User Comments - tingyun
tingyun
Posted on: What's in a name?
April 3, 2011 at 3:24 PMHaha, that is a fun one. Your name has alot more fun associations than mine - for the times when you aren't thirsty, there's also 小家碧玉 ;)
Posted on: What's in a name?
April 3, 2011 at 4:10 AMMine is 班廷筠, or, in the form of my standard name introduction, 班廷筠，上班的班，朝廷的廷，筠是比较少见的一个字。上面是竹字头，下面是均匀的匀. It would work better if there was a common compound for 筠, but still does ok without.
BTW, I do suggest that, if you haven't already, you figure out a name introduction like the above 上班的班，朝廷的廷 that you can use when you want to tell them what charecters. It really goes 100 times more smoothly than fumbling on the spot trying to describe the charecter, and its a pretty chinese way to specify the name.
Posted on: 土葬和火化
April 2, 2011 at 3:22 PMWell, really I was just saying I have no clue about the validity and applicability of that story, and seeing if anyone had any insight.
Posted on: Deadly Complements of Degree
April 2, 2011 at 3:20 PMThe 的 would be better replaced by a 得 (笨 is an adjective being used as a verb)
Posted on: Handsome Foreign Student
April 1, 2011 at 3:21 AMI think most young people just say 谢谢 nowadays.
Posted on: 土葬和火化
March 31, 2011 at 10:26 PM留得青山在,不怕没柴烧 is an interesting expression - I've been curious for awhile about the connection between it and the story it is said to originate from. Supposedly, 青山 is the name of a frugal and well planning brother, and the expression is written from the perspective of his shortsighted and wasteful brother. The wasteful brother chopped down all the trees on his land to sell as firewood, lived extravagantly wasting away his money, and then a flood wiped out his cropland (the soil wasn't protected by the trees). Then, he uses the expression, which feels a bit to me like 'oh, well as long as I've got a brother to exploit, why should I worry that I used up all my trees and can no longer sell them as firewood?' http://baike.baidu.com/view/2081279.html
But despite how easy it is to turn up this story with a search, I didn't have any luck finding any citation of where the story comes from. Instead everyplace seems to cite a Ming dynasty use of the expression, in the context of a father consoling himself that as long as his son is around and has an official position, he will be taken care of (a few instead cite the later use of a variant in Dream of the Red Chamber). So I'm actually curious as to whether it really originates in that story, or whether the story was dreamed up after the fact?
Assuming that it did originate in a story, it doesn't seem that most people have that association - I would guess most speakers mean green mountain when they say 青山 and have a more straightforward interpretation of the entire phrase? And I'm certain there is none of the negative connotations that might be drawn from the story itself.
Anyway, I'd be very curious to hear any speaker's thoughts on this.
Posted on: Deadly Complements of Degree
March 29, 2011 at 3:01 PMJohn counts as my first Chinese teacher (I learned Pinyin from his chart on sinoplice, mastered the r and jqx sounds by reading his articles 5 or 6 times, and then came back later to learn tones in combination from his program, and then later laughed uncontrollably at his and Jenny's dialogue for the 'death by ninja' episode) - 所以他这一句赞同算是了了我多年来的一个希望，收到我“中文师父”再加上“语言榜样”的认同。;)
Posted on: Rainbow
March 29, 2011 at 2:46 PMYou might be right - 蓝 does appear in 诗经, but I think it is used as a plant name (a blue plant though). But at the latest it had become a word for color when 尔雅 (first dictionary) was written, so it is very, very old, and I'm not sure there are records sufficient to prove it as later arising.
Its hard to nail these things down consistently through history - for example, 青 is sometimes black, for example in the (old) terms 青衣 for maidservant (derived from the color of clothes they used to wear), and 青布.
虹 means rainbow. If you want to get technical, there are 虹 (red outside, violet inside) and there are 霓 (also called 副虹) where the colors are reversed with red on the inside. Put them together and you have a general term for rainbow - 霓虹 - as well as the beginning of neon light 霓虹灯.
Posted on: Houyi and The Ten Suns
March 29, 2011 at 2:15 PMEspecially among RPG gamers. ;) (仙剑奇侠传 series of games and tv shows)
Posted on: What's in a name?
April 3, 2011 at 3:30 PMI think 立刀旁 is刂, and your 翊 instead should be described simply as having 刀 on the left side.
Very good intro btw :) Always best to pick those positive associations, its too bad my name is all neutral ones!