User Comments - paulinurus
paulinurus
Posted on: Hold the Elevator
February 18, 2009 at 4:48 AMDuring lunchtime, when there is a crowd getting in the elevator, many a times in a crowded elevator we may not get to push the button to a floor. Here in the West, we'll say "12 please" and normally the person acessible to the elevator buttons will push it for us.
When in such a situation in China, can I just say "不好意思，十二楼“ and someone will understand to press the button for me?
Posted on: Lao Wang's Office 8: Trimming the Fat at the Office
February 17, 2009 at 12:33 AM你敢炒我鱿鱼 ni3 gan3 chao3 wo3 you2yu3
a series of 3rd tones... pronouncing each character in the third tone would sound like johnny-one-note.
炒 chao3 = to fry ; radical is 火灬 huo3 = fire
perhaps an easy way to remember the character 炒 is: put a cuttle on the fire (huo3) and it'll go from large to little 少 shao3
Posted on: Simple Electrical Stuff
February 13, 2009 at 4:18 AMHi pete,
Thanks for checking up. I think I understand.. the "huh" wouldn't jive with the the stiff tone of 我的美国电脑白买了？
Posted on: Pre-Valentine's News
February 13, 2009 at 12:12 AM斗 tou3 radical 68 meaning "dipper" (whatever this means); "ten pints"(this I know)
Have to say that I'm not used to CPod's discussion thread HTML. It seems to have a mind of its own on how fonts are displayed before or after editing, or after copy & paste.
Posted on: Pre-Valentine's News
February 12, 2009 at 11:41 PMhi nurdie,
Thanks for mentioning the dictionary. I'll have a look when next time at a bookstore. Yes, it would be less tiresome to learn the radicals through usage lookup over memorization.
Coincidentally, I was at the library and came across a very old manual (Conversaphone Mandarin - came with a tape 哈哈！) which had a back section listing and explaining all of the 214 radicals, including showing stroke-by-stroke how to write them.
In this week's 插头 dialogue, the character 斜 xie2 ( slanting, sloping, diagonal) has the radical number 68 头 described as "ten pints" by the book. After ten pints things will certainly look diagonal 哈哈！
Posted on: Simple Electrical Stuff
February 12, 2009 at 1:53 PMHi peanut_china
Thanks for the explanation! You’ve made it easy to understand how to use 白.
Since bai2 means to do something in vain, is the sentence in the text correct?
我的美国电脑不是白买了？
huh! wode meiguo diannao bu shi bai mai le?
Seems to me 不是白买了 means “not bought in vain”.
Shouldn’t the syntax be 我的美国电脑白买了？
Posted on: Funny Business -- 搞笑， 好笑， 可笑
February 12, 2009 at 4:32 AMVery informative QW topic and related comments!
However, one related word, a noun, seems to be amissed. What do you call a professional comedian, the stand-up comic in Chinese?
I haven't visited China (plan to in the near future) so I wouldn't know if professional stand-up comics exist or flourish in China. They certainly do so in North America with many of the well known talk show hosts like Letterman. Ellen Degeneres, and Jay Leno all started as professional comedians.
Collin's dictionary comedian :喜剧演员 xi3ju4yan3yuan2
Using the words in this QW, maybe it'll be less stiff to call a comedian 搞笑演员gao3xiao4 yan3yuan2 ?
Posted on: Funny Business -- 搞笑， 好笑， 可笑
February 12, 2009 at 2:08 AMI'm using Vista Premium with Office 2007 on my laptop. IME comes with Vista so I can type pinyin and output Chinese characters. But I cannot find the way to highlight the chinese characters in Word and have the program write pinyin above the Chinese characters as previously mentioned by excuter.
Posted on: Pre-Valentine's News
February 12, 2009 at 1:46 AMThere are a few Chinese dim sum restaurants I've been to with the open kitchen concept. The 'transparency' is seeing the jiao3 zi etc. manufactured fresh before our eyes.
As Pete said, some restaurants (perhaps those with stained and dirty carpets?) one wouldn't want to see how they come up with their tasty dishes.
Transparency seems to be the buzz word of 2009! It was the key word throughout Obama's campaign and remains as key word in all the speeches of the new administration. Can't argue against transparency when it comes to government which is responsible and accountable to the people. I'm not sure how transparency works in private economic entities where the main modus operandi is to provide goods or services at competitive prices.
thinkbudda, of course ChinesePod is one of the impressive 'restaurants' for learning Chinese, that's why I'm here. However, restaurants have their specialities. Way I see it, CP's specialty is helping people to learn Chinese via the mother tongue approach. Other restaurants specialize in other ways of serving people who want to learn Chinese. I've been to one online restaurant which serves a menu of focusing on pronunciation and language syntax. Another online restaurant serves natives to help other natives exchange learning in a foreign language. Then there are all sorts of cook books and software available to help people to whip up their own delights via doing their own cooking.
Using the metaphor, one could relate the AMS2 in John's blog as the "new oven". With this new oven, pdf files are more easily produced, so there'll be pdfs for Qing Wen and Pete's poems.
Another new oven called the Assessment Project has the capability to "completely replace all existing exercises with non-Flash javascript-based versions which record user scores and progress". It'll excite people who love user scores and tracking pies.
Some viewers ask, will there be beta pies?
Posted on: Expired!
February 19, 2009 at 11:12 AMGreat lesson!
Some word associations I've looked at:
期 qi1 [date] is also the qi1 in 星期 xing1 qi1[week]. 过期 guo4qi1 [past + date] = expired
More on 吐 tu4 = vomit, and tu3 = spit
吐 tu4 = vomit
吐沫 tu4 mo4 [vomit + froth] = saliva ; Other words for saliva 口水 kou3 shui3 ; 口沫 kou3 mo4
吐 tu3 = spit
吐出 tu3 chu4 = spit out
吐气 tu3 qi1 = to let off steam
As for letting off steam, my dictionary does not explain whether it is a metaphor (venting anger) or actually letting steam out in a boiler/mechanical room. Maybe someone could clarify.
As for Ken's comment about man with high heels, I had a listen to the footsteps and me thinks that the foot steps sounded more manly than womanly, the latter would be higher octave and sharper notes. Perhaps the guy was wearing leather shoes?