User Comments - light487

Posted on: How to Address Someone

I assume that you can throw 她，他 ，and 它 in front of 自己 as well?

她自己 tāzìjǐ herself

他自己 tāzìjǐ himself

它自己 tāzìjǐ itself

他们自己 tāmen zìjǐ themself/themselves

我们自己 wǒmen zìjǐ ourself/ourselves

What else?

Posted on: How to Address Someone

你自己 nǐzìjǐ

Interesting.. Until now I have not even though of the possibility that zìjǐ could become "yourself".. it makes perfect sense now that I have seen it in an example. This is probably the most valueable part of the lesson for me.. hehe.. completely consequential.. but valueable. :)

Posted on: So (adjective) that...

Another little trick you can do, and have been able to do for a number of years now, is change the file extension from .pdf to .html, for example:

http://s3.amazonaws.com/chinesepod.com/extra/QW0183/e74751d2ccc95a4e507249da571d9c619ab3f65e/pdf/chinesepod_QW0183.pdf

becomes:

http://s3.amazonaws.com/chinesepod.com/extra/QW0183/e74751d2ccc95a4e507249da571d9c619ab3f65e/pdf/chinesepod_QW0183.html

This effectively converts the PDF into text so that it can be more easily managed when copy-pasting etc

Posted on: Buying a Bouquet of Flowers

That bus incident brings up the community aspect of "face". When someone behaves like that, they not only embarrass themselves but also everyone else around them. They must really not care about the impact they are having to behave like that, so whatever it is (maybe an old blood-feud) is something that outweighs any loss of face to themselves and everyone else within sight..

Posted on: Buying a Bouquet of Flowers

That's how I'm going to remember it forever now.. bǎ is "handful" because it isn't just flowers that it relates to.. you can also have a "bǎ" of chopsticks and so on..

Posted on: Buying a Bouquet of Flowers

Right, so one is specifically "a bouquet" (flowers arranged in a group, or at least a formal "grouping") and the other is just basically a "handful" (a bunch of flowers grouped together that may or may not be "arranged") and then, as you say, the last one is just a single fresh flower..

Posted on: Buying a Bouquet of Flowers

I have a question about the measure word for "bunch" of flowers. I have recently purchases a Measure-Word dictionary, along with a bunch (no pun intended) of other supplementary texts for learning, and one of the first measure words I came across was 把儿. It talks about this measure word as an extension of 把 to be used "for vegetables, plants or a bunch of long narrow objects gathered closely together."

One of the example sentences is:

一把儿鲜花 yī bǎr xiānhuā (A bunch of fresh flowers).

This immediately made me think of this lesson, which I had recently studied because it was using a different measure-word for flowers and I am wondering which is correct and if they are both correct, why? :)

When I look up the word 鲜花 xiānhuā in my electronic dictionary, I find yet another measure word associated with it: 朵 duǒ...

So confusing.. which is why I bought the measure word dictionary but it's just even more confusing now that I am finding there are multiple measure-words for the same groups of things.. *sigh*

HEEEELLLP!! :)

Is there a systematic way to learning the measure-words that is realistic?

Posted on: Chinatown Diary

Hrmm.. My friends from 浙江/上海 refer Chinatown as 中国城 zhōngguóchéng, I've never heard them refer to it as 唐人街.. I guess both are good.. but one is referring to the main street/strip that most people would refer to as "Chinatown" and then the other is talking about the general area as being Chinatown.

With regards to non-American stuff.. (yes, funnily enough, there are more than 2 countries in the world), I find that the Sydney Chinatown is filled with mandarin speakers rather than cantonese speakers and that if you want "real" Chinese style food, then you are not going to find it in Chinatown unless you are good friends with the owner(s) of the restaurant. To find the "real" Chinatowns, you need to go to the suburbs where the Chinese people live rather than where they work.

The university area around Sydney University is quite Taiwanese these days and as you get closer towards the city centre, it becomes more and more mainland Chinese.. though never quite "authentic"..

In regards to the lesson, I found it to be a little bit too much vocab in a single lesson. Maybe this could have been a series rather than trying to cram it all in one tiny lesson.

Posted on: Subway Announcements

Yes but 这条线 is ok if I am talking to you about it, right? It would sound odd if it was an announcement but it would sound equally odd if I said 本线 to you in a conversation.. right? This is the only distinction I was trying to work out :)

Posted on: Subway Announcements

Ok.. so I spoke with my ChinesePod tutor and she has answered:

本 is the formal (and ancient) way of saying "this" and no measure word is required.

这 is the standard way of saying "this" but a measure word would be required.

本线 - "this line" is a formal way of saying it, as it is an announcement over a loud speaker; it is the reason this way was used.

这条线 - "this line" is the standard way of saying it; like you would say it to your friend or even a person standing next to you on the subway.