User Comments - luobinzhenmei

Posted on: Amusement Park

Agent Chuck,

My Chinese friends in the US often use a V sound interchangeably for W words.  One from Shanghai hates "vorms", another from Hunan worries about "womiting" on car rides. (晕车【yùnchē】 carsickness.)

We love the new pronunciations and now say vorms and womit whenever we get the chance.

Posted on: Pinyin Sections 1-2

I have a feeling that the explanation of W that is yet to come is going to help me a lot, because right now I say 问 a lot like English "when", and my "yi" has much more Y in it than Jenny's. 

And the chart helps me differentiate "se" and "si", "ce" and "ci" etc.  "nong" and "neng".  Maybe if I listen to "jiao" and "zhao" back and forth often enough I will hear them properly.    Now I just have to find out who this Julius Sumner Miller is.

Posted on: Hate is a Very Strong Word

@go_manly

Amazing PDF file.  Thank you.  Thank you.

I wish I could think of something to 讨厌 in this post but I am so overwhelmed with appreciation for the PDF and also for the Qing Wen team for continuing to bring us great lessons. 

有的时候，我那么懒惰，就讨厌自己。

Posted on: Job Interview

"这款手机"  What other kinds of things are measured in

款？  Does it have to do with money, like buying minutes on a cell phone?

Oh, the pain of giving cliche-d answers to interview questions and wishing you could say something brilliant...  Makes me long for more Lao Wang stories.

Maybe Liang will meet Lao Wang.

Posted on: Blow out Your Candles

Dear Ken and Jenny,

You translate "吹牛" as "bluff." In American English this implies promoting something that is untrue or unsupported to gain an end. Because bluffing (feinting) is part of many games and sports, it is not necessarily a bad thing to do. A long time ago we learned 吹牛 to mean something closer to "brag," which is almost always bad or at least impolite and crass. And that one who does this is a "blowhard" lacking in proper modesty. Does "bluff" in Irish or Australian English have a more negative connotation, or has the meaning of 吹牛 changed or is our old interpretation of 吹牛 just mistaken?

-- 甄玫， 罗彬

Posted on: Napkins

Some Chinese friends who stay in our house use only the little hand towels for showers and leave the big fluffy bath towels untouched. 

We still have a half roll of pink 卫生纸 that we carried everywhere the first time we were in China.  We keep it as a souvenir.  Now we use those little packets of tissues 薄纸【bózhǐ】 that we can buy in supermarkets.

And yes about not flushing the TP, but we don't always obey the rules.

Posted on: How Far Away are You From Understanding 离？

Wow, Pete.  Distinguishing "farther" and "further" plus knowing when the end of the world will be in Aztec lore!  我的知识比拟的很差。  Could I say:

"你的知识那么高，我的知识离 你的很远."??

I like how you guys deflected the criticism that your joking was putting Pete down by getting him to do it himself  你离好男人的标准多远? 

But we don't agree that English takes so many words to say 我的工资离买房子很差远.  We could say "I can't afford a house now."  It's more ambiguous--could be my salary would be high enough, but my alimony payments or drug habits or private schools for my seven children cost too much.  However, in general I agree with Pete that the concise phrasing of so much Chinese is great (I need a better word in here that means adorable, but in a noble way.)

Posted on: Boston

Google translate gives 马萨诸塞州 for Massachusetts,

NJStar gives 麻萨诸塞州。

We've heard 麻州 but this is the first time we've heard

麻省。  Anyone out there know more?

Posted on: Boston

These days, especially near universities, most of the Chinese from Taiwan or the Mainland speak 普通话.

But is 波士顿 really 安全？As a mid-麻省者， living in a small town，（ 住在小镇），we think 波士顿的治安 比较差。

Coincidentally we've been looking at houses with a Chinese real estate agent.  She's more honest, and far less smarmy sounding than the one in the dialogue.

Posted on: The Magic Word 把

Taking the BA in small doses is really helpful because I've read all the rules about BA but never internalized them enough to use BA regularly.  I always think of using it too late in the sentence.  But now I can practice "BA something put someplace" and "BA something give someone" etc. for a while and get used to it. What I love about Chinesepod, among other things, is that I can llearn things in small doses.

And thank you so much, Tarcy for the long explanation which was worth every word, even the new ones.