User Comments - tingyun

Posted on: Going to the Gym

My reply the last time you posted this same concern didn't seem to help - so let's try a different way. Run a google search for 肌肉发达 and check out the 2,200,000 results - the first page of results consists of people asking about how to get 肌肉发达, or asking what its English translation is, etc.

If that doesn't convince you, look up the common expression 四肢发达 and reason by analogy.

Or head over to the Chinese dictionary entry for 发达 here http://www.nciku.com/search/zh/detail/%E5%8F%91%E8%BE%BE/1303820 and note that 肌肉发达 is one of its example uses under the definition of 发达 in both the Chinese-English and the Chinese-Chinese dictionary

Seriously, don't be so trusting of what a single native speaker says is or isn't correct. Everyone has all sorts of weird things about when they think a certain word should or shouldn't be used. Actually, switching to English I bet you could find the occasional guy in a gym who thinks that 'developed muscles' is a weird use of the word developed.

Posted on: 康熙来了

Hi Mark,

It might be a mistake to limit yourself to Cpod at your level - if you have finished all the old Advanced lessons, and UIs are too easy, it probably doesn't make sense to wait around for a lesson once every 2 weeks.

I have a suggestion - 静雅思听 is a great site with 100s of articles read into dialogues on a variety of topics (history, life, science, politics, short stories). Generally, you can get a transcript for the articles with a simple google search for name and title. I once prepared a lesson for a friend of mine using it, it's an interesting article by a Chinese historian. I'll post the begining few lines of text below, pop those lines in a google search and a ton of websites with transcripts will pop up. I'll also post links to the recording.

吴思：大家好！感谢大家周末来听我的讲座。

这个讲座的主办者刁难我，说你最好不讲潜规则，也不讲血酬定律，很多人都看过了。省委宣传部的朋友也刁难我，说你把中国历史描绘得那么黑暗，最后应该给大家一个光明的尾巴。所以我今天要在夹缝里讲，主要不谈潜规则，也不谈血酬定律，但也难免要捎带一些。我把重点放在今天的题目上，“中国历史演进中的官家主义和潜规则”，我把自己分析中国历史的理论框架给大家勾勒一下，这些想法很不成熟，希望得到大家的批评。

audio parts 1-4

http://www.justing.com.cn/page/5688.html

http://www.justing.com.cn/page/5689.html

http://www.justing.com.cn/page/5690.html

http://www.justing.com.cn/page/5691.html

Anyway, if you head to http://www.justing.com.cn you can take your pick of articles and make yourself a lesson by google searching up a transcript. Also, the recordings are generally very well made, very clearly read, and the articles selected tend to be pretty good.

Posted on: Interesting Architecture

Well, they have given '艾茵·兰德' a baidu baike article: http://baike.baidu.com/view/1434029.htm .;)

Posted on: The Complement 不了

No, 做不完 means that you cannot finish, the 不完 is a potential compliment, indicating incapability of finishing. If you wanted to say that you haven't finished, you'd have to say 还没做完 or something to that effect - 做不完 does not carry the meaning of 'not having finished.'

When you see Verb不Result it indicates potentiality. There is nothing special about 不了, it is merely a specific example (though a particularly general and useful one). To illustrate, often 了 can be replaced with another indication of result. ie, 跑不了 (cannot run away/get away) is pretty much the same as 跑不掉, 不了 for 不掉. But in this case 不了 and 不完 is significantly different.

Now, if you wanted to change from ‘not able to finish' 做不完 to 'wasn't able to finish' (ie indicating potentiality in the past), then you would say something like 没能做完. Obviously the present version you could replace 做不完 with 不能做完 with only a slight change in tone.

Posted on: The Complement 不了

For your example, using 不完 rather than 不了 would be more natural. Ie 做不完

Posted on: Toothache

la1拉 is more like the action 'pull', ba2拔 is more like 'pull out'. But in general don't be surprised if you don't find a 1-1 English Chinese correspondence, lots of words will have similar translations, and its perfectly right to translate 拔 as 'pull.' Also, there are tons of synonyms, tuo1拖 is like 拉, chou1抽 is close to 拔...

EDIT - if it helps to clarify, you might la1拉 someone's arm (pull on their arm) ...but I think you wouldn't ba2拔 someone's arm outside of a horror movie. ;)

Posted on: Push and Pull

Most characters have multiple pronunciations - its usually just a question of whether they've lost them in modern use. Older Chinese (Tang and such) really liked to distinguish verbs and nouns, ie 治 would alternate between zhi4 and chi2 depending on whether verb or noun (this is gone in modern language). 行 might have been similar - 行hang2 is basically the noun road, and 行xing2 is basically the verb walk. 数 is similar - shu4 is the noun, shu3 is the verb. 处, chu4 is the noun, chu3 is the verb. Both of these are doing fine in modern Chinese (though I've known some beijingers to get 处 mixed up in some words - generally, Beijing accent is pretty bad on multiple pronunciation characters, ie 供 seems hopelessly mixed up).

If you want to ask why 行 might have preserved its multiple pronunciations, then I'm happy to wildly speculate. Alot of characters lost their second pronunciation in modern use because one use is uncommon. In giving examples here I really have to go with ones that still have a second one in use when reading classical writings, else I wouldn't be aware - so these ones only lost their pronunciation in the sense that modern chinese dictionaries don't include them (but people still use them in reading older writings). 王 wang2 has the alternate wang4, a verb to institute rule by kingly principles. Not gonna hit that one often enough to really preserve. 数 has a pronounciation cu4 meaning dense, in the context of nets, and showing up once in Mencius. Then there is the interesting example of 骑 - qi2 for the verb to ride, ji4 for the noun - a horse, or a horseman. Except in the modern dictionaries approved in the new china they eliminated the ji4 pronounciation, probably because they figured we don't talk much about cavalry anymore (pretty much the only context it was used). Yet most people still remember the pronounciation, are unaware of the change, and it definitely gets used both ways in older dramas. I'm curious as to whether it will disappear in the next 100 years.

BTW, to really appreciate how many characters have multiple pronunciations, you just have to go to place names. Take 共gong4 for example, its gong1 in meaning a certain ancient nation's name. 宛wan3 is yuan1, also in certain ancient names. 并bing4 is bing1 in 并州, an old province name. BTW, tv shows get these wrong something like 70-80 percent of the time, so I'm guessing these are being slowly forgotten too, as people become increasingly unaware of them. And none show up in modern dictionaries to my knowledge...

But 行 seems safe - both are common enough to be preserved. BTW, just for fun, note that 行 has the third pronunciation of heng2 in 道行, meaning the achievement/level of a daoist priest...;)

Posted on: Going to the Gym

Fada is definitely more broad than that, and the use for muscles is fine. But I've been corrected by people for saying 有意思 - 'no, you mean 有趣'...people have all sorts of odd perceptions. ;) (though that one is regional, it seems true of Taiwan, and there is probably something to adjusting to one's regional preferences. Though the conversation was in the US so I forgive myself)

BTW, no n-ending in the word for muscle, it should be jirou, not jin. And the zhen should be zhe. (or you could change the sentence to use zhen, but then drop the me).

btw, if he really meant fada refers to developing countries, not developed ones, then that would also be a little odd, as it should be 发展中国家 for developing, 发达国家 for developed, except in Taiwan where they seem to use 开发 in both words.

Posted on: Long Time No See!

If the Chinese program you mention is Sougou 搜狗, then the price of learning to avoid randomly hitting shift is more than worth it. Microsoft's built in pinyin program is terrible, Sougou is a huge improvement. Microsoft's only works well with the simplest of statements...

http://pinyin.sogou.com/ and hit the green button.

Posted on: Getting Picked up by a Driver

One thing it might be useful for some to note (I used to be confused by this): pinyin's xiao3jie is actually pronounced xiao2jie, as the two 3rd tones in a row rule operates even though the jie is neutral. Same thing for na3li, it is pronounced na2li, but not for terms for relatives like jie3jie, nai3nai, etc, in those cases the neutralization prevents application of the 3rd tone rule and they stay the same as their pinyin.