User Comments - pearltowerpete
pearltowerpete
Posted on: Sorry and Thank You
July 17, 2009 at 3:48 AMHi Vanessa,
Let me repeat rjberki's welcome to you. We look forward to your questions and comments in the community.
For less serious situations, such as gently bumping into someone on the metro, you can also say 不好意思, bu4hao3yi4si. This shows that you feel regret, without being a full apology. It's appropriate for less serious occasions.
Posted on: Are You Free?
July 16, 2009 at 5:14 AMHi mnspg,
Raygo's explanation is good.
This is an example of a sentence that we can't translate literally. Chinese will often use the word 找 where we would say things like "just give me a shout" in informal English.
One of the more famous examples of this usage comes from the ever colorful Hong Huang, a well-connected and American-educated lady who now hosts her own TV show. She offers probably the best translation of Hu Jintao's sweeping new foreign policy directive: 不折腾. Her motto is 翻译问题，找我呀！
Posted on: No TV Before Your Test!
July 16, 2009 at 5:06 AMHi weibwo,
You make some good points about the educational experiences of students in China and the West.
I am familiar with Moore's law-- my point, not clearly made, is that there is no contradiction between saying that 1)TV has greatly harmed mankind's ability to think and innovate, and 2) such innovation does still occur (e.g. ever-increasing computer processing speeds and capacities.) But this innovation just doesn't occur at the rate and scale that it would without the distraction of TV.
By the way, I know some biologists and musicians who would be hurt at being left off your list of fields that "matter." ;-)
Posted on: Saved by the Gong: Chemistry
July 16, 2009 at 1:12 AMHi calicartel and mikeinewshot,
The translation is correct. A more literal, but too Chinglishy translation would be " Let's ask classmate Chenlei..." The fact that he's a classmate is clear from the context.
In Chinese, you put a noun describing a person's identity after the person's name. Sometimes, it's appropriate to translate this into English. See, for instance, 邓小平同志 Comrade Deng Xiaoping, which is different from "Deng Xiaoping and his comrades."
But sometimes it sounds very silly and can just be left out-- as for instance Chinese will often say things like 王明小朋友 when talking about a child named Wang Ming.
And sometimes, to fit the conventions of English, we must change the form of address completely. I'm thinking of 李老师-- "Teacher Li" is too Chinglishy. It is better English to say "Mr.（ｏｒ Ｍｓ．） Li."
The example you cited, calicartel, mentions "他们“ and "几个”, which both tell you that you are looking at a plural. In the sentence in this dialogue there is nothing like this.
I hope this explanation was helpful. If not, please ask again or send a personal message.
Posted on: Drinking Alone Under the Moon 月下独酌
July 15, 2009 at 5:10 AMHi forevastacy
Thank you very much for the kind comment.
Please check out the other 19 poems in the series.
Posted on: Budget Meeting
July 15, 2009 at 5:04 AMHi christine30550
Please let me add to shenyajin's helpful comment about 细水长流. This chengyu appears in Wang Fei's song 红豆. In the context of the song, it is talking about a little trickle running for a long time.
可是我有时候
宁愿选择留恋不放手
等到风景都看透
也许你会陪我看细水长流
In this way, it reminds me of another famous Chinese comment about water, from the chapter 78 of the Tao Te Ching. Here is Ezra Pound's translation：
In this world there is nothing softer or thinner than water,
But to compel the hard and unyielding, it has no equal
That the weak overcomes the strong, that the hard gives way to the gentle,
This everyone knows, yet no one acts accordingly.
The Chinese original is:
天下莫柔弱于水，而攻坚强者莫之能胜，以其无以易之。弱之胜强，柔之胜刚，天下莫不知，莫能行
Finally, I recommend checking out the whole song 红豆. I can't listen to it without getting a bit of a lump in my throat.
Posted on: Language Exchange
July 14, 2009 at 9:52 AMHi rj,
Boring things for 250? You cut me like a knife ;-)
I actually have never seen Soul Train. "Love Train" was a kind of dating show where you would try to impress people with your talents or fix a damaged relationship. I watched it on the university's BBS (intranet) during my second semester and learned a lot about emotions and such.
Plus, I remember seeing a commercial for Zang Tianshuo where he played the song "Pengyou" that we mentioned in a recent broadcast. That inspired me to learn my first Chinese KTV song.
Posted on: 中国的股票市场
July 14, 2009 at 9:02 AMHi calicartel
This is a tricky word. There is a reason that obscure, pedantic language is called 之乎者也！
Shenyajin and Yana helped me with your question. They point out that in this sentence, 之 is being used to turn a "subject-predicate structure" into a structure consisting of a "modifier and the word it modifies."
The 现代汉语词典 defines this usage of 之 thusly:
用在主谓结构之间，取消它的独立性，使变成偏正结构： 中国~大 (big China) ； 战斗～激烈 (intense combat)
So in the phrase you refer to, 热情之高 refers to ordinary Chinese people's great (high) enthusiasm for speculating in stocks.
If this explanation is unclear, just say so, and we will try again.
Posted on: Traveling around China
July 14, 2009 at 8:29 AMHi dubb,
Please allow me to repost a comment I made earlier in the discussion. If this is still not clear to you, we will be happy to explain in greater detail.
Jiaojie and Shenyajin confirm that in this phrase, the 白勺的 is the correct one. It is technically called a "nominalizer." Basically, it allows you to omit a noun, such as 样子.This structure is very common in Mandarin.
The "de" here is not describing the way in which one is imagining, but rather the thing that one imagined.
Posted on: No TV Before Your Test!
July 17, 2009 at 4:05 AMHi weibwo,
I'd say a big part of our problem in modern education (especially higher ed) is over-specialization. Engineers, sociologists, business people and farmers should all be talking more to each other-- no one of them can solve our problems single-handedly. But it's very easy to get sucked into a narrower and narrower world view.
Hi raygo,
Well, you make a very interesting point. I'm not sure I'd be able to give up all the libraries and whisky that "civilization" has provided for us, but from a JS Mills utilitarian point of view, we might have all been better off as hunter-gatherers.
As a practical note, the skeletons of the first generations of peoples that transitioned from hunter-gathering to farming show malnourishment-- they weren't living as well as their ancestors had with a "primitive" way of life.