User Comments - pettora

Posted on: Meeting the Girlfriend's Parents

I must agree with Jenny about the gender 不公平 in this matter of meeting one's Chinese girl/boy-friend's parents. Poor guys.. My in-laws made no materialistic related inquiries, they found more important the question how we feel about each other and whether our characters are compatible. Well, it was partly a work for an astrologer to judge it but basically the whole thing went smoothly. I thought I might have been just lucky enough but listening to Jenny's opinion this may just be the way how these things do work in China.

Posted on: The Monkey King

小时候，我在捷克斯洛伐克电视台看过《西游记》，真爱上它。那个时候，跟我同年代的捷克人和斯洛伐克人都很喜欢看这个电视剧，现在也记得孙悟空，那个猴子王。在我的国家播的时候，《西游记》的正式的翻译就是《猴子王》。看起来跟这个课的英文名字一样。

Posted on: Getting to Know CPod Teacher Helen (and exciting content news)!

I too definitely vote for 东北话. Selfish, but..

俺们东北人！

Posted on: Choosing a New Pair of Glasses

Hi, Crystal,

Thank you so much for your kind reply!

I can understand your explanation. In Europe, this technology has cca 20 year-old tradition and there are plenty of people who underwent it, and that is perhaps the reason why it is not conceived as to be dangerous in there. But of course, it is important to make a careful choice of a clinic or hospital!

Hopefully people in China will be feeling the same in the near future. I felt it like a miracle when I was suddenly able to see clearly with my own eyes after so many years of wearing glasses! After that I couldn't stop myself recommending to anyone. 笑

Posted on: Choosing a New Pair of Glasses

I wonder what would be the Chinese term for "laser eye surgery". Perhaps 激光手术 ji1guang1shou3shu4? In Europe it is quite a usual thing, thanks God I also went through it several years ago. But what about in China? How widespread is it? Having judged from my speaking with Chinese people, they feel rather scared by the idea of having the membrane of the lens cut. The same for Japanese, the ones I talked to were saying that they didn't believe it is safe. And they were really surprised by me claiming that it is.

Posted on: Finishing Work for the Weekend

Hi John,

you made me thinking about this deeper. In fact, we don't mention the word "first" in the dialog's case in Czech, we say only "I'll go" or more probably "I'll go then" but surely there's the verb "to go" included.

I think the reason why I was mistakenly including the "first" was that my brain seems to be half working in Japanese and Japanese way of saying the sentence would be very close to its Chinese counterpart: じゃあ、先に行くね。 Jaa, saki ni iku ne. I'll go first then.

Human's brain certainly is a strange mechanism. 笑

Anyway, from the above example about testing a suspension bridge I can see now that there are also times when you can use "I'll go first" in English. It makes a complete sense, thank you.

Posted on: Finishing Work for the Weekend

Nice lesson. But I learnt more English than Chinese. Till today I was thinking that to say in English "I'll go first" is a normal expression. Thank you, John, for explaining that! However, I'm afraid I may forget this soon. On the other hand, 我先走了(wo3xian1zou3le) sounds so natural to my ears that I almost didn't need any effort to remember. To study foreign languages is really interesting. What one finds easy in one language, it is so hard to grasp in another one.

Posted on: Computer Problems and Tech Support

Thank you for the compliment. If it only were true in our beer centered culture...汗

Unfortunately, I coudn't find anything about the "rainbow" etymology, it may have been a very old expression already. But I find it to be a nice metaphor. Rainbow surely needs plenty of water before it comes into existence.

Posted on: Computer Problems and Tech Support

Hi Changye,

can't speak for Russians but we Czechs say "to drink like a rainbow" or "to drink like a Dane". I just wonder, who the heaviest drinkers are, Koreans or Danes? 笑

Posted on: Drinking Game

Connie, 哈哈，我错了。要罚酒。真倒霉！