User Comments - orangina

Posted on: Registering for a Dating Website

Here is how I look at it.... stick straight out, straight, upright... "your boyfriend is straight out handsome." So something that is 挺-adjective is straight, no wiggle room, no questions that adjective.

Posted on: What's in a name?

"Spider-pig, spider-pig, does whatever a Spider-pig does..." ~Homer Simpson

Posted on: Chinatown Diary

Among my favorite childhood memories are our family's almost yearly trips to San Francisco, we'd always go to Chinatown while there. Once, since we were away from home so long, my mom wanted us to drink milk, even at the restaurant. This upset my 4 year old sensibilities, to drink milk at a restaurant. Milk is great at home, or at the hotel, but that was going too far. So my mom told me it was Chinese milk. I was skeptical, but agreed. I was pretty mad when the carton showed up with English all over it and no Chinese writing. Plus it tasted exactly like regular milk. But an agreement is an agreement. Foiled!

Posted on: Chinatown Diary

I think 西班牙 isn't too bad a transliteration for Espana. (Sorry, no swishy mark.) But maybe that is because I don't speak Spanish. But it sounds closer to me than "Spain"....

Posted on: Chinatown Diary

I said 金山 to a Chinese person here in China once, (didn't know about the 旧 at the time) and it took the person a second to get it. I assumed it was my pronunciation, but later in the conversation they said 三藩市。So at least some Chinese people, well one Chinese person, is more familiar with 三藩市。

Posted on: Sign Language in China

Meanwhile the sign translators on the sports news during the Asian Para Games were completely expressionless. I mentioned this to a friend who speaks Chinese Sign and she agreed, saying they were practically unintelligible. But she did learn from them how to Capitalize a person's name in finger-spelling... sign the first letter with one hand and hold it while you sign the rest of the word with the other hand. Pretty clever.

Posted on: Don't Eat the Snow

great googly-moogly! that. was. fantastic.

Posted on: Don't Eat the Snow

hmmm.... I still think you are failing to appreciate the logistical challenges faced by girls in this arena.

Posted on: Don't Eat the Snow

It is a little trickier for girls to actually write anything.... requires a bit of running around.

Posted on: Getting the Correct Change

ok, here is my go... 张 is the measure word for the number of notes, in this case 2 bills. The bills are named "十块“。 块 is the measure word for the units of currency, in this case there are 10 units of currency in each bill. Each bill is worth 10 pieces of 元。I suppose it makes as much sense as saying "two tens." When things are as common as money we do tend to drop a lot of the context... so while 块 may technically be the measure word for 元，in practicality they can be used together or separately with the same meaning and naturalness.

Mind you this is purely conjecture, and in looking up terms in nciku I find that 元 is in fact also a measure word, this time for 钱。啊哟。