User Comments - pearltowerpete
pearltowerpete
Posted on: Birth by Chinese Zodiac
January 28, 2009 at 1:48 AMHi zhenlijiang and changye
Reading dictionaries is absolutely not a waste of time. It is my favorite way of forming connections among words, which can hop and jump in amazing and wonderful ways in Chinese.
Posted on: Seeing off an Old Friend 渭城曲
January 28, 2009 at 1:35 AMHi sebire
Glad to hear you are liking the shows. Sorry about the speed. I am trying to speak a bit more slowly.
Posted on: Describing Travels
January 28, 2009 at 1:06 AMHi jweissgerber
他们一定要去香港 -- Good question. 要 is difficult to translate into English, because it can mean "must" or "want to." You really have to check the context.
In this sentence, some foreigners may be shelling over thousands of RMB to go to HK to renew their visas, because they must. Or they may have always dreamed of visiting the city, in which case they will go, come hell or high water.
I did not translate this expansion sentence (it was before my time at CPod) but they are the hardest thing for me, because of the lack of context. But please, do ask whenever you are in doubt. There may be more than one valid answer.
Posted on: Gong Xi Fa Cai!
January 28, 2009 at 12:59 AMHi light487
新年快乐 is fine, my girlfriend says that in her hometown of Dalian people are more likely to say 新年好. That does seem to be the more popular version in the north. And you can definitely say [animal]年快乐.
Posted on: Seeing off an Old Friend 渭城曲
January 28, 2009 at 12:38 AMHi all
You are too kind. user28880, Elvis told me that the poem reminded him of saying good-bye to Charlie Hodge, the man who gave him his towels ;-)
agentchuck, the last lines are quite famous. In Gansu province I got an ink painting of a Silk Road caravan with the phrase 西出阳关无故人 on it. Best six yuan I've ever spent.
Hi baiwenkai the meter of classical poems is a little tricky to discuss in depth here because it can vary according to the type (the structure of this week's poem is different from last week's, and next week's will be still another.) As for the content of the poems, while some are definitely about common themes that everyone would understand, others are about having an artist's perspective on the world, getting drunk in the forest, and so on. It's such a rich field to explore!
Hi tageimugei, thank you for your explanation of the doubled character. bababardwan, 客 and 舍 are just standard characters, which mean "guest house.”
Thanks for your suggestion, cc0123. It's great that this discussion is attracting some poddies who know nothing about poetry, and some who already know a ton.
And finally, thanks rjberki for introducing me to kesirui's artwork. Some really graceful pieces in there.
Posted on: Seeing off an Old Friend 渭城曲
January 27, 2009 at 2:00 PMHi calkins,
That excellent reading was done by Jin1xin1 金鑫, who does so much backstage support for all the pods, not just ours.
Posted on: Borrowing Money
January 27, 2009 at 9:42 AMHi qingdaossadventuresdotcom
Stay tuned! It's coming up very soon!
Posted on: Making Dumplings
January 27, 2009 at 9:39 AMHi sushan,
面 can mean "flour" or "noodles." 意大利面 is spaghetti. Some of the other types of noodles have Chinese names-- linguine is 扁意面, (flat Italian noodles) but I'm not sure how many Chinese would know what that means.
"Dough" is 面团, literally, a ball of flour. And I really don't know the differences between the types of 粉 you mentioned. Could any cooking-minded poddies come to the rescue?
Posted on: Seeing off an Old Friend 渭城曲
January 27, 2009 at 9:19 AMHi all,
So glad you enjoyed the poem. Obitoddkenobi, songs of farewell were definitely popular in the Tang. Remember, though, that while many of the great poets knew each other's work (and were even friends), the 唐诗三百首 was only compiled in the eighteenth century. So I'm really not sure how whether the poets knew just how popular these types of poems were.
What a lovely picture, kesirui. It definitely adds to our appreciation of the poem. *Bonus for poddies interested in traditional characters!*
And as always, Changye 叔叔, thanks for sharing your detailed analysis of the poem's structure. That would not have been easy to explain in the audio podcast. Your comments give everyone a good reason to check the message boards often.
Posted on: Pregnancy Series 2: Pregnancy House Ar-rest
January 28, 2009 at 11:10 AMHi all,
If you just look at each character as a bunch of squiggly lines, your memory will max out at around fifty. Clearly, we need a more systematic method of study. One of the best ways to retain characters is to break them apart and tell yourself stories about them.
There are all different kinds of interpretations, and I'm for anything that helps people learn. But I am dubious of religious interpretations of characters, because of a lack of scholarly proof. Some characters definitely grew from rites and rituals (think of 祭, 尊 and so on). But suggestions that ancient Chinese worshipped a Judeo-Christian God don't have much evidence to back them up.
That said, there is definitely a burgeoning Christian movement in China, with some estimates of the total number of believers in the millions. So this is an excellent time to look into the history of Chinese characters, which are fascinating enough in their own right without needing any dressing up.