User Comments - pearltowerpete

Posted on: Hungry Traveler: Dongbei

Hi paulinurus,

Erasing questions or comments about problems with translations or technical glitches is not something that CPod "allows" me to do. That has been the policy from the beginning. It has not always been rigorously carried out, but it is the policy. This is to save people who come to the lessons later the confusion of error messages etc. that are no longer valid. When I delete such a post, I send a personal message to the person who posted, thanking them for noticing the error and notifying them that the post has been erased, and that the problem is fixed or in the process of being fixed.

In an ideal world, there would be different discussion sections for questions/comments on lessons, random thoughts, and perhaps a "wall of glitches" to keep a record of each error and the time when it was fixed. That is not currently possible.

As for Funny Business, I'm not sure why the PDF is not fixed. I will look into this on Monday morning. This is the weekend, but I will be up bright and early to paste the Qing Wen sentences.

The environment here would be better if people could approach their studies with an assumption that their teachers and classmates are not incompetent, unpleasant people who are trying to cheat, confuse, belittle, insult, and degrade them. Criticism of my errors or pointing out where we disagree is fine. I don't enjoy the insinuations that I or anyone at CPod is trying to take advantage of you. 

We are professionals, paid to do a job. We are giving it our best. As always, we are receptive to feedback from you, the poddies.

Posted on: Hungry Traveler: Dongbei

Hi go_manly,

Please note the post that I have started in the community section.

I would be very glad to hear your opinions and methods for learning Chinese.

Posted on: Hungry Traveler: Dongbei

Hi rj,

I did not say or imply that I am smarter than you, or anyone else. And my comment did not imply that you are doing anything wrong. I was pointing out the flaws in a learning strategy, as I perceive them. My opinion is based on my own experience, and my observations of other people learning Chinese. As I said, my opinion in this is not important, as I am continuing to do the annotations in as professional a way as possible.

Why should I have to use a dictionary when cpod is supposed to be doing the teaching?

CPod is a wonderful resource, but it has never claimed to be one-stop-shopping for Chinese learning. A dictionary is and always has been an indispensable tool for learning a language.

In fact, a dictionary is a much better tool for the kind of learning you are trying to do. When you look up the word 吃, you see that it can mean "to eat," "to exhaust," "to suffer," "to absorb," and many other things. Then you see the various compounds it can form: 吃饭，吃劲， 吃苦， 吃油， etc. There is no doubt that these are valuable connections for you to make. I always go through this process when I encounter a new word, and encourage everyone to do so.

But it would be impossible, at least with the current level of technology, for CPod to be able to provide this for you. The popup annotations are a poor substitute for this kind of in-depth expansion and analysis of a character or word. 

I did not dismiss Howard's point regarding idioms. The recent translations have been much less "cute." But words like "wanna" and "gonna" are too common to rule out. Certain poddies may not use or approve of them, but they are widespread. And they correspond better to a slangy Chinese original than would something like "Sir, may I take your order?"

If you still have concerns, please make them on the Translation and Language Learning Post that I have started. This page is supposed to be reserved for discussion of the lesson.

Posted on: 沙漠寻踪

Hi zhenlijiang,

Thank you, as always, for the thoughtful comment.

Part of the problem here is that 执着 is a fairly common word in oral Chinese, but all the English variations that you and I have suggested don't really slide off the tongue. We don't seem to describe people this way in daily conversation.

Of all your suggestions, I like "unshakeable" the best. It captures the bull-dog like tencacity of someone who will not let go, even when they should. And it sounds most like something that a (precocious) child might say.

I'm reluctant to say that the father was driven by his thirst for knowledge. Poddies know that I am certainly no slave to literal translations. But this may be reading too much into it. For all we know, the father might have been an unshakeable scholar driven by his desire to get tenure. All the original Chinese gives us is a scholar and an adjective.

Posted on: Hungry Traveler: Dongbei

Dear Howard97

Thank you for commenting.

I have been responsible for the translations since September, 2008. I am in the process of reviewing and tweaking the earlier translations. I agree that some of them need work.

We try to make the lessons accessible to learners of all ages and nationalities. As an American, I use American slang when translating slangy Chinese. It would come off as silly if I tried to imitate the English of another area. As you say, you can't please all the people.

In this lesson, the opening line 大哥，點菜嗎？is indeed informal and chummy. The translation is intended to convey this tone. If the original Chinese were more formal, perhaps including a 您, I would have rendered it appropriately.

Other poddies have voiced a desire for more literal translations. I understand this desire. That is the point of the pop-up notations that appear when you mouse over a line of text.

But if it were up to me, we would not provide those notations. They easily become a crutch, giving the learner a false feeling of understanding. They also discourage the mental challenge and unexpected discoveries that come with using a dictionary. More imporantly, they encourage word-by-word translation of  English (or some other language) into Chinese. This is not nearly as effective as direct transmission of thought into Chinese. But, because some people find this way of learning convenient, we are very happy to provide it.

Ultimately, the way to achieve fluency is to think in Chinese. The way to do this is to see sentences in phrases and "lexical chunks." These correspond much more closely to ideas. 

We recently discussed this topic in the comments section on Lao Wang in the Doghouse. Most people visit the lesson discussions to learn about the topic at hand. If you have further concerns, please post them in the group that I have just created. You will find it on the community page.

I understand and appreciate your concerns. It is my sincere desire, and the desire of the CPod team, to help you master Chinese. Please continue to give us feedback.

Posted on: Pregnancy Series 7: Choosing a Name for the Baby

Hi bababardwan,

也许最有名的就是“水浒传” 里面的那些人。 我没看过那本书，英文叫“Outlaws of the Marsh," 但它在中国特别受欢迎. Many of my Chinese buddies love it.

Many cultures have this concept of the knight-errant. We like our comfy society of laws, but we also like the idea that there are upright people who sometimes need to go around the laws in the name of justice. Do Robin Hood and Batman count? What about Dirty Harry?

Hi shenyajin

Could this custom also be involved with Chinese people's modesty 谦虚, 不要把自己儿子说的太好...

I remember in 活着 the little kid's name was 苦根. It was significant though, because he had a difficult start, and his life was not very smooth, to say the least.

Posted on: 沙漠寻踪三

Hi justinisonlinerightnow and shenyajin,

至于“王八蛋”这个词的来由，我听说过两种说法，如下：

1—— 王八毕竟是一种野生动物，繁殖习惯跟我们人类不一样。进行性交以后，“男生”就会跑掉，后裔出生的时候，他们父亲身份不明确，在中国人眼里这就是很难看的一件事， 于是“王八蛋”就变成脏话了，相当于英文的 bastard.

2-- 另一种说法，”王八蛋“ 的读音跟“忘八端" 比较相似，八端就是古代中国人很敬佩的一些美德，如： 孝、悌、忠、信、礼、义、廉、耻.

把这些美德给忘掉当然不是什么好事，骂人也可以这样骂。

不管怎么样，在国内找 “网吧” 的时候，要注意发音，不要出洋相呵呵。

Posted on: Pregnancy Series 7: Choosing a Name for the Baby

The character 庸 appears in the title of "The Doctrine of the Mean 中庸之道," an ancient classic. Here, of course, "mean" refers to moderation and "the middle way," not "mean and nasty."

"Mean" can also mean "stingy, tight-fisted." I'd be curious to know if the meanings were at all related.

Posted on: 沙漠寻踪

Hi tgif,

Thanks for helping out with the banter. Sorry about the late reply to your comment, as I was on leave at the time and did not notice it until now. 

执着 is an interesting word. It can mean "persevering.”　But　it originally referred to the Buddhist concept of being too attached to the physical world. It is not usually used in that sense these days, but it still can be negative, in the sense of being excessively stubborn or willful. The nciku online dictionary defines it as

佛教原指对尘世的事物追逐不舍，不能解脱；后泛指始终坚持或过于拘泥

Therefore, I would argue that "headstrong" fits well in context here. Merriam Webster defines it as "impatient of control, advice, or suggestions." The mother's appraisal of the father is quite negative, and the son is commenting on the fact that despite his responsibilities to the family, the father went his own way. This is not what we think of when we think of "persevering."

Posted on: Hungry Traveler: Dongbei

Hi sushan

东北 includes the provinces of 黑龙江 Heilongjiang，吉林Jilin and 辽宁 Liaoning. Since it is in Shandong, Qingdao does not count.