User Comments - tingyun

Posted on: Classical Chinese Weapons

That's something done to make the modern sport/dance forms look pretty - historically swords were also intended for practical use, and they would not be made so thin and flimsy.

Most of the stuff appearing in the modern sport 'wushu', or the popular types of taichi like the yang style, have been altered significantly from thei original practical fighting focus to achieve some other goal, aethetics or health.

In Taichi, for example, its very hard to find practicioners of the old combat syle, which only has minor resemblence to the modern health forms. I had a good friend when I was a teenager who had recieved some 6 years of training, and he would completely dominate me in sparring, though at that time I had only been practicing wing chun 咏春拳 for a year or so. Compare this to another friend who had studied some 10 years of Taekwondo, and was about evenly matched sparring my 1 year of wing chun.

eh, i have no idea why modern chinese kids like to pursue impractical korean martial arts and leave their own much more effective tradition unused...

Posted on: Money Laundering Operation

Hmm, the way i read tgif's post is not opposing practicing posting or reading posts in chinese, or being afraid of making mistakes, but rather picking venues where one gets corrections, or where the posts one reads are produced by natives.

All things considered, I tend to agree that it is more ideal to internet chat with natives (I spent a few months where i'd chat on qq for hours every day, and i have alot of chinese penpals that i email back and forth discussing random things).

I do think though there is an intermediate stage where one might not be ready to confront these forms, and cpod might provide a less intimidating first step. However, I don't thnk lesson discussions are the best example of this, rather I really like the 'daily living journals' that popped up at some point. It seems when posting in a discussion, noone corrects anyone, probably because it could be taken badly. But the daily living journals seem to have a culture of correction and mutural learning, which is useful (though i only looked at a few, and it was awhile back, so perhaps my memory is off).

Though of course I am not saying posting in chinese here couldnt be a useful practice, but I do agree with tgif that it is not the most efficient choice. Though probably better practice than posting in English ;)

I mostly post in english, though thats largely because i tend to only discuss language usage points and the like, thus given their general usefulnes I dont want to cut out users whose chinese many not yet be at a high level. Though occasionally when joining in an upper level lesson discussion, or posting something only useful to advanced readers....

Posted on: Romance of the Three Kingdoms

Yep, it does, your sentence works perfectly.

It seems in general chinese has alot of "topic, statement/question" type sentences, where you describe before the comma the topic you are interested in, and then make a statement about itor ask a question about it.

Posted on: Random and Reckless

Agreed, 任意 has no nessecary negative connotation, it works equally well either way. I have a vague memory of a cpod dialogue about banking using it in regard to which ATMs customers could use...

肆意 si4yi4 is the same meaning with a clear negative connotation.

Posted on: Handling Rambunctious Children

I heard this explanation of 了 in several cpod lessons, and it seemed to make sense...but later I started doubting it. Started from another cpod lesson dialogue, where someone said 別忘了我 to a friend who was about to move away, in that phrase there didn't seem to be any natural implication that the friend had already started forgetting them, and certainly that wasn't a nessecary interpretation.

This explanation of 了 sounds logical, but I think that's largely because it's comforting to believe grammar and usage are logical. Further, in the vast majority of occasions when you tell someone to not do something, they will have already started doing it, so the explanation is consistent with most experience. I imagine you tell it to most people, native speaker or not, it will seem quite persuasive.

But looking further, if someone said 别说 or 别吵 and didn't add the 了， the phrase might seem a little naked, but nothing would be wrong with it, whether it was used in a circumstance where the person had already started the action or not. In this, it is analogous to 太好了 or 太好, 了 is just a mood particle that does not change the meaning.

This meaningless mood particle use is prevalent...if its time to leave, people will often say 走了, and on the other side, if someone is starting to walk away from you and you want them to stay, it is very natural to say你别走！, no 了 needed there even though the action had started.

Thus, 了 is best understood here as a mood particle often used in commands, simple as that.

I checked a few dictionaries now, and they also seem convinced this is just a mood particle with no implications of an action already started. Pasting from two dictionaries below:

　　[2]表示促进或劝止。如：快躲了；别

　　[3]表示感叹语气。如：好了！别闹了！

助] 用在句尾或句中停顿的地方,表示劝阻或命令的语气 ▷好～,不要说话～｜可别大意～｜别干～。

It's just that most of the time you tell someone not to do something, it's because they already started, so the action already started interpretation seems to make sense, but it seems to fall apart when tested.

In general, I think it's dangerous to expect too much logic in these particles, 了 appears in a lot of interesting places. For example, of declaring you will in the future kill someone, you are likely to say 我会杀了他, having the 了 there is far more natural than without, yet it is clearly a future action. Trying to interpret this as indicating a change in decision to kill or something to that effect would be rather strained, besides, there are a couple of other verbs in which 了 likes to attach to in certain emotionally charged statements about future action.

So, in summary, I think 了 is much better understood as often conveying no particular meaning at all, or, as the dictionary would say, conveying an ordering around kind of mood;)

Posted on: Formatting a Word Document

Sounds right, though I do think that mistake is more common in use of the charecter alone as opposed to in compound word...I think 粘在一块 is an example of this, often said of people who spend time together a lot, nearly everyone will pronounce it nian2 (I count this as not a compound word). It certainly feels like a verb there, 挤在一块 聚在一块 etc, all verbs...

But in compound words I think pronouncing the verb as nian2 is relativly rare, ie I think most speakers are going to say zhan1tie1. I actually think you risk being misunderstood going the ther way, but I could be wrong (my sense of pronunciation is very based on tv actors, s sometimes the intuition is a bit off)

Posted on: Formatting a Word Document

Hi toianw，

In both cases the supp vocab is deviating from what is is considered most standard.

On 1, those two charecters get used fairly interchangeably by many writers, but in this meaning 贴 is the dictionary correct choice. I don't think there much of a story to this one beyond them being pretty similar.

On 2, I've never heard a nian1 pronunciation, I'd imagine it must be a very regional thing, or perhaps even a personal ieosyncracy.

As for the other pronounciaions, the pronunciation problem is actually about the relation between 黏 and 粘，another case of interchangable use by most writers. Although this is a different case than 1, as there's actually a story.

So a good dictionary should tell you that 黏 is nian2, and it is an adjective meaning something like sticky or cohesive. 粘 also has the pronunciation nian2, but ONLY as a surname. In all non name uses it only has zhan1, and is a verb meaning to make stick or something like that.

However, in the first round of charecter simplification, they had a bit too much fun axing charecters, and lots of good ones like 黏 were forced into retirement, with it's meaning and pronunciation fully shifted to 粘 (which I think had before been sometimes performing this role as an informal simplification or alternate, as was often the case). Then sometime in the 1980s they decided this was a mistake, and some committe proclamations brought 黏 back to its former position, and meanwhile declared that 粘 should not ever be used for nian2 except as a surname, thus clearly defining the 黏 nian2 adjective vs 粘 zhan1 verb divide.

Except it seems these late 1980s retractions had a rather limitied effect, probably because relativly few people paid attention except when preparing for college entrance exams. Actually, it's even worse, because there also seems to be general confusion along the nian2 adjective zhan1 verb line too, so for listening it generally could be either meaning and context becomes key (though it does seem more often a matter of nian2 used in place of zhan1 for verb, rather than the reverse confusion, opposite to how 粘 is used for 黏 and not the reverse)

Poor 愣 seems likewise forever doomed to have 楞 frequently used in its place, a result of the same 1950/1960s axing 1980s restoration. Same story with 啰losing much of its use to 罗, though there 啰 sometimes didnt even make it into computer encodings....There are ALOT of such charecters, though those are the only few that my post midnight brain is remembering now (I do apologize for any grammar mistakes or general oddness in this post, I really should be asleep)

Posted on: Issues with Flavor

both can mean smell, but in other uses they are different. If you are ready for it, using a Chinese dictionary is recommended, the English ones are frequently ambiguous and often contain errors. Here is the relevant entries for you to consult.

气味[氣-]

qìwèi

❶ [名] 弥漫在空气中的味儿 ▷一股馨香的～。 ❷ [名] 借指脾气;情趣(多用于贬意) ▷～相投。

味道

wèidao

❶ [名] 舌头接触东西时所得到的感觉 ▷尝尝～如何? ❷ [名] 气味 ▷空气里有一股糊焦的～。 ❸ [名] 比喻某种感受、情趣、意味 ▷心里有着说不出的～。

Posted on: The New Intern

Hmm,I'm not sure. Maybe the rules have changed? I am blocked from posting any new comment line in lessons,but it let's me reply to others without a problem. When did your subscription run out?

Honestly, I'm not sure why this restriction exists, as it doesn't stop anyone from posting (and I have no idea why they would want to prevent former members from posting). perhaps the many spammer types or language exchange searchers tend to mostly get discouraged after seeing the 'only members can post message' and don't try to reply to another post? Granted we regularly see them post here anyway, but perhaps it causes the number to go down.

Though it still seems to let me to write whole new posts in the discussion groups, which seems a greater right and more conducive to spamming anyway...perhaps it's to keep the lesson threads cleaner?

Hopefully it's not an oversight that will be 'fixed' someday, it seems perfectly sensible to let at least former members retain posting privileges, and it seems unlikely anyone would pay for a subscription for that purpose. Though if I disapear suddenly that would likely be the reason (unless September, in which case starting a phd program in imperial Chinese history might distract me from the Internet for month or so)

Edit - I just glanced at the lesson description - does it mean that cpod has an intern from Harvard, or just a story for the lesson? I didn't know there were other cpod fans at Harvard, is it an undergrad or a fellow East Asian languages and civilizations phd student?

Posted on: The New Intern

Do you mean 待 is used for dai1 呆, or the other way around? I can't see the transcript (not a member here for awhile, just come to chat) but if it's that, I can offer an explanation.

待 can also have the meaning 'to stay' with pronunciation dai1, in this use it is interchangeable with 呆. Some dictionariaries try to prefer one over the other, usually 呆, but really both are common and there's not much principled reason to try to pick one. A good dictionary should list both meanings for 待 regardless of which it suggests using.

This happens a lot, 哟 has both yao1 and you1, in you1 it is equivalent to 呦. 读 has both du2 and dou4, in dou4 it is similar to 逗 in indicating stops in reading. 叶 has both ye4 and xie2, in xie2 it is standing in for 协 in words like 叶韵。 见 has both jian4 and xian4, in xian4 it is the same as 现, and 见 remains the charecter to use in 图穷匕见(xian4). 拾 has both shi2 and she4, in she4 it is standing in for 涉 but only in the chengyu 拾(she4)级而上 (though most people mispronounce it as shi2).

In classical writings this is even more true, sometimes because the other charecter hadn't really been developed yet （for example, in really old writings 大 da4 very likely is being used as tai4 太), sometimes as a result of avoiding the name of a recent emperor (for example， 元 yuan2 as xuan2 standing in for 玄 to avoid using a 玄 when an emperor has that in his name). The latter phenomomen has influence felt today, 嫦娥 was originally 恒娥，常山 was 恒山, 道可道非常道 was 道可道非恒道, but To avoid the han emperor 刘恒's name, all those 恒 heng2 charecters were replaced with 常 chang2 or 嫦 chang2, and now it's just become correct and standard. Actually, if you ever wondered why the famouse Buddhist figure 观世音 is often called 观音, thank the tang emperor 李世民， there they just decided to drop the 世。