User Comments - pearltowerpete
pearltowerpete
Posted on: Pregnancy Series 3: Prenatal Checkup
February 18, 2009 at 9:42 AMHi bodawei
In answering your question, I learned something myself. B超 (or B型超声) refers to "brightness modulation ultrasonography."
Posted on: Lao Wang's Office 8: Trimming the Fat at the Office
February 18, 2009 at 9:21 AMHi wzteachers
Wonderful! It's great to have you back in the community.
Posted on: Pregnancy Series 3: Prenatal Checkup
February 18, 2009 at 9:19 AMHi wchan
Thanks for picking up on a subtle difference. I am generally very ready to defer in medical matters to poddies who specialize in this area. But 遗传 is routinely translated as "genetic" in the phrase 遗传工程, "genetic engineering."
For most practical purposes, a "hereditary disease" is a "genetic disease."
Posted on: Eating Dead Flesh 猪吃死人肉
February 18, 2009 at 5:46 AMHi suryaluxury
Welcome! We're all here because we're enthusiastic about poetry. Some listeners already have a deep understanding but many are like you-- learning about these poems for the first time. So if a piece resonates with you, or you have a different interpretation, please share!
And you are not the first person to ask about modern poetry. I did not expect this to be a popular topic but it seems that quite a few poddies think there was good poetry written less than a thousand years ago ;-) So I am looking into it.
Posted on: Pregnancy Series 3: Prenatal Checkup
February 18, 2009 at 4:40 AMHi alexyzye
To minimize abortions of female fetuses, doctors are technically not supposed to tell patients the child's sex. For several reasons, the boy-to-girl ratio is already very distorted.
But a heavy red envelope can make people more talkative...
Posted on: Pregnancy Series 3: Prenatal Checkup
February 18, 2009 at 3:01 AMHi chinachica
Congratulations. Do Chinese do anything like Lamaze breathing? It seems related to Qi Gong (气功） in some crazy way.
Posted on: Hold the Elevator
February 18, 2009 at 2:19 AMHi bababardwan
位 is a measure word for people that shows respect. So, for example, you might refer to 这位老师 （this teacher). Restaurants often ask you "你们几位”-- how many are in your party.
But you would not use 位 to refer to yourself-- for example "我是一位非常聪明的学生 ；-) Chinese care a lot about modesty (谦虚）.
Hi tmod5862
Your question shows how "risky" it is to directly translate. 地板 refers to the floor beneath your feet, the part of the building. But 楼 is for the phrase "which floor do you live on" and so on. Please note, it can also refer to the whole building.
Posted on: Lao Wang's Office 8: Trimming the Fat at the Office
February 18, 2009 at 2:02 AMHi all
It occurred to me that with all the discussion of "going postal" and "getting off," there is another handy phrase that might be mysterious to non-native (or non-American?) speakers of English: the title of the lesson, "Trimming the Fat."
顾名思义 (As the name implies) the phrase originally referred to cooks who cut extra fat off of a steak, leaving only the lean meat. It refers to reducing waste in a budget, and often involves layoffs.
Posted on: Eating Dead Flesh 猪吃死人肉
February 18, 2009 at 1:27 AMHi huasen
I'm tickled that you're enjoying the series. There will be many canonical poems, but I am looking forward to throwing a little light on good works that are sometimes overlooked. So thanks for the suggestion.
Hi zhenlijiang
Until you mentioned it, no! But it's a funny parallel. In fact, my girlfriend just read Animal Farm, which reminded her of the Cultural Revolution in many ways. The book is really about Stalin/Trotsky et.al, but it's like a prophecy of similar shenanigans around the world.
The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Or, as the Who said, "Meet the new boss/ Same as the old boss."
A final, slightly creepy note: pigs are often used in medical research because their organs are similar to humans'.
And thanks, van0000, for the illustration.
Posted on: Pregnancy Series 3: Prenatal Checkup
February 18, 2009 at 11:08 AMHi bababardwan,
Actually, the sentence isn't quite that outrageous in Chinese. 有什么...吗 actually implies "is there anything like..." or something like that. If it were a direct question-- "what kind of diseases do you have?" there would not be a 吗 at the end.
Thanks for calling attention to a potentially tricky grammar point.