User Comments - zhenlijiang

Posted on: A Texan Visitor

Whoa Baba almost read past my name. I won't volunteer; I'd rather wait and see who "someone like me" could be (brave!).

You have to listen to Girly Talk; it's really funny!

Posted on: Drinking Game

Raygo, a break is more than well-deserved. You've already done a dozen Intermediate transcripts and you're absolutely right--a look at those will help people understand the banter in any Intermediate lesson.

I'll make a proposal though. If anyone wants to work on transcribing this lesson but doesn't feel up to doing the whole thing alone (it does take a lot of work), publish whatever part of the transcript you do get done, give us a holler and I'll finish it up.  How's that?

Posted on: Dinner Guest

Ah yes Changye, you're right of course. That was not only my English thinking, but also my Japanese mindset doing mischief.

Posted on: Dinner Guest

Changye, I was looking over what I wrote and realized that of the expressions of the meaning "I don't want you to go to" I mentioned:

I don't want you to go to Beijing.
(strongest, most direct, very personal)
I hope you don't go to Bejing.
(still strong and direct, not as personal as the above)
I want you not to go to Beijing.
(not natural to say as a direct appeal to "you", explaining)

Since the strongest, most direct expression in the English here is in the negative form--same as 我不希望你去北京--I guess we could make a point of remembering that.
But as has been said many times already, the difficulty we have is with the use of 希望 (hope) in the negative--something we don't as a rule do in English (paulinurus, your example I didn't really understand).

Of course, all we really need to do is just stop thinking in English to try to understand the Chinese!

I was writing this when paulinurus posted; apologies for the repetition.
Like he says, "I don't wish ～" we don't say.

As for "I don't think he is rich" is more common than "I think he is not rich"--yes that's right.
In this case if you're going to say "I think ～", you would say "he's struggling to make ends meet" for instance, not "he is not rich".

How then about "I don't think he's attractive." VS "I think he isn't attractive." Again, the latter we would not say. Even "I think he's unattractive." we wouldn't be so likely to say.
OK this is a bottomless pit now. I'm going to go back to thinking about Chinese!

Posted on: Dinner Guest

Changye, just for the sake of keeping things clear here, I would say that in English we don't say "I don't hope ～".

This is definitely one of those points that throw us English-thinkers when we're learning Chinese.
It seems to us that 我不希望你去北京。 is not the way to express "I don't want you to go to Beijing". So it takes some getting used to, and more effort to get it through our head that that's more straightforward and connotes stronger "not wanting you to go" than saying 我希望你不去北京。--which to our English thinking minds seems how we should say "I hope you don't go." which in English would mean "I don't want you to go.", which can only mean "I want you not to go." 

Sorry, I've added nothing really to what desluo919 has already said!

Posted on: Pinyin Sections 5-6

堵车 dǔchē is my favorite punched-in-the-belly word and my favorite Chinese word to say aloud for no reason--try it, it's fun!

Posted on: Drinking Game

inland, we have a group of poddies producing lesson transcripts. It could be that someone is already on this lesson. But if not, and if one of us has the time now maybe we could transcribe this one. We're still a small team, and all doing this on our free time so can't really commit in the way a professional outfit would, but I think we'd like to work on lessons there is actual demand for. You're welcome to join us and post a request.

Also, for anyone who feels up to it--transcribing is a very good way to get serious listening practice and learn new vocab. Why not try one and share with us?

Posted on: SBTG: Health Class

calicartel, I believe Jenny says 发黑 fa1hei1 at 07:38.

Posted on: Cold from Biking

I agree with Changye. This translation reflects how we would say the same in English. We don't normally say--unless we're pre-school kids?--"let's go (wherever) to play".
Conversely (as Changye often says), as students of Chinese we're supposed to get accustomed to this usage of 玩 in the Chinese, because that is how people speak.

Which probably leads to the question, couldn't we simply say
我们下次去海南怎么样？ Wŏmen xiàcì qù Hăinán zĕnmeyàng?
for "How about we go to Hainan next time?"

I'm guessing we could, and that depending on context it would only be interpreted in the same meaning as 去玩.
To me it seems that you say 去玩 because you're referring to  the purpose of your going to that certain place (which is to have a good time). Whereas if you only say 去, with no other implication or information provided, the destination, the where, is the point.
我说得对不对？

Posted on: Drinking Game

I have to go and see 侯孝贤's Flowers of Shanghai 《海上花》 again, because when I did I was really tired and could only get a lousy seat in the theater, so ended up falling asleep (yes I know many people say it's a boring film. I'd like to sit fully awake through it in entirety though, before I pass final judgment), but I did take away from it all the mesmerizing 划拳 drinking game scenes.
How that game works, according to my dictionary--the two players indicate a number (it's not necessarily the number of fingers you hold up, because you can indicate 6-10 on one hand in Chinese) on one hand, and simultaneously guess a number from 1 to 10. That's done rapidly in succession until the number a player says matches the sum of fingers between the two of them and wins. Is that right?