User Comments - light487

Posted on: Using a Character Dictionary

Electronic forms of newspapers, with intelligent Chinese Reader applications are the way to go. You need to slow down while you are reading though, so that you don't let the application do all the work and learn nothing from the experience. It's fun to use those applications but without pausing and slowing down to absorb the characters, they are just a time-wasting crutch to lean on.. then when you don't have the app handy, you are lost again..

I use MDBG Chinese Reader personally but I believe there are free ones available.. just don't over-use it and it will be all good.

Posted on: Toothache

Ok.. pidgin Chinese time:

zai baya xiaren

wo haipa yingwei qu baya

:)

Posted on: Toothache

ahh yes.. same meaning with a subtle difference that would be the difference between sounding fluent and not.. :) hehe.. Thanks for the clarification, it makes sense.. It's more of a "cause/effect" and a "perspective" thing. Hàipà being the perspective that something is scary, whereas Xiàrén is saying that the spider (or the presence of the spider) is causing the fear. Right?

Posted on: Skincare: Moisturizing Cream

Skin Beautifying (White) Cream? :) hehe.. makes sense :)

Ahh see.. that's the problem with dictionaries.. chaoshi means damp/moist and I wouldn't have immediately thought to use that when there are others that include humid in the translated description.. :) hehe.. I find this happens a lot though.. that the word you are looking for is either more or less abstract than you start out looking for :)

Posted on: Toothache

Hehe.. I can't read Chinese characters at work so all I see is:

[][] means this and [][] means that. :) hehe.. Thanks for the reply I will read it when I get home. but to save time can you clarify your meaning of "means something is frightening" and "frightened of something specifically" please?

Thanks!

Posted on: Skincare: Moisturizing Cream

Hrmm.. well.. not sure what you mean by normal book.. or normal movie.. I can find many example of "normal" in my own dictionary.. such as tōngcháng for example.. but in the example you gave regarding the bikes, I would probably be saying something along the lines of "I don't want a 2 person bike, I want a 1 person bike".. or in the case of a movie, "I don't want to watch a horror movie, I want to watch a comedy".. if you know what I mean..

Or to shorten it, "I want a 1 person bike".. rather than trying to say "I want a normal bike".. be more direct.

Maybe: "wo yao yige ren de zixingche"

Posted on: Skincare: Moisturizing Cream

1. What about the "whitening" cream that I have seen in China? I find this to be a very interesting culturual difference between the east and west when it comes to cosmetics. The whitening cream obviously makes the woman's skin more pale.. whereas in the west, women want the opposite of this to the extent of having tanning creams/lotions/sprays to give them a year-round tan but to a lesser extent creams that create a warm glow to the facial area..

When I first saw it I was a little confused but then I thought about the culturual significance of pale skin being more attractive and thought it was fascinating. This lesson made me think about this and thought I would share it. :)

So how would one call this type of cream? I assume "bai" would be a part of the word..

2. In this lesson we have miàn meaning face but in another lesson, Intermediate - What does she look like?, we had liǎn (actual vocab was yuánliǎn - round face) to mean face. What is the difference here?

3. gān is dry.. what is humid? When I look in my dictionary I come up with many different possibilities... so if we said "Fujian de xia4tian1 .... " (Fujian summer).. how can we say it is humid?

Posted on: Keen on Clean

haha.. I remember I couldn't get out of those Beijing public toilets fast enough, the stench of amonia was just too much for my feeble, Western nose. :) They apply a "liberal" amount of industrial strength amonia to those toilets.. :) Have to admit though, they did seem to have the largest amount per square kilometer of public toilets than all the cities in China I have visited. Following the signage to a public toilet in Shanghai can take you on a long and winding journey.. :) haha

Posted on: Shopping

I didn't think it was an abbreviation, I thought that was how that construction worked. I think that with fangbian, it is not able to be separated, otherwise it loses its meaning. I'm only guessing here..

I've seen this before with "xi bu xihuan" for example and other things.. I'm sure there is a rule for when you can and can't use it.. and I wouldn't mind knowing as well. :)

Posted on: Possible, Possibly, Possibility

Ahh right right.. shiatk made it clearer to me what you were asking with the use of the word "likely" as a synonym of probably. I wasn't sure what you were asking but now I am clear.. and I agree, there should have been some explanation of the differences.. :)