means, generally speaking, "no".. where as the ba here makes the sentence a suggestion rather than an order.

Posted on: Negotiating a Deadline

I wonder if that is the norm for this level of lesson? I find Intermediate lessons manageable, challenging and very stimulating. I know that with all of the levels I have studied you get some easy lessons and some hard ones, pretty much for the same reasons you've highlighted above. I'm certainly not ready for upper intermediate but I am curious if with this level of study you are now expected to be putting a lot more time into each lesson.

With the newbie and elementary levels, you can pretty much listen to them once and then review them maybe in a month or two. With the intermediate ones you need to listen to them at least a couple of times to get a good understanding of everything going on.. so with upper, it must be that you now need to spend a lot of "home work" time on the new words, the new combinations and so on.. plus train your brain to translate faster :)

Posted on: This Needs to be Dry Cleaned

Hrmm.. I guess they could technically be.. but the way I understand it: 西装 means "western clothing" in general but 西服 means "suit" specifically..

Posted on: This Needs to be Dry Cleaned

浆硬 [漿-] jiāng yìng /to starch/to stiffen cloth with starch/

definitely not

生粉 shēng fěn /cornflour/starch powder (cooking)/

:)

Make sure you are not asking him to cook your clothes in starch powder :p

Posted on: This Needs to be Dry Cleaned

Isn't a laundry mat a mat you put on the floor of your laundry so you track the dirt from the laundry back in to your house? ;p

Hehe.. seriously though.. it needs fixing :)

Posted on: This Needs to be Dry Cleaned

To be honest, unless I was in an area where there were no other places to go (ie. a tourist zone), I didn't see a lot of people actually using the public toilets. I think that, given the option, people are going to use the toilets in their office or home rather than suffer the terrors of the unhygenic public toilets.. and that is no different to where I live. :)

Posted on: Connecting with Email

wénjiànjiā (文件夹）does indeed mean "folder" and your "favourites folder" for internet explorer would be shōucángjiā (收藏夹）.. However, for a standard computer directory/folder, I am getting 目录.. I'd like to know what the difference is between these two words, please? :) Is 目录 talking about the contents of the 文件夹?

目录在里面文件夹吗？

mùlù zài lǐmiàn wénjiànjiā ma?

Posted on: Connecting with Email

I believe the word you are looking for is 目录 mùlù but I am not sure as it doesn't come up much in my daily vocab..