User Comments - sssasteacher
sssasteacher
Posted on: Ways to Say "Stubborn"
July 19, 2014, 05:28 AMDavid, thank you again for the thorough coverage, and I appreciate your taking my question. For what it's worth, I was born and raised in the US, and English is my native and primary language. I attended one of the top colleges in the US, where I majored in philosophy. I have written a book, which was published professionally, and have another on the way. In my opinion, your introduction doesn't betray the slightest hint of being written by someone whose native language isn't English. I don't find any of your phrases awkward, ponderous, or otherwise problematic whatsoever.
On another note, my mother, who I see as "traditionally Chinese" (whatever precisely that means), taught me to cherish education deeply. One of the values she instilled in me throughout my formative years, was to appreciate teachers. She is now a longtime US citizen and loves the US and US culture, spending her career in the education field. She understands and respects the US' educational emphasis on student self-expression, and critical questioning, and also taught me about those attributes. The lesson she imparted to me, finally, was that I, as a student, ultimately bore the responsibility for my learning. Teachers could be stronger or weaker at communicating, or matching my learning style, etc., but that the productive course as a student was not to focus my energies on a criticism of the teacher, but on expanding the flexibility of my mind, to be able to learn from different kinds of teachers and approaches. To this day, I'm impressed with the quality of that lesson.
My point is this: I'm a professional teacher, and I think you're a fantastic teacher. One user may or may not agree. This user liberally offers a fairly wide range of criticisms. Undeniably, he is both entitled to his opinions, and entitled to express them - just as I am mine. Further, reading his words on this page, it's impossible to discern the spirit in which his criticisms are offered, though the default interpretation would be that he offers them constructively and sincerely. Regardless, I wanted to express my counter opinion, and share my mother's lesson, which may perhaps be of interest to him. Thanks again for all you do, David. Your thoughtfulness, attention to detail, and enthusiasm for the material all come across. Keep up the phenomenal work!
Posted on: "Warm" and "Speechless"
June 30, 2014, 07:56 PMThank you, that was fantastic. The handle Polugaevsky, pronounced Pole-you-guy-yev-ski, was the name of a leading Russian chess grandmaster. My name is quite a bit easier to pronounce, it's "Dan". I really appreciate that you took my question and answered it so thoroughly. I am half-Chinese, and was brought up in a bilingual household (English/Chinese) and so to a certain extent Chinese is a native language of mine, although I grew up in the US.
My continuing interest in Chinese now is primarily intellectual. I can understand others and communicate for practical purposes, but I am deeply interested in questions of the sort I post on the forum: what are the differences between synonymous words/ what internal sound does a Chinese person hear when they encounter an unknown character/ what metaphors do Chinese and English share, etc.
One frustrating obstacle I've found to satisfying my curiosities about Chinese, is that it seems such a layered language. As this lesson points out, synonymous words vary not only in meaning, but by connotation, socioeconomic status under/overtones, literary status, duration of existence within the language, point of origin (ancient classics v. the internet), etc. I deeply wish there was a project, such as a dictionary, that catalogued these differences thoroughly.
David, thank you in particular for doing such a thorough and wonderful job with this. Do you have any recommendations for me to consistently further these curiosities of mine?
Much appreciated,
Dan
Posted on: 辛亥革命
August 16, 2013, 04:21 AMIn the opening lines of the movie, there are the following lines:
但 牺牲 之 快, 之烈, 牺牲 之价值
竟让我在这一 刻自心底
喜极而泣
How should this be translated?
My best guess is something like, "It's not that I die without fear, or without sorrow. But the speed of the sacrifice, that it makes me a martyr, and its ultimate value unexpectedly cause me to weep with joy in the depth of my heart" but I could be totally off.
Also, if someone could explain how the "zhi" character is functioning here that'd be great. Thanks!
Posted on: Online Personality Test
August 03, 2013, 12:21 AMHow do you say "one person can have many aspects to his/her personality/identity"? Or something like: "People have many components to their identities - they have political identities, sexual identities, and social identities, for instance, which may sometimes be in conflict with each other"?
Posted on: Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes
August 02, 2013, 03:29 PMThanks guys. Still curious about a definitive answer, i.e. is it "yue" pronounced "rou", or is it in fact not "yue" in these cases at all?
Posted on: Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes
August 01, 2013, 04:50 PMCharacters denoting body parts often have the 月 radical, but in such cases it represents 肉. My question is, when these characters are taught in China, to Chinese students, if the question "what is the radical" is asked, is the answer properly "yue" or "rou". Is it wrong to answer "yue"? Please elaborate, thank you!
Posted on: Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes
August 01, 2013, 04:46 PMCharacters denoting body parts often have the 月 radical. In these cases, it represents 肉. My question is, if/when the character is taught to Chinese kids in Chinese, if the question is asked: "What is the radical", is the answer "rou" or is the answer "yue"? Is it wrong to say that the answer is "yue"? Please elaborate on this, thank you!
Posted on: "在 时间" and "中"
July 24, 2014, 10:06 PMVocabulary question.
How to say "blame" in Chinese. There are too many words!
1) 归咎
2) 责, 怪, and 责怪
3)埋 , 怨, and 埋怨
4)谯
5)归罪
6)申斥
7)质难
Help !! Thanks so much. FYI, pronunciation is "Polugaevsky" was excellent in the last Qing Wen show.