User Comments - zhenlijiang
zhenlijiang
Posted on: Jason and Sarah
November 30, 2009 at 4:34 PMre 上火, what Orangina said about choleric sounds right to me. I used to go to a shiatsu therapist who trained in and practiced Chinese medicine, he always told me I had it. We had this routine in which he would give me a hard time about my sharp tongue and temper (I was young then) but he would say later, seriously, that I "had too much inner heat from the chest above". 内熱が高い I was told, and then he would remark on how my liver and kidneys were too hard. He said I had to stop drinking cold beverages regularly. And said that was what was making me, well, choleric all the time.
From what I've seen here westerners sometimes have difficulty understanding the "cold will kill you", and "drink 热水", prescribed when one is unwell. Japanese do too I guess though I have no trouble accepting the "cold isn't good for you" thinking because of that bit of experience with Chinese medicine. I hardly ever take cold drinks anymore though it's a minor hassle sometimes. In Japan people think it's rude when a guest asks for water, to give them something room temperature. They think it has to be ice-cold in a glass on a coaster, with ice cubes or they're embarrassed to serve it. And you can't get unchilled water at convenience stores either. So I just always take my own everywhere.
But yeah, it will be interesting to see how you decided to say that in English.
Posted on: Love Tangle 2: A Lover Returns
November 24, 2009 at 6:23 AMPaul, yes I know that was up before Pete left. Just couldn't resist making that comment.
I see now, really we were talking about different kinds of rhetorical statements.
Posted on: Love Tangle 2: A Lover Returns
November 23, 2009 at 4:42 PMPaul,
Sorry, but it's hard for me to see why 想当年独闯广州 would be interpreted as "that time I went off to Guangzhou". 当年 tells me the guy is talking about that year in Guangzhou, not anything before, or anything to do with, the time he was making the move.
I think we were meant here to learn that 什么苦没吃过（with or w/out question mark） expresses "what hardship didn't I experience? / every kind of hardship, I experienced them all"--precisely because it may at first seem to mean exactly the opposite.
Like Changye says we'll see this kind of thing again and again.
Also, I wouldn't say "Damn it's hot today" is rhetorical. "Man is it hot today or what!/?" is.
PS. Now that he's gone, you agree with Pete's translation!
Posted on: Using a Character Dictionary
November 21, 2009 at 5:25 PMuser9476, I think so too.
timlb,
There's the 算 in the line immediately preceding too. To me this is one of those words that "work" when we think of them in literal English terms, making Chinese (falsely?) seem so accessible to English-speaking learners.
哦，原来一些简单的字也是部首。哎，这些笔画也算部首？
The 算 in the sentence you brought up is part of a 就算～也～ construction: "even if XX, (still) XX".
没错。而且就算不知道部首，也可以查字的。
I agree, 算 is very interesting.
Posted on: Using a Character Dictionary
November 20, 2009 at 5:10 AM啊，那我是把反问当真的吗？
A reading/writing primer (which I don't have on me now) for kids entering school explained the components and strokes of hanzi. Because this is stuff we don't get taught in Chinese classes usually (esp in Japan? the reason being we already should know all this stuff? but actually I did not really know that the small diagonal strokes et al. had those names) it was very interesting to see it explained in Chinese. I think poddies have requested a video lesson like that before. But yes I agree, it would make a good lesson, video or not.
（啊！Tvan 同学的回复我刚才看到了。我们是来去错过的）
Posted on: Using a Character Dictionary
November 20, 2009 at 4:34 AMTvan, copy and paste 我用的（电子）词典说是‘拷贝粘贴’。
拷贝 kǎobèi 是音译吧。不过，实际上‘复制粘贴’可能是一般的。
在我的上一个帖子里，应该说‘我呢，是个慢性子。’，不可以加‘的人’，是吗。 I thought I'd try writing it that way and see if I would be corrected though, because that's how it appears in, again, my 电子（日中）词典--which I don't think is better than a good paper dictionary.
Posted on: Visiting a Friend at the Hospital
November 14, 2009 at 8:06 AMChangye 真是太好事了, I can hear onlookers say amongst themselves.
好像你把中年人学芭蕾舞看做是一种 cosplay，是吗？
我们一直很认真地练习哦！
(sorry，Off Topic!)
Posted on: Visiting a Friend at the Hospital
November 14, 2009 at 3:22 AM嘿嘿，不好意思，夺取你们的这么简单的乐趣，我并不是愿意做的。
只是不知不觉地露出我的婆心而已，嘻嘻！
我一直就很羡慕你们男人，不管在哪里也能感受到多方面的乐趣，
真的！
Posted on: Picking things up: 拿、带、取
December 1, 2009 at 2:34 PMHi ysxiao, the "pick-up line" ewong asked about is this kind.