User Comments - tingyun

Posted on: Discussing Basketball Teams

Well, looking back perhaps I made too much of your comment that "I think languages should be preserved the same way that other aspects of a culture" - and I dragged the discussion too far in that direction.

At any rate, I suppose we all have different levels of tolerance for this. I don't mind borrowing of words, especially when it comes with borrowing of a concept or organization, but I do find annoying how fashionable it seems to be among the Chinese business world to randomly drop english words in their sentences. I was at a talk recently that a Chinese Private Equity person (actually, it was 刘亦婷 Liu Yiting, the 'Harvard Girl' from the book of the same name) was giving for a group of Chinese students, and she was dropping an english word or two into the middle of every sentence. After a few minutes, the host of the event had to ask her to stop doing so and keep to Chinese, because she was causing the audience not to understand (afterward, she seemed incapable of fully eliminating this habit, but at least it only became an english word every 3 sentences). Anyway, that, and the phenomenon of Chinese people introducing themselves to each other with their English names (also seems at least largely a disease of the business world), bothers me - but mostly cause it seems a bit 做作 (affected).

Hi bababardwan,

Yep, I think I was just in a overly condemning mood last night. ;)

Posted on: Discussing Basketball Teams

On the Lu Xun quote, If you think he was commenting on traveling in East Asia, you might try reading it again. Here's a quick translation: "Among them are those who want all the peoples of the world to remain different so as to increase the pleasure they get from tourism, traveling to China to see ______ (that Manchu haircut, I forgot the english name), to Japan to see wooden clogs, to Korea to see the straw hats; supposing that people's dress and accessories were alike, their tourism would become dull/insipid and without flavor, so they therefore oppose Asia becoming like Europe. The people (holding this view) are all to be hated/despised."

On your second statement, so its a bad thing that all those terms got imported? And do you object just to the Buddhist terminology being imported, or to the spread of Buddhism in China in the first place? Because you'd have company in the later case, see the constant attacks on Buddhism as an evil foreign influence encroaching on what should be pure Chinese culture, running quite strong through several of the dynasties. You did point out in your previous post that you have the same philosophy towards culture - Would the world have been better had China preserved its culture purity and not accepted this foreign religion? Now, if so, what do we make of the many innovations and developments in 儒家 thought that were directly inspired by the interchange of ideas with Buddhism, even if many of the scholars so harshly criticizing it did not realize how profoundly it influenced their own metaphysics? Culture, as well as its language component, benefits from exchange.

Besides, there's something inherently contradictory in your conceptualization to begin with - Chinese language didn't magically appear at some time in the past, it was formed from mixes and countless influences over time, and continued to evolve as such. Imported words are just one example - who knows which vowels are pronounced the way they are because of a long complicated causal chain that involves influence from some Inner Asian peoples.

Posted on: Discussing Basketball Teams

Borrowing from other languages has over a thousand years of precedent in Chinese Language. For one thing, most of the Buddhist terminology is borrowed from Sanskrit. So instead of saying 大, you'll often have 摩诃 mo2he1 (meant to approximate the Sanskrit word for 'big, many', for example 摩诃衍那 instead of 大乘), or 涅槃nie4pan2 for what we borrow as Nirvana in English...or, further insulting the idea of purity, 般若 is bo1re3, not ban1ruo4 as you'd think from the characters, precisely to better match the Sanskrit. Though Buddhism is just a particularly easy example, you also have 吐蕃 tu3bo1, and not tu3fan2 as you'd think from the characters, because its trying to imitate the ancient Tibetan pronunciation.

Ignoring for a second all the recent importations - and really, is anyone prepared to give up using 幽默you1mo4 humor - should you pursue this purity idea seriously, you'd also have a long history of old borrowings to cast off. No more saying 猩猩xing1xing (a type of primate) or 胭脂 yan1zhi (rouge), as both came from the 匈奴 Xiongnu people's language (who some scholars argue became the Huns of Europe, though its an open question), say goodbye to 狮子 Shi1zi (lion) because it came from the Persians, and tremble at the thought of how many words are out for having come from the Japanese.

As for the comment that cultures should also remain unmixed, I'll borrow 鲁迅Luxun's criticism - "...其一是愿世间人各不相同以增自己旅行的兴趣，到中国看辫子，到日本看木屐，到高丽看笠子，倘若服饰一样，便索然无味了，因而来反对亚洲的欧化。这些都可憎恶。

Posted on: Annoying Ringtone

Well, your rule is probably the better way to use them anyway - it will probably sound more natural to the majority of people. I was just mainly pointing out for the purpose of listening, so that you know the range of uses to expect. It might be somewhat like how one could gloss 偶然 as coincidentally and 偶尔 as occasionally - well, 偶尔 actually is the broader term and can mean either, though there's a significant group of people who don't use it this way, so the original clearly separated meanings are probably the better guide for use. 相反 and 反而 are also similar (with 反而 being the broader). Or as a more colloquial example, 咱们 and 我们 (technically 咱们 should refer to speaker and listener as being included in the group, while 我们 could include the listener, or exclude the listener - though in some people's use 咱们 has been relaxed to become the equivlant of 我们, with similar flexibility. Though I guess that's the opposite relationship, a relaxing rather than tightening...still, best to observe the distinction in one's own use)

Of course, this is just considering the meanings in modern use - once you admit older uses, pretty much everything can mean the same as everything. ;)

Posted on: Presentation on Trends

向is indicating the recipient of the action - sort of like 对 does in 我对他说. Placing 向 where you propose...well, it doesn't have that role (indicating what is being introduced, said, given, etc). There's 把，将, etc, but those appear before the verb (also, 对 and 就 do have that role, in a somewhat different sense, especially in statements like -对____进行____, or 就____而言).

In literary chinese there was frequent use of particles playing that role appearing after the verb, like in your example, particularly 以，so you would have something like (I'll use modern words and stick to the example) 我告诉大家以消费市场....but in modern use, you wouldn't see that sort of use, you really only see that kind of structure used in relatively formal writing with the word 给, or implicitly with words like 予以.

Posted on: Annoying Ringtone

bu2cuo4 actually has both meanings - it can replace mei2cuo4 in meaning 'correct' or it can mean 'good'. I think it might be somewhat regional though - I can't remember Cpod ever using bu2cuo4 to mean 'correct', but from some people I hear it used almost exclusively over mei2cuo4. Also, if you were writing or speaking more formally you'd want to pick bu2cuo4 over mei2cuo4 for meaning 'correct' (though that still isn't getting very formal, just slightly less informal). Though, because bu2cuo4 is such a common informal term for 'good', 95% of the time you see it, it is in that use. mei2cuo4 on the other hand, is limited to just the one meaning.

Posted on: International vs. Local Schools

Hmm, so someone's running around China exorcising demons from 14 year old girls?

The chengyu 狗血喷头 (gou3xue4pen1tou2) has its origin in the ancient practice of blowing dog blood onto the head of a suspected demon, which was believed to remove their magical power. Of course, in modern use its meaning has changed to describing harshly scolding another person, because the original meaning doesn't make sense anymore, I mean who would be crazy enough to believe... ;)

Posted on: Subway Announcements

Hi Zhenlijiang,

I think I know where you got that impression - 本地, for example, usually means you are actually at the place being talked about, and generally 本 does require more personal connection to the status (location, time, etc) than 这 does.

I do disagree with the comment above that 本 is an ancient replacement for 这 - that would be a rather seldom and late appearing meaning for 本 in literary chinese, when appearing in older writings it is almost always in other meanings. 此ci3 is much closer to being analogous to 这 in literary chinese, and is very frequently seen - and the same applies to formal modern chinese. Also, the while it is true that you would not use a measure word with say, 此, that's part of a larger principle that, as measure words did not exist in literary chinese, they likewise do not get used in highly formal modern chinese expressions, and the same rule sometimes applies to 这 too.

For example, in formal writing, its better to say 这一问题, with 个 omitted, and the same applies to all but the most concrete nouns in formal writing - measure words are often not used, even if 这 is. In highly colloquial language measure words also often get omitted, though， in the style of language most useful to most learners, a more neutral level of formality, they are required.

Posted on: Adjectives with 是 (shi)

不过's root meaning is 'does not exceed', and thus it retains other uses from this, and also makes for a pretty soft in tone way to say 'but'. 但是 and 可是 are more direct ways to saying 'but'. 可是 also has an additional meaning of 'very' when used as an adverb - while 但是 is only used for 'but.' Also, with both of these two you can strip off the second character - both 可 and 但 also work fine for the conjunction 'but.' However, when used alone 可 is more informal, while 但 is rather formal (more formal than 但是). Also, when used alone as a conjunction 但 also has the meaning 'only'.

Posted on: 长征

No problem - I learned a new chengyu from it. :)