User Comments - zhenlijiang
zhenlijiang
Posted on: Turn Right, Turn Left
October 21, 2009 at 1:48 AM(how did Turn Right, Turn Left turn into this discussion--?)
I am pretty pretentious I suppose. I like to attempt the authentic pronunciation for proper nouns (and of course fail all the time). btw I've always found it interesting that when speaking English John pronounces 'Shanghai' not at all in the Mandarin pronunciation but in very American sounds (while Ken seems to approximate the Mandarin pronunciation?). Since studying Mandarin I've become unable to pronounce it any other way but the Mandarin no matter what language I'm speaking.
I found it (probably rather unkindly) a wee bit pretentious, when an Italian guy we were working with (all-Japanese clients; correspondence in English) kept referring to Tuscany etc. when we in Japan only say Toscana, never Tuscany and would always respond in our faxes and emails and phone calls in that way. He was quite fluent so I guess in his way he wanted to speak "real English". In Japanese we say Roma not Rome, Firenze not Florence. The Italian works slightly better with in 片假名 piànjiǎmíng, katakana than the French.
I used to find Chinese names confounding before I began studying Mandarin. Could never understand how the "kanji" I saw in Japanese newspapers and the romanized (pinyin--I now know) versions I would see in English-language papers could be the same names. I thought Chinese names were the greatest mystery.
All this frustration with and over our names--it seems to me the Chinese people have had it figured out long ago and feel none. I know I'm generalizing here, but those who plan to have an "international life" don't expect foreigners to be able to say their names to their satisfaction. Why go through the hassle all the time when you can just make it easy for foreigners to address you by adopting an "English" name? They will then live with and between their "facilitating" name and the Chinese one with the greatest ease.
This reflects the Chinese people's world view and attitude toward business and life I think, and sets them apart from Japanese (and Koreans I assume. I apologize if by always seeming to lump Koreans together with Japanese I'm offending anyone.).
We have the current generation of Japanese child-raising parents deliberately giving their kids names that will "travel" pretty well to begin with, to make life a bit easier for them. That to me is more an accommodation, though, and dare I say a compromise. Not at all as good as the Chinese best-of-both-worlds approach.
Posted on: Buying a Bike
October 20, 2009 at 7:08 AMisiz3245,
Basket (all kinds of baskets without handles) is 筐 kuāng (MW 个，只).
Changye,
Riding their bikes with their umbrellas open--I see someone doing that every time it rains here in Japan--haven't you?
And it's ridiculous (dangerous), not just what people do on their bicycles but also how careless and unthinking they are with their umbrellas. Umbrellas can kill too.
Posted on: Nothing More Than Only and Just
October 19, 2009 at 9:41 AMwoyaodalanqiu,
I think 别光想着玩 is kind of like
"Don't be thinking only about goofing off"; referring to a condition that is (or tends to be) continuous or generally present, as opposed to some one-off act of thinking.
Does this make any sense? Anyone with better explanations?
Perhaps I've over-analyzed and muddied more than clarified.
Posted on: Turn Right, Turn Left
October 17, 2009 at 11:15 AMAre they taught not to change down until the car stalls?
There was a UI lesson on foreigners getting their Chinese driver's license but it would be interesting to know what driving school is like, how people are taught to drive in China.
Posted on: Turn Right, Turn Left
October 16, 2009 at 11:17 AMBodawei I know I'm not John (and not answering your question), but you can say 往 wǎng (to, toward) 左拐 and 往右拐.
Posted on: “90”后女孩炫富
October 14, 2009 at 1:04 AM皎洁老师，这正如我想的一样，谢谢你的答复。
Posted on: National Day
October 1, 2009 at 5:18 PMSorry, one more OT comment--controversial I know the figure 300,000 is said to be. What I personally think is that it is a very round, clean number.
If anyone posts issues/questions/responses to me and I don't reply, for the next couple of weeks it will be because I'm away.
Posted on: Not Cooked Enough
October 1, 2009 at 4:38 PMBodawei, 没有不可能 there is no impossible.
inland, did you check out the Qing Wen on 没有 VS 不 (light487 has posted the link above)? Not helpful?
Posted on: National Day
October 1, 2009 at 4:20 PMjuzi,
I can see you're not intentionally trying to offend, hurt or make anyone angry. If you yourself accept and are comfortable with that number, you shouldn't have to offer to delete and 'clean up' 'in consideration for Japanese users'. If we don't agree about something like that we could have questions and discussion (not deleting on second thought)--but this is not the appropriate place for that of course.
I've said before, if we users were able to delete our own comments we'd have way more garbage going up on the boards that we do now.
What else--oh I hope people don't think of me as the neighborhood patrol or something.
Cheers
Posted on: Turn Right, Turn Left
October 21, 2009 at 6:40 AMSorry Simon, you have me confused now.
It's case-by-case.
I was just taking too long to get to my point, which is that the Chinese people take and use second "English" names to obvious advantage, with admirable ease.
Perhaps they are oblivious to the frustrations with transliterated western names in part because they have no expectations (correct me if I'm wrong!) and no hang-ups about foreigners' mispronunciation of their own names?