User Comments - light487

Posted on: Subway Announcements

In the dialog it has 本线起点上海火车站 (I am copy and pasting this, I can't actually see the characters at work).. it is using běn to mean "this" but I've never seen that word used for "this" in the past. So I am wondering if "zhe", which is the word I normally associate with "this", could be used in place of "ben" for the same sentence above.

běnxiàn - "this line"..

Are you saying that běn is the measure-word for xiàn? or are you saying that běn is another word for "this"?

Posted on: Subway Announcements

Hrmm.. not sure how to remove that now that I have pasted it.. hehe.. but my quesiton is about whether I can use "zhe" instead of "ben" here?.. Which is more correct for this usage and why?

While I was listening to this lesson on my iTouch, I realised how old this lesson was when you said the nearest stop to ChinesePod.. :)

Posted on: Where's the soap?

I've had the soap in mouth treatment too.. so it's definitely not just a figure of speech :) lol

Posted on: Where's the soap?

hee hee.. thats cute.. I can't wait to start my English teaching career in China... which I am hoping to be this year.. I know it's going to be hard and grueling and lots of work but it's these moments that make it all worth it, I'm sure :)

Posted on: The Perfect Sandwich

I dunno.. can't read the characters.. but Chinese bread is definitely way, way sweeter than western bread.. :) Very sweet.. I like it personally.. :)

Posted on: A Tour of the Office

Yup.. it's more of that stuff really.. like today I was listing to a Faye Wong (Wang Fei) song and heard her singing "tian kou".. but then I listened closer and she is actually singing "tian kong".. if you ask a teahcer how to pronounce "kong" or "tong" or any "ong" word.. they will give you a false example of how it really sounds in daily speech. I've had "friendly" arguements over these issues in the past and the the thing.. that while it is "correctly" pronounced "ong", no one actually ever says it like that.. what it really sounds like is "ommg".. it's "ong" but with a closed-mouth ending, rather than open mouth as all the teachers will teach you and will argue is correct. Correct yes.. but not true to how people actually talk... and should you say "komg" to them, they will praise you for your great accent/pronunciation but when you explain that you are not saying "kong".. they will argue that you are.. :) haha.. an so it goes, back and forth till you give up and just get used to the fact that there are text-book examples and then there are real-world examples, which are different but are hardly ever taught..

The thing is though.. you are pronouncing "kong" correctly when you say "komg".. Pinyin is not a perfect thing; Hanzi and the romanized characters are just symbols..

Posted on: Playing Ice Hockey

Yer.. it's a little like my friend who is from Taiwan.. She always emphasises the fact that she is from Taiwan, China. Always! Which is fine by me.. but I just find it so curious that she is so forceful and insistent about that point.. :)

Posted on: First Snow of the Winter

Yes.. it is so rare that you can say "it never snows in Shanghai".. :) Just like in English how we ALWAYS exagerate, it is also rare for Chinese to exagerate but it happens.. :) hehe..

It is so rare that it is like it never happens :)

Posted on: First Snow of the Winter

Found this for you David:

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/6236-trashy-soap-opera-of-the-month-club/

Posted on: Shut down by Pimples

This is a much more thorough and enjoyable article on the same thing:

http://www.chengmei-trout.com/en/achieve-4.asp

Lots of cultural insights and the full history of the drink.. :)