User Comments - paulinurus

Posted on: What do Foreigners Like?

Friend of mine related his experience when he was in Beijing a few years ago..Said that there were old Chinese women outside the hotel selling stuff, and when he refused to buy, one of them grabbed on to his legs and wailed away until he conceded.

Posted on: The Magic Word 把

The Shanghai Trio has found its groove!

Whether one is at newbie or intermediate level, Chinese syntax grammatical formulae is a must know-how-to-use subject matter in order to learn Chinese, and I'm glad to see the Shanghai Trio tackling this difficult but necessary area of learning.    

Great QW！

Posted on: Guilin Mifen

Hey Cpod,

I almost missed watching this video because it was not listed in the Me lessons like all the rest. Anyway of including the new videos along with the rest of the lessons so that we don't need to keep a sharp eye on the Latest News for the next video?

Posted on: The Bride Makes Soup - 新嫁娘

Great job Pete! The background explanation and your expanded examples are just terrific! The poem is short but has so much historical culture. Very enjoyable!

Posted on: Toilet Types

哈哈哈哈！So much information and discussion about toilets! Let me add my toilet story I encountered many years ago, not in China, but in Indonesia, It was a public toilet, a housing built on a small plateau of a hill. You climb up the hillside stairs to the toilet, go inside one of the stalls, squat and do your thing on to a long drain going downhill. Every now and then water was released uphill, washing everything into the sea.  

Posted on: Business Card Gone Wrong

@xuchen

Did you try 你太作 with your gf? If so, what was the reaction?

But I wonder if there is such a term as 'high maintenance' applicable to women in China. So far, my understanding is that women in China go for 'financial stability' criteria, such as house, car, and financial support. When financially secured, they tend to be quite satisfied being a home maker. I watched the video where Jenny was interviewed by the Malaysian newspaper in which she mentioned about Shanghai women being characterized as 'high maintenance' and I wondered what that means. In North America high maintenance women means more than just the man having lots of money to lavish on her; she also wants lots of as you say, attention, and also him being willing to cater to all her other whims and fancies. Of course, she knows that she's hot.

@hydrospell

 贵养 translate to 'expensive to support' but I guess if women in Malaysia likes fine dining then she could be considered high maintenance, although I didn't see too many 'pang' women when I was in KL on business. BTW, do you have people attending Chinese schools there instead of English or Malay schools?

Posted on: Business Card Gone Wrong

嚄，朱小姐那么陈说的！听说香港的妇女也很顽强的。一般来说,上海的妇女比香港的谁更强烈的个性？

请问，用中文怎么说 "high maintenance woman".

Posted on: 金字塔销售

Mum motivates kid to learn Chinese. Keenly kid waits for first lesson...糟糕 an advanced lesson to start the week !! @&%!! 

Starting off a new week with a newbie lesson and ending the week with an advanced lesson, besides being a more logical and graceful schedule, would be better orientation and less jarring to the senses of new poddies.

Matt, would such a schedule cause problems for you/CPod? 

Posted on: 金字塔销售

在加拿大，做金字塔销售的生意是非法的。

What is a Scheme of Pyramid Selling?

A scheme of pyramid selling is a multi-level marketing plan that incorporates any one of a number of specified marketing practices that make it a criminal offence under the Competition Act.

It is illegal if:

• participants pay money for the right to receive compensation for recruiting new participants;
• a participant is required to buy a specific quantity of products, other than at cost price for the purpose of advertising, before the participant is allowed to join the plan or advance within the plan;
• participants are knowingly sold commercially unreasonable quantities of the product or products (this practice is called inventory loading); or
• participants are not allowed to return products on reasonable commercial terms.

Posted on: Dropping and Losing 丢, 弄丢，丢掉

@ gesang : no need to be afraid, follow the formula and you'll be mostly right than wrong.

@ james234: correct, but focus is on 把 sentence structure and not on the noun.

@ frognotinawell: the sentence is wrong because (a) the noun "a apple" is not specific, and (b) the action verb 吃 is not completed. Specify which apple, and complete the action with a 了 than the 把 sentence structure will be correct viz: 我把那个苹果吃了。

Two main things to note when using the  把 sentence structure :

1. The Noun2 must be clearly identified and specific; it cannot be fruzzy or iffy. That's why using 一个 is wrong because it does not clearly specify which noun, so you need to be clear and say "that" or "this" noun.

2. The verb must be an action verb, and the result/conclusion of the action must be clearly stated. That's why 了is found a lot in 'ba' sentences. The action is done and completed. A good and easy way of testing whether your verb phrase/clause has clearly stated the conclusion of the action is to ask "when" and "where" was/will be the result of the action verb. 

If interested in the total dos and don'ts of the 把 sentence structure, the best and most comprehensive and easy-to-understand explanations I've found is in Yip Po-Ching and Don Rimmington (chinese lecturer, english professor) book: Chinese A Comprehensive Grammar.

But if you just write simple sentences following the formula I posted previously, you'll be most times right rather than wrong using the 把 sentence structure, and unless you're taking an examination, I would say that's good enough for now. Over time as you see more and more sentences written by teachers, text books, and Chinese natives you trust, you'll get a better handle of the 把 structure and write more complicated and idiomatic ones.