User Comments - pearltowerpete
pearltowerpete
Posted on: 张爱玲经典名句
November 14, 2008 at 1:26 AMCinzhang,
No one denies that the Japanese army committed atrocities during the war.
But Chinese people have always suffered most at the hands of their fellow Chinese. Does the Chinese education system emphasize this? How much do you learn about 洪秀全 ? At least twenty million people died during his rebellion. What about the 三年自然灾害？How many millions died during that time? Did foreign enemies cause this? Did 大自然 really cause it?
It is ridiculous for you to say that "It is easy for foreigners not to understand what happened in Asia." Have you studied any history texts not published in mainland China? If not, you may actually be the one who does not really understand Asian history.
These forums are for intelligent discussion. Racism will not be tolerated. The good news is, ignorance is a curable disease.
Posted on: 张爱玲经典名句
November 13, 2008 at 8:45 AMCinzhang,
If you use racist slang on this board you will be banned.
War is terrible. But this kind of petty insult throwing is not productive.
When you point a finger at someone else, you have three fingers pointing back at yourself.
Posted on: Counterfeit Money
November 13, 2008 at 2:29 AMHi cinzhang,
ChinesePod does offer a student discount. To continue providing a high-quality learning environment, we do need to cover our costs. Super-duper translators like me don't come cheap ;-)
And it's a maxim in psychology that people take something more seriously if they've had to pay at least a little for it.
Posted on: Birth by Chinese Zodiac
November 13, 2008 at 1:44 AMHi bababardwan
Here is a recent discussion we had on this very topic, with a few funny examples.
http://chinesepod.com/lessons/last-and-next/discussion#comment-98045
My classical Chinese is not very good, but I do know that in ye olden times particles like 也 were used to mark the ends of phrases. Classical Chinese is extremely concise and open to multiple interpretations.
Ex: The Confucian dictum 食色性也 , which means something like “Eating and sex are normal parts of human nature."
The grammar of modern written Chinese has changed quite a bit in the last hundred or so years, as it absorbed influences from other major world languages.
Another major force is mass politics, media, and propaganda. These three are never friends of good, clear writing. And Chinese is far from the first language they have mucked up.
Posted on: Having Food Delivered
November 12, 2008 at 11:59 PMHi Monique
Thanks for keeping us honest. If you are interested in the Long March, all I can say is stay tuned...
Posted on: Birth by Chinese Zodiac
November 12, 2008 at 11:53 PMHi bababardwan
Pinkjeans and I are just talking about the comma that is used in Chinese writing to separate members of a list of things -- 猪 、龙 、 牛 etc. Phrases such as prepositional phrases can be separated with "regular" commas--ex: 虽然他老婆是日本人，他还没学会日语.
This is a good place to note that Chinese punctuation has a long and glorious history of 1) not existing or 2) not being used terribly rigorously. In modern Chinese, especially in the PRC, it is very common to see long sentences consisting of different ideas linked with commas. Ideally, these would be separate sentences with periods. Of course, English and other languages are not immune to this trend. But for people who value concision and logic in our writing, this should be a cause for concern.
One result that poddies may notice is that, wherever possible, the dialogues and expansions are translated in accordance with good English grammar, no matter how long and rambling the original Chinese sentences were.
Posted on: Birth by Chinese Zodiac
November 12, 2008 at 5:07 AMHi pinkjeans
If you have your keyboard set to type in Chinese, just hit the slash button， beside the "shift" key.
/ = 、
Posted on: “混在中国”最字榜
November 12, 2008 at 5:04 AMHi bababardwan
Since this is a media lesson, it does not have a script per se.
Posted on: Calligraphy
November 14, 2008 at 4:49 AMHi helandou ,
Beloved CPod team member Aggy got married and moved to Australia.