User Comments - tingyun

Posted on: 日本核危机

Leoshuai,

Same in that they represent deviations from standard pronunciation in some northern accents. Different in superficial ways irrelevant to the discussion. In other words, an analogy.

Using your framework, my point is that you essentially speak Texas Chinese. ;) Nothing wrong with that, I'm from actually from Texas. It's perfectly understandable, and some people might argue that a Texas accent is very pleasant and has a lot of character. But also best not to imagine one's own accent as standard. Like toianw mentioned, there's a reason many Chinese need to be taught to make a v sound.

But this isn't really a point to be resolved from debate - just listen closely to tomorrow's national news broadcast, you won't be hearing any v's from the announcers.

Posted on: Preferences and Druthers

Other possible choices for serve, emphasizing a 'submit' kind of meaning, would be 屈从，屈服，or 服从. A good chengyu for the overall meaning would be 宁死不屈, or you could randomly select one of those three characters and produce a good non chengyu expression 宁死不服 or 宁死不从.

Posted on: 日本核危机

Leoshuai,

I think you are making a mistake in assuming your local accent is standard. Pronouncing a w like the English v is no more standard than pronouncing sounds like po as if they lacked the w/u sound (ie like p-uh), also a feature of some northern accents.

There's of course nothing inherently wrong with a learner doing either, especially if they are trying to mimic a particular region's accent - but if one takes 'standard' as one's goal, then w is w and po is po. ;)

Posted on: How Did You Learn Chinese?

www.amazon.cn has Shrek 1-3 bundled for a total of 52rmb. Less than 10 US dollars plus a bit more for shipping. As long as you have a nonregion dvd player or leave your laptop dvd drive set on asia, virtually every movie is so much cheaper. Harry Potter and Lord of The Rings are fun too.

Posted on: Rice First

3 followed by 3 becomes 2 followed by 3, ie here deng2deng3 (but technically one still writes the pinyin as deng3deng3, the change is just understood)

Posted on: How Did You Learn Chinese?

I had the same method. Probably reviewed each dialogue 20-30 times over the following months...;)

Posted on: Substitute Teacher

Hmm, 了 LOVES to attach right after 在. Its not because 在 is part of some particular verb, rather I think its just a habit. And it happens in countless circumstances - pretty much if there is a 在 appearing AFTER the verb, and a 了 that should be placed somewhere, it is going to go right after 在 (at least that's been my experience).

Run a quick google search for 在了 and you'll get an idea of how broadly this happens.

Note: 在 usually appears before the verb describing the place where the sentence occurs, and in these cases 了 does NOT go after it. Only when在 is after the verb.

Posted on: How Did You Learn Chinese?

Haha, the problem with those online games i that they suck up vast amounts of time...basically, its a max level character or perfect knowledge of Chinese, and I think I'm going to keep earning experience points towards the latter. Also, even relatively boring language learning tasks like studying new characters are more fun than long level grind of standing in one place waiting for monsters to appear.

The other problem is that I like playing games that indulge my inner arrogance - you know, the 50 hour story where you are constantly saving the world and are 10 times more awesome than anyone else in existence. Playing an online game entails being outclassed in every way by tens of thousands of 12 year olds...actually, in that respect it's much like starting to learn a language...;)

Posted on: Actually Contrary with 倒

Tone definitely conveys emotion in Chinese - affirmation, doubt, anger, mockery, impatience, criticism, etc are all reflected in changes in the tone the sentence is pronounced in. A simple example is how, in asking a question, the average tone level will drift up significantly as the sentence nears its end, or how in most statements the average tone level drops significantly over the course of the sentence. Not too far from english when looked at that way, except that the tone changes seem to mostly operate on the average tone level (how high or low a 4th tone starts and ends) and not on the shape of the tone of individual words (ie the 4th tone still goes down, even if the starting points, and range, are different).

Though, actually I rather suspect that it plays with the tones of individual words also, in slightly more subtle ways - using some examples of words that tend to be locked into certain emotions/ideas, I think how 可爱 is generally pronounced, with the ai4 4th tone being a sad semblance of what it should be, and how 卑鄙 is often pronounced, with a tendency towards 4th tone-ness over its original tone, both are part of an association of 4th tone with certain stronger emotions, and not with cuteness. But this last part I'm speculating on, and is a very small effect compared with the other, even if it exists.

Posted on: Lying in Chinese

Its definitely used much, much less, but 它们 is a valid word - 们 is not reserved to humans. I think the difference is less in 们 than in the low likelihood of using 它 as opposed to the other ways of referring to such things.