Newbie - Handsome Boy

Maybe a topic for Dear Amber - I am still very unsure how to use the various words for the English: say, tell, talk about, talk to, etc... For example, can 说我 also mean to 'talk to me'? Can it mean 'tell me'? If not, how do you say "Are you talking to me?" How about 讲， 告诉， 。。。?

Sorry I meant QingWen not Dear Amber - that's what comes of looking at Chinesepod at 3am.

I support MikeinEwshot suggestion. also a QW (or same one) on uses of : 谈谈,聊天,讨论etc.

this is kind of funny....now I'm looking forward to the moment when Chinese people will talk about me....hehehe....they won't know that I understand them (a little bit at least), especially while I'm still in america. say it with me everybody....“你在说我吗？”

kerou85, Your comment brings me back to my early days in Hangzhou when I could barely understand anything people were saying around me. It felt like a kind of conspiracy, and every time I rode a bus, I was sure people were saying things about me. Bit by bit, I began to understand what they were saying, and I found they didn't talk about me much at all. When they did, it was usually fairly complimentary (like "he's so tall"). The vast majority of what was said around me was just boring everyday stuff though, like about the new cell phone they bought, who's dating who, plans for the weekend, etc. Shocking revelation: Chinese people talk about the same kinds of things everyone else in the world does, and it's often unexciting and rarely conspiratorial! Regardless, it's a really exciting milestone when you can start to understand what people are saying around you. Keep studying and keep eavesdropping! :)

MikeinEwshot I dont know the answer to your question "are you talking to me" but I think the answer is not altering the verb, rather the structure of the sentence. So I think you say "ni gen wo yi qi shou ma?" 你跟我一起说吗? Lit. Do you with me together speak.

As oscar Wilde said, "The only thing worse than being talked about, is not being talked about." Loved the lesson, it is so cute.

My lovely dog is well known for being a LITTLE fat in my neighborhood. While walking her, at least one local people stares her and clearly says that she is TOO fat. I know she is a BIT fat, but why should they bother saying that just in front of me every day? I never say “your wife is fat” before you. Some guys even say my dog looks tasty! I imagine she certainly wants to bark out this way, 你在说我吗?, when she hears such “compliments” on the street. My dog is now learning how to say “none of your business” in Chinese, 少管闲事 (shao3 guan3 xian2 shi4).

Seems to me that in the supplementary vocabulary 男的 means "male" and nǚde female, and that 男人 and nǚren2 are more general and can mean man/male and woman/female, respectively. Perhaps, I'm being too literal, and that in the spoken language they are all used interchangeably. 我不知道 （wo3bu4zhi1dao4 - I don't know).

Hi Jenny In the comments to lesson #0703 (Nov. 18) the notion "hangover" came up. I had forgotten there was a Dutch word for it, and apparently there was no Chinese one. Today I came across the word jiǔbēi (with the bēi of "sad" as in bēiguān "pessimistic"), the last item under jiǔ "wine" in Oshanin's Chinese-Russian dictionary (item #1932) which he translates "pohmélye", the Russian equivalent of "hangover". Perhaps the word has gone out of use. I wish you and all your colleagues at Chinesepod happy holidays with plenty of jiǔbēi in the other sense and a minimum of the above one.

In the expansion, you have 你在看誰？ 1. What's the difference if you say 你正在看誰？ 2. Can you also say 你看著誰？ (I've always been confused about 著)

John, Now that you're fluent, you get to hear people say you're like a white, more handsome version of chow yun-fat.

relrel : no difference between 你在看誰 and 你正在看誰 “正在”express a meaning of -ing you said "你看著誰" maybe change to use 你看着誰 better. 着aslo express the doing now

Hi aert, Sorry, this post is not from Jenny, but as always I can’t resist responding to your comment, which often urges me to search / look up every resource / dictionary available. According to an online dictionary, as you said, the word 酒悲 (jiu3 bei1) was mainly used in ancient Chinese literature and is not commonly used today. And its meaning is not “hangover”, a condition I am in now, but is sentiments of sorrow and weeping after drinking. It is true that drinking causes sorrow and woe. The definition in Chinese is “酒后触动情怀而泣”, and I found 酒悲 being used in a Tang poem by Baijuyi (白居易) and 资治通鉴 by SimaGuang (司马光, Song-era). In modern China, the word 酒悲 seems to be sometimes used in referring to a tragic situation caused by drinking, such as a car accident, divorce and so on. The best usage of 酒悲 I came across on the Internet is 莫让酒杯(jiu3 bei1)变酒悲(jiu3 bei1) , which I think is a very clever expression. For your information, let me show you other two relevant words, 余醉 (yu2 zui4) and 残醉 (can2 zui4), both of which are old literary words like 酒悲. The two of them have almost the same meaning, slight intoxication after drinking. Anyway, it is not easy to find a exact Chinese word for “hangover”.

ambition: thanks for the help! what's the difference between 著 and 着？

Hi John, you are tall and handsome. Did someone say that "zhe xiao huo zi zhang de zhen bu cuo" to you? lolz lolz

Hi Changye Thanks for your diligent research, which I appreciate the more as it was done in the state designated by the word under discussion. I looked up Oshanin's translation in a Russian explanatory dictionary, but it gives exactly the meaning "hangover", referring specifically to "the morning after the night before", and not to other effects of alcohol. The more immediate effects vary from person to person, most feeling happy, but some becoming aggressive, still others bursting out crying. I can find an English expression for the second type only: "he is quarrelsome in his cups". In Dutch we have shorter expressions for the 2nd and 3rd type only, clearly because they are conspicuous deviations from the first, which has no such name and is taken for granted. The modern meaning of jiǔbēi would be something like "alcohol-related mishaps", which to my feeling does not cover hangovers as these are not mishaps but natural and foreseeable occurrences. In my experience vodka imported from Russia (Stolichnaya, Moskovskaya) is the best to minimize them. I will try and find out what the poets you mention have to say. Also Li Bai, who should be an expert.

Hello aert! I, too, appreciated changye's research. My personal way of explaining "酒悲" is that it conveys the idea of being drawn into a deep and melancholic -- and somehow, poignant -- kind of emotion with the help of drink. Not necessarily being "nasty drunk". I am not confident enough of my Mandarin to be sure about this, but I think it is not totally negative. Eg. Ernest Hemingway was probably a black belt in 酒悲. However, this will have to be confirmed by somebody who knows Mandarin a lot better than I do.

Wow! another interjection to add to my vocabulary (嘻嘻 xi1xi1 teehee)... every lesson seems to add a new one which is most appreciated. In casually perusing one of the on-line dictionaries, there seems to a large number of them, seemingly all composed of the 口 子 旁 （kou zi pang） radical and another fairly common character. What are some of your favorite interjections? On a somewhat related note, for any of the late Don Martin Mad magazine cartoonist fans out there he was a genius at creating (albeit not interjections) sound effects: Glup! Splork! Chomple! Kloong! Kaplam! Poong! Fladdap! It would be interesting to know if any of these where translated into Putonghua. 再见， 何睿林

A small story, While in Xian I had to visit a hospital with my guide to get an ultrasound for kidney stones. It was a military hospital where not many foreigners would go. I am small and red haired and very pale and my guide was a tall strapping man. I overheard two very elderly ladies laughing and giggling in a corner (because there are people in every corner at all hours) they were saying (thinking I could neither hear nor understand) "ahhh, look at that handsome young man with his foreign girl, going into 'there' (ultra sound)...something something, BABY..." My guide was very busy staring at the ceiling and I was laughing so hard and trying not to, I thought they would have to bring in a stretcher.

我的天呐～～！我以为应该都是中文的莱！ almost is English~~god~~!

hahahha,is this a website of learning chinese? I think it is a new tool for my english,hahahha,in china,there is ch-english,nut I see en-chinese here,hahahha,funny~~~~hmmm~~ ~I am chinese

hi relrel, 1) 你在看谁？ Nǐ zài kàn shéi？ 你正在看谁？ Nǐ zhèngzài kàn shéi？ Have the same meaning. “在” emphasizes the process, whereas “正在” (zhèngzài) stresses the duration and the process. It's quite a subtle difference. 2) 你看着谁。Nǐ kànzhe shéi. Is a little different. It means, "who are you looking at". The difference is, the above in 1) the feeling is more immediate, whereas adding the 着 (zhe) makes it more of an action that is happening now but ongoing.

Hi all. Is there a difference between gan4 and zuo4 as a word for "to do"? Thanks! Steve

hi sballa, 做 (zuò) and 干 (gàn) both mean 'to do'. However, if you are speaking of something that is negative, you would more like use 干 (gàn). It also depends on the tone of voice. 干 (gàn) doesn't necessarily mean one is doing something negative or bad, however, if you wanted to express that, you would more likely use 干 (gàn) than 做 (zuò).

and what about the difference between : 做 (zuò) and 作 (zuò) ?

Thanks, Amber, for the quick and helpful response to my simple newbie question! Steve

I would also be interested in knowing the difference between "talking to...", "talking about...", etc. as MikeinEwshot mentioned earlier. Any takers?

hi nicolas, The meaning of 做” (zuò) and 作 (zuò) are the same, it is their usage that is different. To illustrate: “做” (zuò) 'to do, to make'. “做” (zuò) is used usually when speaking about concrete, tangible things, i.e.: 做事 (zuòshì) to handle matters 做作业 (zuò yīfu) to make clothing 做家务 (zuò zuòyè) to do an assignment 做衣服 (zuò jiāwù) to do housework 做饭 (zuò fàn) to make food 作 (zuò) has the same meaning, but is used more often in combination with other words to form nouns and idioms, i.e.e: 作文 (zuòwén) composition 作业 (zuòyè) assignment 作 (zuò) as a verb is used for speaking about more abstract concepts, i.e.: 作曲 (zuòqǔ) to compose music 作诗 (zuòshī) to compose a poem

hi mikeinewshot, and sparechange, Great idea for Qing Wen. Will do it for you!

Amber, thanks for your response!

hello guys, i am new to the pod. i have a quick question what is the differences between the fix and the dailogue? the dialogue is really just the words over again that were covered in the lesson, and the fix is just the conversation again taken really slow? thanks

Hello eastcoastyankee - Welcome to Cpod! :-) For your question, go to this link for a detailed discussion about "The Fix" - http://chinesepod.com/extra/introducing-the-fix/discussion

哈哈~ 这样的谈话很有意思。 在日常生活中需要的。 真谢谢~ haha~

In this dialogue, we emphasize 在, but in other dialogues, we do not. Maybe because this is a conversation in the "now"...but I am wondering, just how common is it to use 在 in everyday speech? Thx. AY

anayelena, 在 creates a present continuous tense. Even though Chinese doesn't distinguish tenses as clearly and frequently as English does, 在 is commonly used to express that an action is taking place at the moment.

I like 帅哥 (shuai ge), I guess the English equivalent would be something like "Big Daddy".

I am sad that all of the files and the pdf cost money now.

No, actually 帅哥 (shuai ge) means "handsome guy". The equivalent for girls is 靓妹 (liang mei) meaning "pretty girl") And I'm sorry to say so but Amber has made a little mix-up with the pinyin: 做作业 (zuò yīfu) to make clothing 做家务 (zuò zuòyè) to do an assignment 做衣服 (zuò jiāwù) to do housework This here is right: 做作业 (zuò zuòyè) to do an assignment 做家务(zuò jiāwù) to do housework 做衣服 (zuò yīfu) to make clothing 没关系 ^-^

Wow, I was almost exactly the same situation as the lesson today. Useful stuff.

I notice that the character gē in shuàigē (handsome guy) is the same as the gē in gēge (older brother). Would people in China still call their husband a shuàigē, or is that weird? Same question to call your wife a haomei?

Thanks :)