User Comments - luobinzhenmei
luobinzhenmei
Posted on: Track and Field
July 28, 2007 at 6:41 PMRich, We Westerners are the backwards ones. Look how we write addresses, with the country name last instead of first, so we can't get started locating something on Google Earth until we get to the end of the address to find out where it is. We wonder what the best term for "backwards" is in Chinese. We got 向后 and 倒流 as translations.
Posted on: Introducing Oneself to the Family
July 28, 2007 at 5:16 PMTusconmichael, Good questions. I'd like to know the differences too. And along with User2628, what if your teacher is much younger than you? Can you use 老 when you know them well, even though they are younger, as a sign of respect?
Posted on: Lili and Zhang Liang 17: It's Over (Again)
July 23, 2007 at 6:29 PMHuasen, Maybe Peter the Canadian and the undercover cop will meet 张亮 and we will be treated to future adventures among them. 张亮 as a modern Humphrey Bogart, private detective, worldly wise, sought after by many women, but too cynical to be taken in..... It's not that we need happy endings, but we don't want to give up hearing about 张亮.
Posted on: Snacks
July 18, 2007 at 3:13 PMDon't miss the really interesting discussion about ketchup in the elementary lesson on Chinese seasonings. Turns out ketchup is originally a Chinese word!
Posted on: Chinese Seasonings
July 18, 2007 at 2:34 PMLost in Asia, In a book called "Connections II" for second year students of Chinese, there is a discussion about 上火( shang4huo3) = "to suffer from excessive internal heat (with such symptoms as constipation, conjunctivitis and inflammation of the nasal and oral cavities)." 绿豆汤 luu4dou4tang1 Mung bean soup and 西瓜 xi1gua1 watermelon are cooling and 风梨 feng4li1 pineapple can give you 上火. In the piece the street seller tells the American exchange student that he has pimples because of 上火 and he shouldn't eat pineapple. The culture shock of being told that by a stranger is funnier than the cultural differences of 上火. We don't know any more except that we've heard Chinese explain a stomach ache by saying that their stomach felt "cold" .
Posted on: Snacks
July 17, 2007 at 1:51 AMAs we remember from our visit, Jenny eats 零食 for lunch! (可以说： ....把零食当午饭...?). Chili pretzels and coconut milk tea. And hers tasted so good we had to run out and buy some. But before that, our favorite Chinese 零食 was 椰子 (ye1zi) 杏仁 (xing4ren2) , coconut almonds. Really expensive and really good. Since they are not salty, not an animal part, very sweet and easy to eat large quantities with very little work (plus they were imported, probably from Japan), they hardly count as real Chinese 零食.
Posted on: Chinese Seasonings
July 15, 2007 at 6:14 PMThis lesson didn't mention the ingredient I use the most: ginger 姜 (jiang1) When I couldn't find ginger in the local supermarket I asked a Chinese family also shopping if they knew where it was. They called it 生姜 (sheng1jiang!) which I didn't know. I think I need to use as many syllables as possible to say anything to make up for my mispronunciations. Anyhow, the store was out of it. @#(*$(%*!?! American supermarkets!
Posted on: The Olympics on TV
July 15, 2007 at 1:41 AMiqichu, We change the size of the text to see the Chinese more clearly. Our browser (firefox) has a link to ext size under View.
Posted on: The Olympics on TV
July 15, 2007 at 1:39 AMTo Chris1, We suspect that NO ONE becomes fluent just listening to Chinesepod lessons,if only because you'd have to be a real hermit not to want to speak Chinese with anyone who would listen once you've got some of it in you. That is, I bet we all seek out other opportunities to use and learn Chinese. Plus that the culture determines so much of the language, that we end up wanting to know more about history and folk tales, classic novels and even Chinese opera and popular tunes. What you really want to know is how far can you get with Chinesepod, and here we are giving you a hard time by denying that you'd ever want to limit your learning to one medium. But the other answer is: we think you can get pretty far even though we are not very far.
Posted on: Post-Graduation Plans
August 15, 2007 at 1:45 PMHey Nicolas26279, 我们俩1987在华师教书了.你现在在那儿吗?当然是名校因为我们三个人在那儿. 其实你一定知道武大事武汉的最有名的大学. 我们觉得在美国中国留学生以为有名比质量教育太重要. 可能让父母吹牛....