User Comments - tingyun

Posted on: Which Hilton?

Replying to 2 - Well, once 先生 became generally applied the war was over. Besides, I think Ms. Rand would favor those skilled in operating a symbol of industrialization and technological progress over Buddhist monks training how to beat people up with their fists (too religious, too violent, and too lacking in modern technology). ;)

Seriously though, I think she made the point repeatedly, both within Atlas Shrugged (especially in the description of Gult's Gulch) and in her nonfiction essays, that she believed there was the possibility of excellence and greatness in every field, and among people of all ability levels. A janitor who takes pride in his work and does it well is heroic, a brilliant astrophysicist who is morally lacking is not. 师傅 here is just a respectful way to refer to someone who is performing well a taxi-driving service for you in exchange for money - Rand approves. ;)

Posted on: How Did You Learn Chinese?

A rather fun and light practice reading material is the transcript from a video game console RPG.  Heavy on dialogue, and rather repetitive, they provide a story yet are often much easier than the more literary style of real books, and thus great for early reading.

仙剑三 is a good choice, here's one of the many places whee a transcript of it is found online - http://www.ojpal.com/wiki/pal3/duihua/one

Generally you can find these for the various console rpgs popular in japan and the US too, as many have been translated into chinese.  Fastest way is to internet search for some random piece of dialogue, failing that the title plus some random selection of 剧情 剧本 对话 will often work.  I generally buy the game and then ignore it and read online where I can look things up with a click(the purchase is just for the moral right), and where there are no random monster encounters to worry about.  Also, reading these can potentially allow reliving happy childhood memories, without the whole wasting of 80 hours actually playing through one of these beasts...;)

Posted on: Awkward Silence

But he was joking...did you mean to continue the joke by writing a jokingly critical post?

At any rate, I think you might be overstating the case - there is some flavor preserved of the literal meaning generally, which can lead to fun plays on words and other humor (for example, rodsrandomnumber's above post). Anyway, in both your examples its easy to preserve the sense in a natural English translation 再见 "see you later", 早上好 "good morning."

Posted on: Days of the week

The qi2 pronunciation is the one used in Taiwan, qi1 is mainland standard. ge is indeed neutral in its measure word role - it takes its tone in other uses (like 个人), and sometimes is pronounced in a 3rd tone (自个儿, though that's probably because its a colloquial word).

There are quite a few tone differences between the mainland and Taiwan (though sometimes even mainlanders seem to often use the Taiwan standard, 束缚 with the 缚 being pronounced fu2 by many speakers).

Posted on: ID Check at the Internet Cafe

In an important sense measure words like 个 are always optional. They largely disappear in both highly informal and formal language, and even in more neutral tone language they can be gone when needed to fit circumstances or habits (though they are usually used). In your first example the statement of price for time works without it, and is potentially more natural that way, though putting in a 个 wouldn't be wrong either.

In informal language, when dropping the measure word 个, sometimes 两 becomes 俩lia3, 三 becomes 仨sa1, though this, especially the later 仨, seems much much more common in northern use, and isn't necessary, as in informal use just dropping the measure word and leaving the number is fine by itself.

A similar principle operates in formal language with the 两, 二 distinction - in formal use you mostly use 二, even when those grammar rules that we all learned would tell you to use 两. Many of these rules are just descriptions of neutral tone language, and lose their validity outside of it.

Posted on: Product Localization

No problem! I forgot to mention that since adjectives often act like verbs, sometimes the difference can be confusing. But if it takes an object, then its definitely the verb 适合 (adjectives acting as verbs can't take objects, since they still just describe the state of the subject).

Posted on: Product Localization

合适 is an adjetive, 适合 is a verb.  (english dictionaries somtimes get this wrong, they are terrible at getting grammer roles right)

Posted on: Product Localization

Hi cdavaz,

Glad to help. I've been learning for 3 years, around 50-70 hours a week (though the first 6 months were much less, maybe 10 hours a week, as I had not begun full time studying). 5 months left and then I return to the working world!

podster,

That reflects the meaning pretty well under most circumstances. Though sometimes a small adjustment might be in order, for example in 从--的角度来讲 it might be better understood as 'speaking from the angle of ____' or 'from the perspective of ____'

Posted on: Product Localization

The 就说 sounds like the speaker was reorientating themselves, ie they started to express their meaning in a sentence using 重新 and then decided to reset and create a new one using 改变. Though you could delete the middle three words and make it 重新改变 (once again change/revise) and that's perfectly meaningful.

重新 is an adverb and generally means 'once again' (重chong2 has that meaning of again, or to repeat), and seems pretty close in meaning to 从新. Actually, I think they are completely the same in meaning - even though from an overly analytical perspective you'd expect 重新 to have a sense of repeated revision and 从新 to just mean 'anew', I'm nearly 100 percent certain 重新 is used even if its the first time you revised or changed, meaning no difference.

Posted on: Product Localization

In this use they are the same meaning, but 而言 is more formal than 来讲, and they tend to have different commonly used forms. In your second example, the 就 means 对 and often appears with 而言, indicating the target of the discussion. Sometimes 而言 is slightly different in meaning, and feels more like the principle from which the discussion proceeds (ie simplicity, directness, objectivity; rather than target aspect of discussion, though this isn't so much two meanings as two very close flavors of the same). In the first use, 来讲 is more likely to pair with 对 or 对于 (at least that's my impression), or not pair with anything (that can happen with 而言 too), probably because its less formal than using 就 there. It can also carry the second flavor.

I think there are certain hard to nail down tendencies - like 从--的角度来讲 feels a little more natural than the alternative...and if preceded by two characters I think you are better off using 而言, ie 相对而言，具体而言. I think the example sentences you raise feel slightly more natural in their original form.

来讲 is not really a word (neither is 而言 for that matter, though I suppose dictionaries treat it as such), so its natural for it not to be in the Cpod dictionary. 言 is the verb 'to speak' (in modern chinese it is mostly just a noun, but this use comes from the older usage) 来 (and 而) here are empty of meaning and just serving a connecting role (well, maybe 来 is sort of positioning the topic of perspective of discussion). Being used without meaning is frequent for 而 - ie the common expression 不得而知 which means 不得知道 which means 不能知道，or 久而久之 which means 很久 (usually with a sense of 这样下去) (之 is also meaningless here, as it often is in time expressions). It just contributes a flavor of continuation or connection to the phrasing, or serves to make things into a good even number of characters (usually, 4).

Also both these phrases can be used under different circumstances to mean different things, ie 你来讲吧.