User Comments - orangina

Posted on: Where are you from?

:-D

Fare enough! I myself am very grateful for pinyin's existence as a study aid. But I will be ever so happy when all I need it for is inputting characters. When I write I always use characters unless I don't know the character (or am feeling very lazy.) When I use a book with pinyin to study I like to cover the pinyin with ruler and only uncover it as needed. Another benefit to materials with pinyin is that the word are divided by spaces both in the pinyin and the characters. So even when you cover the pinyin you get a little extra help.

Posted on: Where are you from?

I used to think of pinyin as just an aid to pronunciation, but pondering on it now I feel this is not the case. I think it is more of an aid to studying Chinese. So it's function is also in helping Chinese language learners (native or 2nd [or 3rd or 4th...] language learners) recognize word patterns. The link Connie provided talked a lot about how words are grouped and when a particle is linked to a word (like when it is a suffix or a prefix) and when verbs and nouns are liked (when it is a concept, like kan4shu4 看书.）I think Capitalizing proper nouns falls into this category of study aid. I know it helps me a great deal to know that a certain group of characters is a name, and I don't need to expend energy trying to figure out what this word I've never heard of is all about. And if you are capitalizing proper nouns, might as well go the whole way and capitalize the first word of the sentence as well.

Posted on: Physical and Virtual Schools

I can't believe I am saying this... but I am so excited about the tests!!!

Posted on: Colors Song

Keep in mind this is just my observation and opinion and should not be confused for actual knowledge on the subject.

;-)

Posted on: Computer Problems and Tech Support

I think in 可爱，可怕 and 可靠 the 可 means -able. Which still doesn't answer how it serves to emphasize. I am also curious about this.

Posted on: Colors Song

doodle, I think that just as in english, you can say things like "lemon colored." As far as brown goes, most names I've seen fall into this descriptive category. There is also 褐色，which really means drab in my opinion. My impression is that historically brown has not really been seen as a color in chinese culture. Which is sad to me. (The trunk of a tree is not just to hold the leaves up. It is a thing of beauty in itself. In the winter you can see which tree is really pretty, and which just knows how to dress when spring comes around.) And I know people will argue (that is if they were like me and like to argue about colors) that of course chinese people know that brown is a color. But what I mean is that culturally, they have not deemed it important enough to give a suitable name. And in chinese art, black is traditionally used to represent things that are in fact brown. This indicates to me that brown is seen as a canvass, not a pigment... that it is a base upon which pretty things are set, not pretty in and of itself. Ok, so I know you asked for vocabulary advise and I have written a treatise on brown and chinese culture.

Posted on: Calling an Ambulance

Yeah, I thought 匪警 was weird too, but that is what it said!

I don't know if it is for all cities, or just the huge ones, but you can go into Starbucks and ask for a 地铁图。The one I got had Guangzhou on one side and Shenzhen on the other. It has an "artistic" (and therefore practically useless) map with an inset of the subway map, and another inset with the emergency numbers. There is also a list of touristy stuff. I just cut out the 地铁图 and emergency numbers and put them in my wallet. Fits just about perfectly in a card pocket.

Now I await the intermediate lesson on what to say to the emergency line operators...

Posted on: Calling an Ambulance

According to Starbucks:

急救 120

火警 119

匪警 110

交通警 122

信息中心 114

And according to a chinese friend:

Ank any question in english call 12580 (I haven't tried it yet and the chinese friend's english is not so great so I couldn't get good details on what this line is intended for, but I gather it is to get help on a variety of important topics.)

Posted on: Grab Some Veggies From the Store

That is interesting... the scale I bought here is in kg. Easy enough to do the math though.

Posted on: Calling an Ambulance

Yesterday a friend of mine witnessed a man having a seizure. Thankfully there were sercurity guys around and they took care of the guy, but it got us talking... What would we do if someone needed our help? She said no one there knew the ambulance number. (I'm sure the security folks knew who to call.) I pulled out my wallet and showed her my list of emergency numbers (I got them from the map of the city you can get for free at Starbucks.) But what exactly would we say if the emergency personnel doesn't speak English? I suspect 帮助！帮助！wouldn't be very helpful. How would we even tell them where we are! Even that can be tricky to describe sometimes.

So, anyway. Very timely lesson. I will share with her what learn here.