User Comments - pearltowerpete
pearltowerpete
Posted on: Vegetarian Eating
January 18, 2009 at 6:10 AMHi wsrbro01
Thanks for an interesting question. You are right that 吗/么 often turns a declarative into a question. But in this sentence, it is just softening the tone of the question without affecting meaning.
In Chinese, wordiness or redundancy often softens the tone and makes the listener feel more comfortable.
Posted on: Lucky Duckies
January 18, 2009 at 4:01 AMHi all, here are the sentences used in the podcast today:
运气 yùnqi
我今天运气很好。
Wǒ jīntiān yùnqi hěn hǎo.
运气不好。
Yùnqi bù hǎo.
今天我们的运气好还是不好？
Jīntiān wǒmen de yùnqi hǎo háishi bù hǎo？
我一般。
wǒ yībān.
好运 hǎoyùn
祝你好运！
Zhù nǐ hǎoyùn！
幸运 xìngyùn
霉运 méiyùn
我是世界上最幸运的男人。
Wǒ shì shìjiè shang zuì xìngyùn de nánrén.
幸运饼干 xìngyùn bǐnggān
吃了就很幸运。
Chī le jiù hěn xìngyùn.
桃花运 táohuāyùn
你最近有没有走桃花运？
Nǐ zuìjìn yǒu méiyǒu zǒu táohuāyùn？
走了桃花运。
Zǒu le táohuāyùn.
财运 cáiyùn
祝你有财运。
Zhù nǐ yǒu cáiyùn.
你今年的财运怎么样？
Nǐ jīnnián de cáiyùn zěnmeyàng？
牌运 páiyùn
你们最想、最希望有什么运？
Nǐmen zuì xiǎng, zuì xīwàng yǒu shénme yùn？
都想要。
Dōu xiǎngyào.
我想要桃花运、财运、牌运。
Wǒ xiǎngyào táohuāyùn, cáiyùn, pái yùn.
我们Chinesepod祝大家2009年天天都有好运气！
Wǒmen Chinesepod zhù dàjiā 2009 nián tiāntiān dōu yǒu hǎo yùnqi！
祝大家好运！
Zhù dàjiā hǎoyùn！
Posted on: The Broken Chair
January 18, 2009 at 2:59 AMHi chistudent
You and wchan have no reason to apologize. The CPod community benefits from your outstanding contributions, in English or Chinese. We are more than happy to chat in Chinese on the Advanced/Media lesson boards, or on individual posts that you may set up.
Posted on: Guided Plan Gets Better! Plus: Poetry is Pending
January 18, 2009 at 2:43 AMHi bababardwan and obitoddkenobi and chanelle77
Thank you all for your warm support. I am very excited about the new show, and really looking forward to your feedback and comments.
Posted on: The Broken Chair
January 18, 2009 at 12:31 AMHi bababardwan
The use of "汉" to as an all-purpose word for "person" instead of the Han ethnic group in particular is an illustration of the often blurry line between national identity and ethnicity in China, likely due to China's historical isolation and the resulting fact that any 人 you did meet would in fact be a 汉人. I suppose there are big, burly Tibetans who could be called "彪形大汉” biao1xing2da4han4 although it sounds absurd.
I'm not going to wade into the murky swamp of nationalism/racism/ethnicity on the "Broken Chair" board, but you did raise an interesting point.
Posted on: Argument over Garbage (2)
January 18, 2009 at 12:23 AMHi davidoff1
“懒得跟她们多说," 的意思更像英文的“I can't be bothered ／can't be asked to keep talking to them." 不是因为我真的很“懒” 而是因为我觉得这件事没什么意思，说了也没用。
Posted on: The Broken Chair
January 17, 2009 at 6:31 AMHi maureen
Good question. If a bone breaks, you don't use 怀了but rather 断了---- ex: 骨头断了 gu3tou2duan4le. The right of duan4 is an axe radical, which may help you remember it.
Hi bababardwan
Yes, I think that "D'oh!" is a great translation for 糟糕。According to my former Chinese teacher，a Tianjin native, 糟糕 means literally "messy rice cakes", to convey the idea of cakes that have gotten sloppy during cooking. The rice radicals on the left side of the characters may help you remember that.
Hi valentenii
Welcome to CPod! The rest of the team and I look forward to helping you on your way to fluency in Chinese.
Posted on: Stop in the Name of the 法 (fǎ)
January 17, 2009 at 6:21 AMHi calkins
Ha ha, I had not looked at like that. What can I say, I have a certain weakness for puns and corny humor.
Did you all hear about the guy whose whole left side was cut off? He's all right now.
Posted on: Stop in the Name of the 法 (fǎ)
January 17, 2009 at 1:24 AMHi fangaili
American police used to tell criminals on the run to "Stop in the name of the law!" So this is a play on words on the similar sound of 法 and of the fact that 法 can also mean "law." I think that if 法 had anything at all to do with stopping, this would be a terrible title.
Posted on: Do you have a menu?
January 18, 2009 at 6:13 AMHi kobukuro
This isn't about the presence of 请问qing3wen4, it's just a shortened, colloquial way of asking the question.
It may help to think of the question as "Is there a menu?" rather than "do you have a menu," although in actuality the meaning is the same.
Thanks for your question, and I look forward to seeing you around on the forums.