User Comments - paulinurus
paulinurus
Posted on: More News!
February 22, 2009 at 9:46 PMNot to belabour on this matter, but the policy refers only to the newbie and ele discussion posts. There are huge chunks of chinese text found in past News and Features, Videos, etc. with apparent acceptance and enjoyment by participants.
Strange occurrences are happening to Cpod environment since the CNY. Wonder if it has something to do with the year of the ox.
Posted on: More News!
February 22, 2009 at 6:06 PMI agree with Calkins and Baba (can I just call you Baba? The full moniker is a bit too long and if I copy and paste, you know that this message board will display me as a pompous 傻瓜 (fool) for posting in bold italics).
Perhaps we can look at this issue from the perspective of "what have I gained or lost". If someone takes the time to post a personal perspective, a chinese expression written in chinese, an interesting web link, etc. etc. there is gain to be had and no loss. There is no gain at all when a person does not post.
If a native Chinese had a perspective of China, or a cultural phrase to share but did not do so because of the extra effort to translate to English, there is certainly some benefit lost for those who don't mind taking the extra effort to use online dictionaries.
If the wonderful poddies here who regularly posts sharing their knowledge and perspectives on learning Chinese are deterred by remarks or reminded of "policy" when they forget to provide English translations, it is an unnecessary kick to their arses.
We need to make it easier for people to share their knowledge and perspectives, not harder. Rather than an issue of "consideration", it is an issue of "do we want to help ourselves". As remarked in previous posts, poddies may not be educators nor are they obliged to educate. Just take what we can get, which is better than none.
Posted on: Taking it all off
February 22, 2009 at 12:04 PMI found it odd too that this Qingwen withheld an answer after mentioning the subject matter.
Posted on: Expired!
February 22, 2009 at 3:01 AMChinese versus English syntax (left/right or right/left brain?)
吐 tui3 = spit
also, 吐 tui3 = exhale
Quiz:
她吓得半天才吐出一口气 : ta1 xia4 de ban4 tian1 cai2 tu3 chu1 yi4 kou3 qi4 : she frightened half day just exale out one mouth breath.
What is the English translation? I'll post the text book answer on Monday evening.
btw: I meant a "plump" juicy steak in the previous post.
Posted on: Lao Wang's Office 8: Trimming the Fat at the Office
February 22, 2009 at 2:32 AMHere's another interesting idiomatic phrase containing the character 炒 mentioned to me by a native China friend:
炒股票 chao3 gu3 piao4 = to speculate in stocks
Sadly, many who speculated in stocks have been fried.
Posted on: Expired!
February 21, 2009 at 12:58 PMYour sour milk sounds like our "sour cream" here in Canada. We put sour cream in baked potatoes to go along with a plumb juicy steak.. yummy!
I wonder if there is sour cream in China. Sour cream's viscosity is similar to magarine, which is softer than butter. I suppose if there is sour cream in China, it'll be called 酸奶油 suan1 nai3you2 (sour dairy cream).
I'm surprised that you find American chocolate a bit sour. Compared to European chocolates, I find North American chocolates are too sweet. Too much sugar is added to North American chocolates, candies, and cakes..me thinks, creating the booming industries of diet plans, exercise contraptions, and gym memberships. Where in China can be found publicly listed companies like Weight Watchers (New York stock exchange) etc. which dole out diet food and exercise plans to their diet-conscious (if not over-weight) customers. My favourite chocolate is the Belgium dark.
ps. OK, I didn't ask for italics or bold in the text to sebrire. The text didn't appear italics or bold as I type the words. However, after saving, the text appears in italics and bold, and I don't know how to fix it. As I mentioned before, ChinesePod's discussion board has a mind of its own. What you see on the screen when typing the text is not what you'll see after saving it. I wish CP will fix this or at least have a FAQ on how to deal with the idiosyncracies of its message board.
Posted on: Lao Wang's Office 8: Trimming the Fat at the Office
February 20, 2009 at 9:21 PMHi Pete,
Errors are bound to happen even with the best efforts to get the translation right the first time and it will be impossible to notify everyone. However, the people who have previously downloaded the original version need to have a chance of knowing that a pdf file has been corrected. Seems to me notifying folks via the discussion board would be a reasonable solution.
Posted on: Lao Wang's Office 8: Trimming the Fat at the Office
February 20, 2009 at 3:47 AMPete, when a post is deleted could Cpod indicate what has been corrected or amended in the pdf document? I've downloaded the pdf document much earlier on and am now left wondering what is incorrect in the original version.
Posted on: Expired!
February 19, 2009 at 11:25 AMChangye, as usual, great stuff! I now know how to write "wow" and "oops"
Posted on: Expired!
February 23, 2009 at 4:51 AMHi bababardwan and changye,
The answer could be a let down, but I wanted to demonstrate via the quiz how Chinese syntax could be so different from English syntax so much so that even after knowing the meaning of each Chinese word, it can still be problematic translating a Chinese sentence into an English sentence. The author of this sentence is Li Dong, who was previously a professor at Shanghai International Studies University, and is now a lecturer in Chinese at a New Zealand university.
But surely there must be simpler ways to say the answer in Chinese without losing its meaning.
Quiz:
她吓得半天才吐出一口气 : ta1 xia4 de ban4 tian1 cai2 tu3 chu1 yi4 kou3 qi4 : she frightened half day just exale out one mouth breath.
What is the English translation?
Answer: She was so terrified that she held her breath.