User Comments - tamutom

tamutom

Posted on: Noisy Renovations

May 02, 2013, 05:00 AM

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Posted on: Protect Your Screen!

April 25, 2013, 12:35 PM

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Posted on: Kung Fu King Comparisons

April 25, 2013, 03:44 AM

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Posted on: Signs in China and Mistranslation

May 23, 2011, 11:19 AM

A sign in Xi'an directed me to the "Terracotta Worriers."

The lesson I took from all the funny translations was: Be prepared to make silly mistakes in Chinese.

Posted on: Rainbow

March 28, 2011, 03:17 AM

It turns out that oranges do come from China. Today I just happened across a history of oranges in the book Paradise Under Glass by Ruth Kassinger. It begins, "The trees are native to subtropical regions of China, and in prehistoric times their seeds were carried, probably by both people and birds, thoughout Southeast Asia."

Britanica says that the common orange or sweet orange, the one most produced commercially, is also known as the China orange. Its scientific name turns out to be Citrus Sinensis. Sinensis means "native to China," as in Camellia sinensis, the tea bush.

That's all a surprise to me.

Posted on: Tai Chi

September 27, 2010, 06:57 PM

Helen,

Why do we say just 练 liàn (to practice/to train/to drill/to perfect (one’s skill)/exercise) and not 练习liànxí (exercise/drill/practice)? It looks like it is because 练 liàn is a verb and 练习liànxí is a noun. If so, then I have been incorrect in saying 我练习太极拳。I should be saying 我练太极拳。对不对？

-Tom

Posted on: Tortoise and the Hare

July 27, 2010, 11:47 PM

go_manly, that comment was intended to be in what I thought was a private thread with my teacher, Helen Cao. It was my first post to that student-teacher thread. I checked the public conversation after I posted it, to make sure it had not accidentally shown up here, and it had not. It must have popped up here later and then been removed by kind staff. Oh, now I see this is the Discussions page, not the Conversations page. I will take a look at Conversations. That was only my second post. The first one came out in all bold font, like I was yelling, and I could not edit it away. Sorry for causing novice errors.

Posted on: Tortoise and the Hare

July 26, 2010, 08:04 PM

Helen,

The word for tortoise in the title of the fable is 龟 guī (tortoise/turtle), but in the rest of the dialogue it is 乌龟 wū (a crow/black) guī. Likewise hare in the title is兔 tū (rabbit) and in the dialogue 兔子 tū zi. When does one use the single character versus the two character forms? I asked a similar question on the phone once. Is this the same situation?

P.S. When I clicked "Convert Tone Marks" a bunch of formating showed up in front of my question. I left it there so you could see what happened. Maybe it is because I cut and pasted the question from my study notes Word document.

-Tom

Posted on: Finding an Apartment

October 05, 2009, 12:59 AM

antony73 - According to _Chinese Characters: A Genealogy and Dictionary_ 臣 chén is a pictograph of a kneeling person. That makes sense to indicate the meanings servant, subject, minister, official, stateman as they all had to bow down to someone of higher rank. When the 人 , a regular person (?), is added we find the meaning becomes to lie prostrate - which was extreme bowing in the old days of China. This works as an interesting story for me.

卧 wò is also said to mean to crouch, according to my hanzibar translator. So I wondered if it would be in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. I got out the DVD and there it was. And 臣 showed up again in the character for hidden. What fun!