User Comments - podster
podster
Posted on: 2013 Chinese Internet Buzzwords
December 15, 2013 at 3:17 PMI feel your pain. The air quality indicators every day are only varying degrees of "unhealthy" it seems. As to the word 雾霾, I hear it used fairly often and did not know it was "buzzword." It is easier to say than 空气污染 and maybe reflects what people are most concerned about. Whereas 空气污染 would include gases like SOX and NOX, the main focus of people's concern seems to be particulate matter ("PM"). Since the word 霾 means dust storm I guess 雾霾 refers to air that is both hazy and gritty.
Posted on: How to Eat Crawfish
December 13, 2013 at 2:56 AMno votes for "crawdaddy" yet?
Posted on: Classical Chinese vs. Modern Chinese
December 13, 2013 at 2:48 AMI wonder if this relates to the fact that 要 is such a slippery word. At least it seems so in English translation; could be "want to," could be "shall," etc. Since the context is that the subject matter is something that "must" be studied, perhaps the emphasis shifts to the studying rather than the desire or inevitability of studying, i.e., from 要 to 学. Just a random guess on my part; not sourced from anyone's grammar book ;-). My own inclination is the same as yours and Vera's; 要 somehow sounds more natural.
Posted on: Party Dues
December 9, 2013 at 5:14 PMI would say he made some bad choices, but he is sure one resilient human being. I'm curious how many people in modern China really know his name and story. I will ask around , but there was so much tragedy during that era I wonder if people will just say "yeah, what's the big deal?" When I met him he was telling the same story, but added that staying in China was the best decision ever because it was there that he met his wife.
Posted on: Party Dues
December 8, 2013 at 6:37 PMI have actually met the "foreigner" party member cited in the Financial Times article (linked at the bottom of the web site that your link points to), Sidney Rittenberg. Here is another article about him: http://www.danwei.com/sidney-rittenberg-reflections-on-a-lifetime-in-china/
Posted on: Powerpoint Presentation Problems
December 1, 2013 at 10:48 AMUh - oh, not so fast . . .maybe pigs and monkeys are no match for cats when it comes to helping us learn Chinese. But I guess you already figured that out based on your new avatar.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25103362
Posted on: Ways to Break Up
December 1, 2013 at 10:30 AMYes, wouldn't it be nice if Chinese Pod fixed this bug? Anyway, I think we are thinking in English and thus want to cram that 因为 in there, but I guess in Chinese when result or conclusion B follows from condition A it just is understood from the context, without the need for a "because" or "therefore."
Him： 我是你的男朋友， 就可以随便看你的手机。
I am your boyfriend; I can look at your cell phone whenever. (I translated the 就 as a semicolon).
Her: 不要以为你是我男朋友，就可以随便看我的手机.
Don't think that / just because you are my boyfriend / you can look at my cellphone whenever.
Now I can't get that country song out of my head -- "She Thinks I Still Care" . . . ."
Just because I ask a friend about her / Just because I spoke her name somewhere / Just because I rang her number by mistake today / She thinks I still care.
How to translate that into Chinese?
Posted on: Ways to Break Up
November 29, 2013 at 3:26 PMThe 如果 + 的话 pattern seems redundant, but I guess it is a "legitimate" grammatical pattern.
Posted on: Writing Characters vs. Typing Characters
November 29, 2013 at 1:51 PMI have not seen any "rule" that says a measure word goes "in the middle." I think it functions just as with English measure words.
A: How many loaves of bread did you order?
B: I ordered 500 loaves.
Posted on: Some Food Clarifications
December 16, 2013 at 3:06 AMyou mean translate 那我们尝尝 as "Ok, let's try it!" instead of "Then let's wait a bit to try it."? Yes. I agree, your translation is better. I'm not sure where the "wait a bit" came from. Maybe they are playing around with machine translations to save money ;-)