User Comments - zhenlijiang

Posted on: The Shanghai Literary Festival

Bodawei I went up and read

your comment in A Charming Cafe in Shanghai more carefully. I guess you didn't get a response to your question re commanding/demanding (not an acronym but jargon).

Posted on: The Shanghai Literary Festival

Bodawei, one time in another Jenny Zhu Show (A Charming Cafe in Shanghai) Jenny did apologize for not making clear in the podcast, F&B is "Food & Beverage". Were there other instances?

But again, your point is valid. I think these comments like yours is exactly the kind of feedback all of us need--all of us who like Jenny are already using English as a second or third language fluently but always, constantly, trying to sound out in actual use what exactly flies in real-world communication. Trying to become more like-native all the time. We see things, we hear things, immediately have a sense for the words or usage and want to know if we can use them and make them part of "our English" too. So we try stuff out all the time (I guess I do that here myself). I have a feeling that's what Jenny does too and that makes me feel she's "one of us". But of course I don't know, and apologize for all this presumption.

So it's good for us to be told that people can see acronyms used and feel as you do. To us, your quite passionate hate of acronyms and jargon is educational.

Posted on: The Shanghai Literary Festival

Bodawei I want to say first I'm not on a faultfinding mission, or giving you a ribbing even. About FT I think the Financial Times themselves would like to think that they are prominent enough, or that "FT" is well known throughout the world--not that that means we all ought to recognize it. Of course companies often choose to reinvent their corporate identity, take on new images, new logos, and acronyms in place of their longer names. That's their corporate will, and if FT hasn't become a household name by now that's not our fault. I guess the event is being promoted as "The Great FT Debate" (not exactly in the article at the following link, but at least by the event venue) so if I were Jenny I too would probably not have said "the Financial Times debate" (*edit--on second thought, perhaps I would have).

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/89e4e738-2e08-11df-b85c-00144feabdc0.html

Of course some corporate name acronyms just are so well known that we don't think to explain them. The most obvious of the obvious ones to the English-speaking (and most of the other) world being major broadcasters such as the BBC, CNN etc.

Obviously you don't hate acronyms to the point that you won't use any. I think most of us at CPod know what CCP stands for. Most people are expected to know what HIV stands for. Again I'm not trying to show you up or anything. Just that I think we won't all agree all the time on just what is "something everybody ought to know"--which is actually the very valid point that you've brought up here.

Posted on: Going to the Doctor

Pardon me, I forgot this was an Ele lesson. Rather than me try to translate what verahu wrote in the Intermediate lesson discussion I linked to above, it would be better if an expert stepped up to answer go_manly's question here. Sorry and thanks

Posted on: Going to the Doctor

Bob, Jiaojie (and a native speaker user I guess) addressed this here:

http://chinesepod.com/lessons/visiting-the-hospital-with-a-fever#comment-152797

Posted on: Let's Just Be Friends

Yeah of course this lesson is strictly about romance and what someone who isn't interested in it with you is going to say to you.

To those who think like us, romantic love too, being just another kind of love, is necessarily based on friendship-love.

BTW does Chinese have an expression for physical attraction? I don't think Japanese does, always have difficulty trying to talk about it in J.

Posted on: Let's Just Be Friends

Hey I think you finally answered my question!

Posted on: Let's Just Be Friends

Baba yeah. I like the sound of "Let's still be friends" better than "Let's just be friends". When it comes to believing in friendship I guess I'm idealistic (half-fanatic?). I know a bit about reality too, but also know that sometimes a dozen or so years of respecting each other from a distance can bring a friendship-gone-awkward back (close to) full circle too.

Posted on: Let's Just Be Friends

"Just" friends though--! Actually I've been meaning to say, I take exception to this lowly treatment of friendship.

Not to add to further confusion or false hopes here, but to some of us friendship is the highest form of love, and all kinds of love (for living beings human and non-human) are forms of friendship, but that's getting into another lesson ...

Posted on: Let's Just Be Friends

It's enlightening to hear other people's takes on these different nuances. I thought "Let's still be friends" sounded nice, like she really does value the friendship; I didn't think about doom and crashing and pleading and heavy trauma ... Sydcarten obviously has a point about eliminating all possibility of misunderstanding ...

And I know you shouldn't answer a question with a question but a CPod friend is "still" a friend right?