User Comments - pearltowerpete
pearltowerpete
Posted on: 游大观园
September 8, 2009 at 5:23 AMHi jgwilson,
Good guess, but actually this lesson is about a classic Chinese novel, usually called The Dream of the Red Chamber. The main characters include many beautiful and troubled young ladies.
Posted on: The Pen and Paper Mystery
September 8, 2009 at 3:18 AMHi yuridiana217
Thanks for commenting. Like flowers, we Poddies appear to be cross-pollinating!
Posted on: The Pen and Paper Mystery
September 8, 2009 at 2:37 AMHi xiaophil,
The word 束 also appears in 结束, to finish. The connection here to "tying off loose ends" or "wrapping things up" makes this an easy compound to remember.
Graphically, according to Wenlin, the character is supposed to represent
木 (mù) plants (or wood) 口 tied up in a bundle.
Posted on: The Pen and Paper Mystery
September 8, 2009 at 1:24 AMHi all,
Please note that in the vocab list, 字 is given as "written character." This is to emphasize that Chinese uses a different word for characters in a story, or for someone's personality and virtue.
It is interesting, though, that Chinese uses 认识 ren4shi for "to recognize a written character." This is the verb you use for knowing or being acquainted with a person, as well. Can we surmise that Chinese characters all have a personality of their own? ;-)
Posted on: 淘金热
September 7, 2009 at 7:07 AMHi connie and christine30550
I think it's interesting how dietary habits can define humanity/saintliness. The Greek gods supposedly ate nothing but nectar and ambrosia, and the Norse Vikings expected to feast on pork when they went off to Valhalla.
Posted on: How to Say "and" in Chinese
September 7, 2009 at 5:59 AMHi fred2
Another issue is the use of the indefinite articles. English, German, and the romance languages, at least the ones I know, are obsessed with the use of :"a." "an," "the." "this," " these," and "those."
Your question requires a more complex answer than I can give here. But this will be a first attempt. Maybe a future Qing Wen can give you a more satisfactory reply.
Chinese nouns have no gender, which makes the articles simpler than German or the Romance languages you have mentioned.
Chinese does have measure words, however, which more than make up for that simplicity. You can usually use 个 as an all-purpose measure word, but you must generally choose an appropriate measure word for each noun.
Before each measure word, you have your choice of 这 zhe4 "this" or 那 na4 "that." There is no "a" or "an" as such. Instead, you would say "one" + "measure word" + noun.
Finally, for "these" and "those" you use 这些 and 那些 respectively, without a measure word.
Posted on: How to Say "and" in Chinese
September 7, 2009 at 5:40 AMHi xiaophil,
而且 can indeed carry the same implications as the fairly formal English "furthermore." Connie explains that it can also often be the simpler "and."
You are correct that 而且 is used to connect independent clauses. 还有 is used more often for a single sentence, often when you have forgotten to mention something, and have suddenly remembered that you wanted to include it.
Posted on: Funny Business, Part Two
September 7, 2009 at 5:18 AMHi joeodessa,
The sentence you're referring to doesn't actually mention the word “ping pong.” The phrase 打打擦边球 da3 da ca1bian1qiu2 means to strike the edge of the table with your ball when you're playing ping pong.
Posted on: 智能手机
September 7, 2009 at 1:18 AMHi christine30550
You are correct. 并 here adds some emphasis. 为 wei2 roughly means "to be" or "as." And as you mentioned, 过 here means excessive.
So the phrase could be translated as "It would be no exaggeration to say...”
Posted on: Going Dutch
September 8, 2009 at 10:02 AMTal, I think you're on to something. As long as Celine Dion sings the themesong, that is...