User Comments - zhenlijiang

Posted on: Traveling on the Cheap

Baba why did you find this interesting? Wish I knew well enough to be certain but I'd suspect it's one of those words with origins in Japanese then. It's not surprising in this day of course but you just see SO MUCH vocabulary traffic between the hanzi/kanji-using islands and the continent. There's no entry for 攻略 in my M-J dictionary. I looked under 略 for its most common compound words; no 攻略. 攻略 is a common word in Japanese. A look in J-E dictionaries gives "capture / conquer / invade" etc. It's a warfare word. It's been used most often the past 20 yrs or more to talk about games--like "how to crack xx". So from there, it's been used more liberally esp by TV and magazines and applied to many challenges less grave in terms of deadliness than war. So it means "succeeding = owning or mastering (a word Japanese very much like to use) a certain challenge--by gathering info, getting tips, knowing the techniques and tricks, being resourceful".

I'm not listening to the lesson and don't know what it means in Mandarin. But 旅游攻略 + the English title Traveling on the Cheap makes me think it's being used in pretty much that way. Is that off, or close?

Posted on: Introducing One's Spouse

Sorry Vera could you clarify re akalovid's question again? Yes a woman whose surname is Wang and married to a Mr. Xu could be called 王太太( Wángtàitai)? Maybe I'm misunderstanding (I'm thinking of how the ladies were calling each other in Lust, Caution). Or did you mean "Right, you're supposed to use the husband's surname when addressing the lady with 太太"?

Posted on: Sales: Understanding a Customer's Needs

And apologies for taking up all that space!

Posted on: Hamsters, Snakes, and Owls

"The phonetically spelt マウス (mausu) is also the word for a computer mouse, right?"--Yes that's right.

Posted on: Hamsters, Snakes, and Owls

Understood and duly noted George. I assure you I will not involve you in any drama or embarrass you publicly. Although, as Baba says, I can't see any reason for you to worry about anyone doing that to you.

But I apologize for making you uncomfortable.

As for Japanese VS Mandarin, I think Mandarin could be somewhat more approachable for English-speaking learners. But what do I know? I'm never had to study Japanese as a second or third language.

Posted on: Sales: Understanding a Customer's Needs

For what it's worth Chris and while you wait to hear from teachers, I'm with toianw here. This is a "normal" 把 clause, the way you've previously experienced 把 clauses.

It's a good basic way to think of this structure--"take X and do XX with it/to it", but if you fixate on this thinking I think it can complicate things sometimes. I'd think of it in many instances including this sentence simply as a way to put the Direct Object of the Verb first, instead of following, the Verb. Why? Because the Verb here is obvious given 产品, it's non-operative and therefore "lesser" in importance in the sentence. What else could she be doing with her Products?

I remember a teacher who was a mom to three young children and she told us how every morning she would be barking orders 把 this! 把 that! right up till the moment the kids left the house for kindergarten and school. She asked us if we understood why. 把 the bed make it up! 把 your clothes pick them up! 把 the light turn it off! 把 your bag pack it up! 把 your shoes put them on properly! 把, 把, 把. I think the answer was, because it's obvious what the kids were supposed to do with the Thing referred to. Bed! Clothes! Light! Bag! Shoes! she could just as well have said, but her kids are not puppies being housebroken ...

Having said all this, hopefully a teacher will correct me if I'm leading you up the garden path here. And I apologize in advance if this is really counter-helpful.

Does it help make the sentence clearer at all if you substitute all the 我's in the sentence with 你's? If it doesn't--never mind! Just a thought I had.

Posted on: Hamsters, Snakes, and Owls

Hi richwarm2, yes and yes. The 老 prefix in front of animal names is a Chinese thing. ねずみ・ネズミ nezumi is usual for reference to general rats/mice. I would also venture that when someone uses the kanji 鼠 it's often poetic or literary.

And yes we also refer to dobu-nezumi (thanks to this thread I now know the term Norway rat!), dobu being ditch or gutter. So are Norway rats the same as brown/water/wharf rats (which is what my J-E dictionary is giving me)? And it's most common to refer to them as Norway rats? And yes 熊鼠 kuma nezumi is black/roof rat.

Hamster we call ハムスター hamus taa. I doubt many Japanese know the term 絹毛鼠 kinu-ge nezumi. I had to look it up, my dictionary says the hamster is representative of these.

But yes, it's similar to Chinese in that usually we simply say nezumi. And there's also 二十日鼠 hatsuka nezumi for "mouse". Of Mice and Men is 「二十日鼠と人間」Hatsuka nezumi to Ningen. We call the type of 二十日鼠 bred as lab mice マウス (phonetic "mouse"). ラット (phonetic "rat")--I'm not sure what exactly this term refers to, aside from being a kind of 鼠.

My J-E dictionary entry for 鼠 - [a rat; (small-sized) a mouse.] Then it goes on: ["rats" are larger than "mice", and are abhorred, considered filthy and disgusting. Whereas "mice" are considered quiet animals.]

The other thing I learned here--there are people who have pet rats!

Posted on: Hamsters, Snakes, and Owls

There's no need to shout. It's too bad you don't understand I've never hated anyone here. Not even those who have offended me and anyone else who could see. I'm not a hater.

Posted on: Hamsters, Snakes, and Owls

"to say that a language is relatively less precise is not to imply that it is necessarily inferior"--good point worth making again, clearly.

Posted on: Hamsters, Snakes, and Owls

What hate-speech? A bit of sarcasm maybe, and you well know where that would be coming from.

I wouldn't be calling others out on smugness if I were you.