User Comments - pearltowerpete

Posted on: How have you been?

Hi samich1984

还可以 hai2ke3yi3 is an ambiguous response whose meaning depends on context and tone.

For example, if someone asked you what you thought of a particular kind of chocolate and you said 还可以 it would be a bit negative.

If someone asked you how you've been lately and you said 还可以 it would be more modest, implying that you've actually been pretty good.

Posted on: The Good Husband

Hi pinkjeans

The non-Cantonese speakers in the office had never heard the word 长气, but the folks from Guangzhou do use it. What a descriptive 说法！

Posted on: Chinese Characters and the History of Sex in China

Hi joannah

The wikipedia article on the second round of simplification gives some good examples. The most interesting section in my opinion:

Today, second round characters are officially regarded as incorrect. However, some have survived in informal contexts; this is because some people who were in school between 1977 and 1986 received their education in second-round characters. For example, eggs at markets are often advertised as "鸡旦" rather than "鸡蛋", parking venues may be marked "仃车" rather than "停车", and street side restaurants as "歺厅" rather than "餐厅”. Another example is handwritten license plates from HebeiHenan provinces, which often use 丠 and 予 as opposed to 冀 and 豫 to represent those provinces. and

Posted on: The Good Husband

Hi tgif

No problem. I am happy to hear poddies' interpretations of the dialogues.

Cervantes' Don Quixote, which I read in translation ;-) has a great line comparing reading a translated work to looking at a piece of embroidery from the back, with all the loose dangly bits. This is an art, not a science, and I'm glad to have a sharp, interested audience.

Posted on: The Good Husband

Hi marygrace

I can't say much about the rural areas, but in the cities, where the cost of living is quite high, stay-at-home-moms are basically limited to the wealthy. Many parents are so busy, in fact, that their children are effectively raised by the grandparents.

Posted on: The Good Husband

Hi indyinasia

Thanks for coming by. We at CPod look forward to seeing your comments, questions and suggestions on the forums.

Posted on: The Good Husband

Hi all

You are right about the missing character in 啰嗦. We tested the system extensively yesterday to find the source of this problem. It appears that the system that generates our PDFs is unable to display the character 啰.

This is not actually as ridiculous as it sounds. Apparently, problems with displaying certain unusual characters containing the mouth radical are not that rare. Many of these characters have alternate forms. In fact, 啰 can also be written 罗. We made that change yesterday during work hours. But it is still not displaying on my screen here. I will follow up on this on Monday morning.

Thank you all for demanding excellence. When you hold us to a high standard, everyone benefits.

Posted on: The Good Husband

Hi tgif

I don't really understand what your post is trying to say. But let me say a bit about my translations.

I have translated everything released since I became the CPod translator in mid-September. I am the first person to hold the position.

The point of my translations here is to educate our poddies. In order to preserve grammatical structures from the original Chinese, I sometimes use a slightly stiffer or more literal interpretation. What is lost in liveliness is ( I hope) gained in educational value.

You and the other poddies may disagree with me about a particular translation. You may even discover that I have flat-out made a mistake. I hope to see your comments and suggestions on the boards or in personal messages.

Posted on: Wake-up Call

Hi ewong

That's what you call a teachable moment :-) For me, it's always easiest to remember things after getting them spectacularly wrong. Bet you'll remember 越 for the rest of your life.

Posted on: Wake-up Call

Hi ewong

To say "the___, the___" you use 越 （yue4)__越___ .

"The earlier the better" is 越早越好.

If you want to say that something is getting better all the time, it would be 越来越好.