User Comments - pearltowerpete

Posted on: My Dog

Hi desluo949

I had always thought of 乖 as showing a fly-by-night watch salesman, opening his coat to show off his wares. But maybe machine guns lead more directly to obedience.

By the way, I had a teacher who hinted delicately in class that it was best to practice Chinese characters while high, and listening to Led Zepplin. He was a great teacher, and I while I've never made use of his suggestion, I pass it along in hopes that it will improve some poddie's Chinese ability.

Posted on: Grab Some Veggies From the Store

Hi threecats33,

What you've got there looks to me like a 白菜 bai2cai4.

青菜 is smaller and shrubbier looking

Please remember though that these are folk names. If we want to be really precise, we should use Latin. But what fun is that? ;-)

Posted on: What Type of Man do You Like?

Hi bodawei,

You are indeed correct. Thank you for taking the time to help a fellow poddie.

Please note that 长 zhang3 refers not only to one's appearance but also to rate of growth, or the act of growing. In Chinese you can say 庄稼长得快 the crops are growing quickly as well as 他长得很帅 he's really handsome. English would use very different verbs to illustrate these ideas.

Posted on: What Type of Man do You Like?

Hi luolina27

Great question.

长 is a 多音字，a character with multiple readings. It can mean "long," as 长城 the Great Wall, as you suggested.

But here, it is pronounced zhang3, and refers to appearance, growing.

There are quite a few such characters with multiple readings in Chinese. A few examples are 干 gan1 "dry", vs. 干 gan4 "to do." The word 解 jie3 as in 解放 "to liberate” can also be a surname, in which case it is pronounced xie4.

Posted on: Saying Good-bye at a Tavern in Nanjing -- 金陵酒肆留别

Hi owie, lentakis, jess13, sophastre and qingshan09,

I've let the thank you's get away from me lately. But thank you all for the kind words. I hope you enjoyed listening to the show half as much as I enjoyed making it.

Posted on: What Type of Man do You Like?

Hi desluo949

Good question. The verb + 得 construction requires an adverb afterward. 他长得怎么样 is literally asking "how does he look" as opposed to 长什么样 which could more literally be "what does he look like?"

In practice, the two are very similar.

Posted on: Grab Some Veggies From the Store

Hi inland,

Thanks for raising some interesting points.

Actually, shenyajin confirms that you can say 我爱吃 and 我喜欢吃, as this includes the follow up verb 吃. People do not generally say，for example, "我爱巧克力." But they do say "我爱吃巧克力."

You are correct that 牌子 refers to "brand" (e.g. Ford or Yugo) rather than type, (e.g. sedan or SUV.) I considered translating it that way, but "How much does that brand of car cost?" just sounds too unnatural in English.

I think that in this situation it's OK to substitute "kind" for "brand," especially since the answer to the question "What kind of car is that?" is more likely to be "Oh, that's a Chevy" than "Oh, that's a sedan." To express "what kind of car" in Chinese, you can say 什么类型的车.

I'm a little uncertain what you mean about the second translation. The original doesn't include a complement of direction such as 我要出去买..., so a simple "going" is probably the best solution here.

Posted on: 把 Humbug

Hi changye,

Thank you for once again sharing your copious knowledge. Now that we know how the North Koreans pronounce 劳动，we just need to learn about an even more important word there:　劳改　：－（

Posted on: What Type of Man do You Like?

Hi tommy2tone,

This is just anecdotal, but I'd say we're seeing more androgynous women around as well. The most famous example is the Supergirl, 李宇春. She got made fun of but I've seen plenty who look like her.

Hi tal,

Yeah my taste generally runs more toward Kenny Rogers and Pink Floyd, but we needed to shake it up a bit.

Posted on: Dinosaurs

Hi bodawei and phil,

It appears that the system is displaying one thing for us employees and another for the poddies outside our building. Very frustrating. I have reported the problem and we are looking into it.