User Comments - tucsonmichael
tucsonmichael
Posted on: Buying Batteries
March 11, 2008 at 5:03 AMGreat lesson, John, Jenny and crew! Very practical and useful. Thanks also to changye for the sizes not mentioned in the lesson....I didn't know if only AA and AAA (五号或者 七号) were the only sizes available. I hope to retire to Shanghai in the future, so this is a "must" lesson for me.
Posted on: Chinese Green Eggs and Ham
March 3, 2008 at 2:07 AMauntie68.....我知道了 wo3zhi1dao4le - i know that。。。可是 ke3shi4 - but 。。生日的歌是"生日快乐", 不是..."生日愉快"。。。 sheng1ri4 de ge1 shi4 "sheng1ri4 kuai4le, bu4shi4...."shengri4 yu2kuai4" the birthday song is "sheng1ri4 kuai4le, not "sheng1ri4 yu2kuai4"... I also can see that you are quite fluent in Chinese, so the translation is for our benefit, not yours. Please keep posting, because I really enjoy your participation in our ChinesePod family. You bring me better understanding of the language and culture. 祝你有愉快的一天。。。zhu4 ni3 you3 yu2kuai4 de yi1tian1 - have a (very) happy day ( i wish you to have a very happy day)!
Posted on: Chinese Green Eggs and Ham
March 3, 2008 at 1:30 AMAuntie68, your comments are wonderful, but since this is a newbie lesson, not too many people will understand the nuances of these three forms of "happy" without much study, or the translation that you request from someone much more qualified than me....perhaps from the Chinese pod staff, which are probably now starting to arrive for Shanghai's Monday morning.....
Posted on: Chinese Green Eggs and Ham
March 3, 2008 at 1:25 AMeastcoastyankee, i am no expert, but dui4 对 does indeed have several uses....among them is the meaning "right", where you may even hear, dui4, dui4, dui4.....assenting rightness, as in 你说得对 ni3 shuo1 de dui4...you speak correctly, or you speak the truth....it also is used as the preposition "toward" or "for", as in 对我的女儿我不知道。 dui4wo3denv3er2, wo3bu4zhi1dao4, "as to my daughter (with regard to my daughter), I don't know... also 对。xx。。过敏 ...dui4....xx....guo4min3...with respect to xx, i have an allergy, or more commonly, "i am allergic to xx"
Posted on: Chinese Green Eggs and Ham
March 3, 2008 at 1:16 AMI think the English equivalent of the following would more likely be, "eggs taste awful"... 鸡蛋很难吃。 (Eggs don't taste good.) because the expression is not, 鸡蛋不太好吃。。ji1dan4bu4tai4hao3chi1... eggs don't taste too good. Also, I wasn't aware that na4 became nei4 when attached to a measure word...i thought na4 vs nei4, na3 vs nei3, zhe vs zhei was a regional thing...with na4/na3 more common in the south of China, and nei4/nei3 more common in the north of China. By the way, I also bought in Beijing 北京 Bei3jing1 for my Chinese niece (she is now five years old..她五岁 ta1wu3sui4 and adopted by my brother and his wife ) three of the Dr Zeuss books mentioned by Rich above, and she loves them. Her Chinese teacher uses them to help her have fun with Chinese characters, while enjoying the English rhymes.
Posted on: Chinese Green Eggs and Ham
March 3, 2008 at 12:43 AMThere seem to be many words for "happy" in Chinese, the one I like best being 开心 kai1 xin1, literally meaning opening of heart, which I think means becoming happy / being happy from some inner source. There is also 快乐 kuai4 le4 , but I will defer to the Chinese Pod experts to clarify any nuances related o their use.
Posted on: Saved by the Gong: History
March 1, 2008 at 1:30 PMnewfather, the Chen Lei in the business trends lesson was actually 陈雷, where the given name could mean "Thunder". I remember that because a good friend living in Shanghai is named 陈雷, and I teased him about the lesson.
Posted on: Yang Jie's Fury
February 29, 2008 at 4:26 PMrichnirish, i think actually the english translation is in error. it shouldn't be too often one would ask a partner how long they had been together, unless it was a rhetorical question, so the english should probably be "how long have you (plural) been together?" i agree with others above that i would have enjoyed a bit more dialogue in this lesson. this would have been a great opportunity for 李燕 to defend her turf and show us her strength of character, which in the past seemed a bit weak.
Posted on: The DVD Ploy
January 30, 2008 at 5:30 PM一个问题。。。“盘”是不是 DVD 的measure word?
Posted on: Art Museum
March 27, 2008 at 1:56 PMNice lesson. I particularly like the Shanghai Museum, having been there three times, because it has art, weapons, jade, furniture, ming "china" and even clothing. Even the building itself is very artistic, shaped like a ding and having a grand and beautiful interior, just south of People's Square. Does this free admission policy make it more hard to actually gain admission, in the sense of so many people already being in the museum, that additional people are prevented from entering until others leave?