User Comments - simonpettersson

Posted on: Renting an Apartment through an Agent, 2

I'm not at all sure about renting in particular, but you can usually use 长期 and 短期 for long and short term, respectively.

Posted on: Chinese Seasonings

China is a pretty big place, dude (lady?). And if there's one thing that differs across the country, it's food culture.

Posted on: Why are You Studying Chinese?

The super-polyglot Alexander Arguelles has said that to be a truly effective student of languages, you need to find the study interesting in itself. If you study for an external reason and don't actually enjoy the process, you're unlikely to reach a high level (though you can certainly become proficient).

Posted on: Keys, Wallet, Phone

Are you planning on learning to write hanzi with a pen? If you're one of the people who only bother to be able to read (that is, recognize) the characters and use pinyin to input them on the 'puter, I don't think it's an issue, as you don't have to be able to produce the characters, anyway.

Posted on: Help at the ATM

The first time I tried to withdraw money in China it failed for some reason. The ATM said something like "Could not complete the transaction. Would you like to print advice?" I thought that was very nice, but of course, the "advice" was simply a note telling me I didn't withdraw any cash. As if I didn't know that already.

Posted on: Separable Verbs

nciku usually add a "的" to adjectives in their entries (at least in the iPhone version). It mainly seems to indicate that it's an adjective.

What I don't understand is how "认真" in the sentence "她做事很认真" can be an adjective rather than an adjective. Are you saying it's modifying "她" rather than "做"? That seems unlikely to me.

Posted on: Separable Verbs

I bow to your superior understanding, Changye, and Google agrees with you. I have learned something today!

I don't understand why, though.

Posted on: Separable Verbs

It's not really that it sounds weird, just that by not omitting the first verb,it sounds unnecessarily long. There's nothing wrong with it.

No, I meant it to be "地". The "她做事很認真地" would be a simple reordering of "她很認真地做事", thus the need for "地".

I feel sorry for the Taiwanese kids. The different kinds of "de" is a wonderful little grammatical plaything and I'm sure lots of peevers in China love to complain about improper use. Sort of like the apostrophe in English.

Posted on: Separable Verbs

The "她做事做的很認真" sounds really awkward to me, like someone who doesn't use contractions in their English (and it uses the wrong "de"). When you write "事她做得很認真" do you mean "她事做得很認真"? That would follow Connie's pattern.

I think the thing to notice in your Taiwanese friends' suggestion is that they're NOT saying "她做事得很認真" which would be the case if they treated "做事" as a regular composite verb. I'm guessing what they're saying is really "她做事很認真地" but omitting the last "地". I think constructions like "她做事很認真地" which is a reordering of "她很認真地做事" by placing the topic first (common in Mandarin) are okay.

Posted on: I want coffee!

Dude. Latin.