User Comments - pearltowerpete
pearltowerpete
Posted on: Often: Using 常常，经常，通常 (chángcháng, jīngcháng, tōngcháng)
November 18, 2008 at 1:53 AMHi wchan
你说的对。我去酒吧代替打网球。是direct transliteration.而你写的句子也是正确的。在这个情况下，中文里不用说“instead of”。
Posted on: “混在中国”最字榜
November 17, 2008 at 9:52 AM陈老师，
难道你的英国同事代表性那么厉害，可以代表几百亿人吗？不然怎么能说这种话：
你们foreigners (外国人)的想法都是一样！
也许你认识的那几个外国人想法都一样。 但并不能说外国人想法都一样。
何本科生
Posted on: “混在中国”最字榜
November 17, 2008 at 9:42 AMThirty five years ago, Pink Floyd made a little album called The Dark Side of the Moon. There's a lot of trippy wisdom in those nine glorious tracks.
The song "Us and Them" shows the folly of an insular, tribal mentality.
Expand your mind.
Posted on: Often: Using 常常，经常，通常 (chángcháng, jīngcháng, tōngcháng)
November 17, 2008 at 9:15 AMHi kesirui
I agree, google pinyin is great. It learns from your own habits (ex. your name) and also from other users around the world.
But in the strictest sense, it is not free. It gives google a vast amount of information about the search and purchasing habits of people around the world. The price of this convenient software is lost privacy. 羊毛出在羊身上
Posted on: The Big Deal about Shenzhou 7
November 17, 2008 at 8:46 AMHi alexyzye
While 甚至的甚 can sometimes be used with traditional characters for 什 (for example in 甚麽）， this is not one of those cases.
Posted on: Often: Using 常常，经常，通常 (chángcháng, jīngcháng, tōngcháng)
November 17, 2008 at 7:45 AMHi bababardwan,
Thanks for the shout-out. I don't know who came up with that word but it's a humdinger.
And actually it was my third Chinaversary, as it is usually figured based on when you arrived in China, not when you started studying.
Posted on: Moving House and Chinese Wineries
November 17, 2008 at 4:43 AMHi rjberki,
Your story about the dead pig reminded me of a photo in Bill Zorn and Dai Qing's wonderful book of black and white photos, Three Gorges. It shows an enormous pig strapped to the back of a motorcycle. The best part is, the pig is drunk and docile on sour mash. Pigs love sour mash.
And to stray completely off topic, moonshiners in America's Appalachian Mountains have had problems with wild boars drowning in their vats of sour mash, lured in by that intoxicating smell.
Posted on: Moving House and Chinese Wineries
November 17, 2008 at 4:35 AMHi wendyding
Chinese often translate the name of their potent grain liquor 白酒 as "white wine." But with an alcohol content that can exceed 50%, it's not wine in any Western sense. Maybe a better translation is "white lightning."
Posted on: 练书法
November 17, 2008 at 4:33 AMHi chris
It's wonderful to hear success stories like yours. Thanks so much for your support. And keep your questions and suggestions coming.
Hi changye 大哥
You are renowned as the CPod etymologist, so let me add a detail about the origin of 毛片儿--James Wang's slim classic Outrageous Chinese claims that 毛 refers to the fuzziness and poor quality of the movies. My own guess about the origin of the term is a bit more anatomical.
Posted on: Lao Wang's Office 5: Wang Tries to Excel at the Office
November 18, 2008 at 3:12 AMHi amrita and questyn
Thanks a lot for your suggestions. We know that a whole bunch of poddies are learning Chinese for work purposes. So you can be sure we will come up with even more challenging lessons about surfing the Web and using Office, Excel, PPT, etc.