User Comments - sclim
sclim
Posted on: Monthly Data Plan
June 26, 2011 at 5:59 AMI've been involved in music vocal recording in a previous career; there are all kinds of tricks and gadgets that recording engineers use that will mitigate or even eliminate this technical problem, so that your voice actors don't have to distort their usual pronunciation to the point of risking the sound actually differing from the proper pronunciation and confusing the student. (We actually need to hear that puff of air, although not the explosion that occurs only when that puff hits a microphone membrane at close range).There are many off the shelf "pop filters" or "pop baffles" available, or there are do-it-yourself solutions (the one that sticks in my head was several layers of pantyhose stretched in an embroidery hoop clamped in place in front of the mic!)
Posted on: Going and Leaving
June 26, 2011 at 5:31 AMCan 她去了be used as a euphemism for "she has died" (ie "she has passed on")?
Posted on: Ordering Fancy Coffee
June 21, 2011 at 6:33 AMThanks, that clarifies things greatly!
Posted on: Ordering Fancy Coffee
June 21, 2011 at 6:30 AMOh, I'm new to ChinesePod and I didn't realize Kopi Luwak had already been discussed to death, and that's why Jenny only made an amused and oblique mention of this coffee. Although I note, in going through abovementioned discussion, despite lots of questions and answers how to say Number 2 in Chinese, I didn't see mentioned the "s" word 屎 (too coarse for polite company?) which embodies its own incredible mnemonic for English speakers to remember how to pronounce it, nor any reference to the 貓屎咖啡 term, which apparently is the Chinese specific name for this coffee.
Posted on: Ordering Fancy Coffee
June 20, 2011 at 4:47 AMI think bodawei nailed it elegantly,
"and the way I would explain it is that the second 杯 is not a 量词, 大杯的 is an adjective describing the noun 每日咖啡 .."
despite his protestations of a "grammatical tin ear".
So, Chris, if you, as you proposed, would have said the following:
"一大杯的每日咖啡，一超大杯的香草拿铁"
this would offend Chinese syntax in that the 量词 is missing, (the 大杯and 超大杯 in your sentence being, as bodawei says, definitely adjectival in function.) They can't be both adjectival and 量词 at the same time, so the 量词 is glaringly and jarringly missing in action in your proposed construction, as it would be in, say, 請給我一書. It needs a 量词, in your case another 杯 for each item, although, I guess 个 would be ok, as an alternative, I think.
Posted on: Ordering Fancy Coffee
June 20, 2011 at 2:59 AMCHINESEPOD: in the additional vocabulary section, you gave this transcription for the "Macchiato" word brought up at the end of the lesson :
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mǎqíduo When Jenny pronounces the Chinese version, it seems she is adding an "ā" syllable between the 奇 and the 朵, i.e. FOUR syllables, but the transcription only gives THREE SYLLABLES. Are there some variants out there? And is Jenny inadvertently using the 4 syllable variant but we are given the 3 syllable variant in writing? Or is there an error somewhere? |
Posted on: Ordering Fancy Coffee
June 20, 2011 at 12:54 AMCHINESEPOD: You kind of danced around the 貓屎咖啡 Māoshǐkāfēi citation (of different varieties) of coffee. Perhaps if you bring it up at the end of a list of varieties for which you have given written transcriptions of, you might as well give the written transcription for "Cat-poop Coffee" as well, even though perhaps you thought it was more amusing than informative, or were afraid of offending the more squeamish Podsters. In the spirit of edification, here is the wiki link to "Kopi Luwak", which is the most expensive kind of coffee you can get (and in Chinese is 貓屎咖啡):http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kopi_Luwak , (you can also look it up in Chinese under 貓屎咖啡, but I couldn't get the link to display properly in this comment box).
Posted on: The Old Man Who Moved a Mountain
June 18, 2011 at 8:54 PM(What I meant was, from the lesson, which I understood was a commonly known story, I didn't realize that 愚公移山 was an idiomatic phrase that could stand by itself. Chinese culture is so interesting in how it enriches the language!)
Posted on: The Old Man Who Moved a Mountain
June 18, 2011 at 8:32 PMJenny: I am really excited; I just went through the dialog and lesson, and then looked up the new words in my dictionary (Wenlin), and found that under 愚 there was, as an example of usage:
愚公移山 yúgōngyíshān {E} id. Where there's a will, there's a way.
So, apparently, this fable is so well known that it has permeated its way into common Chinese idiom!
Posted on: Unlucky Day
June 26, 2011 at 11:04 PMNo it's not: it's MY life!
Bababardwan -- you're way too rational and in control of your life. That's really annoying to someone whose life is slowly spiralling down the toilet. Telling me that my gf broke up with me is merely a failure of relationship management is not helpful. Next you'll be telling me that my stepping in dogshit shouldn't be a source of distress to me because it was only an issue of poor observation on my part. Ai-ya. 真是雪上加霜!