User Comments - toianw
toianw
Posted on: Duty-free Products
February 25, 2011 at 9:57 AMI have a couple of questions from the expansion sentences.
1. In the final sentence, the popup for 抢到 shows 抢 as 1st tone. I think it should be 3rd?
2. The sentence about the 超重 baby (the last sentence in the 超重 section): Could someone clarify if this baby is "1kg overweight" or "over 1kg in weight", please.
Many thanks.
Posted on: Flying a Kite
February 24, 2011 at 4:17 PMHi Zhenlijiang, I agree with your explanation of 答应 but I think there may be some overlap between 同意 and 答应. I reckon it would be OK to say 她同意嫁给我了. Hopefully, we can get a third opinion. As a follow-up question, if both 同意 and 答应 are OK in this sentence, is there any difference in feeling (for example, is 同意 a slightly more reluctant/less emphatic agreement)?
BTW Chris, don't know if you're aware, but you can use the CPod glossary to search for example sentences. It's at the top right of the page. you just need to change the "lessons" field to "glossary". I use it a lot to check the usage and scope of new words.
Here's the results for 答应 - note that 答应 can also carry the meaning of "to promise to sth"
Posted on: Substitute Teacher
February 24, 2011 at 1:58 PMHa ha, It's not that impressive - It's a Children's version; not a translation of the original work. And if I don't understand I can just look the pictures!
Re 只，I've come across it being used for animals ranging from a mosquito (一只蚊子) up to a whale (一只鲸鱼).
Glad you enjoyed the challenge.
Posted on: Substitute Teacher
February 24, 2011 at 5:30 AMWell done, mate! The 佛 is pronounced fú here and the Chinese name of the story (it just covers the first part of the original book) is rather charmingly called 小人国。For the record, Goldilocks is usually 'translated' as 金发姑娘
Oh, and the three bears is 三只熊。
Posted on: Plans for Children?
February 24, 2011 at 5:08 AMYou can use 爱管闲事 (àiguǎnxiánshì) to mean nosey. Here's a related lesson where I first learnt this word:
Posted on: Substitute Teacher
February 23, 2011 at 8:02 PMA CHINESE CHALLENGE! - GUESS THE STORY....
Although the distinction is subtle, in my experience the structure presented in the duologue is more common and natural sounding for most scenarios. Many of the tales in my Chinese book of children's stories also use this 叫...的... to introduce a character. So, here's a challenge for my fellow poddies from one such example. The phrase below is part of the first line of a famous story from the said book. Your challenge is to guess the story.
"几百年前，在英国有一个叫格列佛的小孩，...
Posted on: Second-hand Bicycle
February 23, 2011 at 7:53 PMSorry, that's not very clear. I mean "这就算了" = "that's not such a big deal"
Posted on: Honeymoon Destinations
February 23, 2011 at 7:18 PMGood spot Baba, this 咱 breaks the rule we're taught in textbooks (including the person being spoken to). My feeling is that because 咱 usually includes the person your speaking to, it has a more intimate feel to it than 我们 - It seems to be used a lot more amongst close friends. Perhaps this explains her choice of 咱 here. They are, after all, still in the honeymoon period of the marriage! I'd be interested to hear what others think.
媳妇儿 is pretty common here in Beijing to mean wife. Again it's just a feeling, but it seems to be more informal than 妻子, and I don't think you'd use this term to address your wife (as you can with 老婆). I only came across the daughter-in-law meaning in a recent ChinesePod lesson (written as 媳妇 but also pronounced with the 儿）. Now I'm wondering if this double meaning is related to the tradition of arranged marriages - In the context of finding a wife for your son, wife and daughter-in-law are essentially the same thing???
Posted on: Second-hand Bicycle
February 27, 2011 at 6:16 PMHi pretzellogic,
Note the correct verb is 娶 and not 取。This 娶 is a special verb meaning to take/get a wife / get married. But both 娶 and 取 are pronounced qu3, so baba's explanation above is valid.
Another way to think of it is that 娶 is just the verb that collocates with 媳妇儿 if you want to say "get a wife", so when you put them together you get 娶媳妇儿 (to get/take a wife) or 娶不到媳妇儿 (unable to get a wife).
I guess there are plenty of things you could 取不到. For example, if your bank card wasn't working you'd 取不到钱。