User Comments - tgif
tgif
Posted on: 中国崛起
February 2, 2009 at 3:51 AMIts an interesting subject which I've been following. China has purchased three aircraft carriers, taking them apart and usually scrapping or turning them into museums. As a practical point, it takes tremendous coordination to put one into action. Several nations such as Thailand, India, Australia and Argentina have unsucessfully operated them. The skill required to land a plane on a pitching deck is very difficult to obtain not to mention the logistics. To get a visual comparison, check out this page:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/carriers.htm
China has a small helicopter ship named Shichang, probably after Deng Shichang 
(1855-1894). The Yellow Sea Naval Battle of Sino-Japanese War of 1894. A corrupt official had embezzled monies for ammunition so shells ran out for the warships during battle. Deng, captain of the 2,300-ton cruiser Chih Yuan resorted to ramming, but died when hit by a torpedo.
Posted on: 普通人的慈善
December 17, 2008 at 2:58 AMPearlTowerPete:
You really had me head scratching with the translation of: 名利场 as "the area of wealth and fame."
Jeopardy question: which is Hollywood ;-)
How about "Vanity Fair" as a translation?
Posted on: The Good Husband
December 13, 2008 at 4:47 AMHello PearlTowerPete,
Sorry, I didn't know it was your efforts nor did I intend a personal put down. If I said 别啰嗦, or 你啰嗦死 in the context of the trying to get my wife to leave me in peace after a hard day at work, especially when she was trying to patch things up, I'd catch it with both barrels. 啰嗦 in reviewing an underling's essay is appros to "wordy." "Wordy" or "ragging on me" does not convey the correct 口气 in this context - more like "cut to the chase will ya?"
Glad you are reviewing these. Sometimes the proverbs have very close English equivalents - opportunities to present strong parallels aids us greatly.
Best
Posted on: The Good Husband
December 12, 2008 at 5:33 PMThis is very common in daily dialogue, at least when I was growing up.
The translations in Cpod always seem to be made by Chinese speakers, (can we get a native English speaker to review these?) but the generally what is said with impatience is 啰嗦 死: nagging, talking me to death.
Posted on: 义气
November 27, 2008 at 4:27 AMHaikeyi,
If you really wish be free of Chinesepod force-feeding, let me suggest taking the text version, pasting into NJStar and using the annotation feature to auto-translate the words.
If you want the lexemes, Clavis Sinica can take the pasted text and give you root analysis and related combinations.
All of the dialogues are admittedly a little contrived, but at this level nuanced cultural concepts are what are in play.
Posted on: Battling Internet Addiction
October 31, 2008 at 10:56 PM"Idol hands do the devils work..."
Pretty funny - LOL hilarious.
I told my wife once, "She was my sole mate."
*******
The other joke of note, christudent mentioned "in the habit."
A priest asks a nun if he can walk her back to the convent. She says, "Just this once." Upon arriving, he asks if he can kiss her.
She replies, "Well, alright, as long as you don't get into the habit." (you have to know the other definition of habit to get the joke.)
Posted on: 中国崛起
February 3, 2009 at 4:21 AMHotpot2000:
"中国今天的成就的确是靠了几代人的辛勤奋斗，几十年的改革开放的成果，向国外学习。最重要的是中国人向往更好的生活并为之努力的劲头。"
我总想如果中国没进1949年到1980年 - 受社会主义影响,经济会这么样?不管那国家，靠中国人经济，新加坡，香港，台湾人或华裔美国人总发达。中国最近的撅起不但应该，而且晚。那就只能怪或赞扬自己吧。