Upper Intermediate - The Big Deal about Shenzhou 7

I'm happy that there was a lesson on Shenzhou 7.   I only understood "Russia" and "America", then of course I read the pdf and realized that I had been taught much more. 

Funny how the dialogue went in the direction of "why are we spending money on the space program when there are so many other needs in the country?"  That portion of the debate went on here in the US for awhile, and I heard more of it after Apollo 17.

2001: A Space Odyssey (2001太空漫游)

Space, the final frontier...  宇宙，人类最后的边疆 （bian1jiang1）...

For those interested, thanks to goulniky, additional Shenzhou material is available in Newsgroups.

Looks like Changye would respond well to some more sci-fi material...

怎么样，长夜大哥？我们是不是该编个科幻故事？

就 'pshong' 一下 (9:56);  pshong 怎么 写？

Hi John,

I started to enjoy watching/reading Sci-Fi things, both western and Japanese, long before you were born, haha.

John,
you should ask two randomly selected users (= Changye and myself) if they like SciFi and base your decision on their responses.

:)

As you know, the terms "astronaut and cosmonaut" are generally used in western countries and Russia respectively. And the situation in China is a little more complicated than that in other countries.

In China, there are three terms, namely 航天员，宇航员，and 太空人 (taikonaut)! Some say 航天员 is "cosmonaut", and 宇航员 is "astronaut"，but they are actually often used interchangeably. 航天员 seems to be the most official term among the three.

henning,

As a fan of sci-fi myself, I think I have heard enough to make my decision! :)

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away..

my guess :

很久以前在一个星系很远远远 ...

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away

很久很久以前，在一个很遥远的銀河系

Actually, there are several versions. I found this one in Wikipedia (traditional).

I think I'm too spaced out to learn any new vocab...going to la-la land now, and hopefully a power nap will do me some good. 头脑好像失到太空去了。希望我睡了一觉就会比较精神。Zzzzzz....

航天 hángtiān for aeronautics made me think of

hang ten,which is how I'll remember it:

...well this is the closest I could find to what I was looking for;more like 2 heels than 10 toes,but anyway...

Here are the records of three astronauts for Shenzhou-7 mission. China seems to be still heavily dependent on the seniority system!!

刘伯明  二级航天员, 1966年09月出生, 1998年1月入选航天员
景海鹏  二级航天员, 1966年10月出生, 1998年1月入选航天员
翟志刚  二级航天员, 1966年10月出生, 1998年1月入选航天员

it's funny how the word for McDonalds [麦当劳】 and the word for Madonna （麦当娜） are almost the same in Chinese. I'm sure Madonna wouldn't like that too much..

I think Madonna has a lot in common with McDonalds. Works out well. She is also a "space cadet" so she fits right in here. :-)  On the other hand, she dosent look bad for her age.

bababardwan,

I tend to think hanging ten breaks a few of Newtons laws, if you notice, even sky diving and doing it backwards, he needs a counterweight. 航天 literally means "navigate sky" or sky ship. I think I will remember it by thinking of hanging in the sky. No gravity. Either way we will never forget the word now. Add "yuan" and you have a person engaged in the activity. All good.

In all seriousness I am very pleased to see China making these efforts. I was so disappointed that the US stopped pushing once they finished the Apollo program. We could have done so much by now. As far as the money goes, so many things that came out of the space program helped the economy and the quality of our lives. Virtually all the miniaturization in electronics that allowed for development of calculators, cell phones, and computers came from the space program for example. All the money spent on funding private or academic research was money the govt put back into the economy and it allowed for the development of many new products. What we learn in space also benefits all fields including medicine, energy, electronics etc.  I believe even the US now has plans to go back to the moon. Im so glad China is pushing the envelope. It will be a thrill to see them land on the moon.

I worked in the space program at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California from 1970 to 1974. I wrote operating systems for the misson control center that tracked the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecrafts as well as the imaging software that displayed those beautiful photos of Jupiter as they came back. These small space crafts went to Jupiter, Saturn and beyond.

Being there at launch, the Jupiter encounter, and working with the scientists on a day-to-day basis was really exhilerating! We had a blast. Space science and exploration is everthing rjberki says and more, much more. It really touches the human spirit in unimaginable ways ...

Bill

What's next, Mars? China is becoming a new and powerful player in the game of space exploration... Though, a question to natives of here, why I hear so many voices around that Chinese are not to happy with government spending money on the space exploration? Doing a little poll at my university, most of other students (of course Chinese students)said that they ignored the 3rd manned mission in the news... Any suggestions?

For me it's always exciting to hear about space:) 

本地的老外

Hi bill,

Your make-me-envious comment reminds me of "Pioneer plaque" that excited me more than three decades ago! I hope Klingons will not destroy it in the distant future.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_plaque

Hi changye,

I've a duplicate of one of those plaques. Each Pioneer team member received one. It is miniature and about 15cmx20cm and accurate in every detail. I was thinking of photographing it for my next avatar. It is a prized possession.

And yes, I'm a long time sci-fi lover.

Bill

Hi bendidelaowai,

I think I know how university students feel about Shenzhou-7 missions. They are too busy worrying about their future and job hunting to care about the gorgeous national project, which I think is a very sound way of thinking.

星际旅行远远比星际大战好！

Wow, respect Bill, you're a legend!  I also develop software for a living, just a few miles from the new launch center they're building here in Wenchang, Hainan.  Sadly, though nothing to see for a few years yet!  Let me know if you're in this corner of the world, to meet someone like you would be an inspiration for my employees.

Bill,

That's awesome.Would love to hear more.

Hi alexyzye

While 甚至的甚 can sometimes be used with traditional characters for 什 (for example in 甚麽）， this is not one of those cases.

Hi alexyzye,

Exactly speaking, "什" is not an simplified form of "甚", since the word "什麽" is acutally used as an interrogative in classical Chinese, which is the reason why they generally use "什麽", instead of 甚麽, even in texts written in traditional characters.

In short, "甚" and "什" are originally two different characters. Having said that, "甚" is also used in the sense of "什么" in some dialects in China. I guess it might be the reason that Chinese dictionaries (simplified) put parenthesized (甚) after the character "什", not sure though.

P/S. "什麽" is a colloquial word in old Chinese, and its authentic pronunciation "shi mo" gradually changed into "shen me" in conversation, and therefore old dictionaries such as 康熙字典 (1716) don't list the colloquial sound "shen me".

喀什=Kāshí=Kashgar= قەشقەر

Obviously, one of the issues with simplification is that you have more dual-pronunciation/dual-meaning characters.  Not a huge deal, since they are common anyway.  Still, there is a trade-off between simplification and clarity.

Respected Sir/Madam,

This site is very helpful to learn Chinese language.

Thanking you,

Yours sincerely,

Mohd.Iqbal.

bababardwan: Although this is not Englishpod: Shouldn't it be "dreamt" instead of "dreamed"? Or does this show my age or preference of British English?

As a sci fi aside: Will China bring down tritium from the moon to power nuclear fusion reactors?

What about a lesson on future cars, e.g. hydrogen fuel, fuel cells, automatic driving, ...?

Hi mohdmurtuza,

Thanks for the kind words. Looking forward to seeing you around the forums and helping you in your studies!

Hi Joachim,

I'm not sure about the tritium issue. But as a fellow futurist/environmentalist, I like your idea for a lesson on hydrogen cars. Duly noted.

Joachim,

I would have thought either were ok,but I'm not an English grammar expert.I think Americans use dreamed more often and British use dreamt more often as you point out.As an Aussie,I find myself a bit between the two and could just have easily use dreamt.

dreamed/dreamt, 都可以；但是在美国 dreamt 很少用。 

Thank you very much for this GREAT website ... it is very very helpful for study Chinese

Hey I just wanted to note that in the expansion sentences, the sentence "The airport will be ready in for use in some months," the English definition for tuo ru is "to spend." I'm not sure that's correct.

Just to let you know!

Hi tjr226

Thanks for the tip. 投入 can mean "to invest in," but that is not the best usage here. I have changed it to “to put into," as in "to put into use."

可是发展航天技术最终也要造福于民啊

I dont understand this sentence. What does 最终 mean?

Hi dooper123

Good question. The 最终 here means "in the end, in the final analysis." The most idiomatic American English translation would've been "at the end of the day," but I thought some poddies might take it literally.

终 appears in many useful words, such as "finally" 终于.

Anyone here play Race for the Galaxy 银河竞逐 (card game)?  I am a big fan.  They now have the Chinese version out:

Lots of hard new words in the dialogue for me in this lesson.  Here are some of the words I picked out of the discussion:

升起 shēng qǐ to raise / to hoist / to rise
太空飞船 tài kōng fēi chuán space shuttle
神奇 shén qí magical / mystical / miraculous
土地 tǔ dì land / territory / soil / local god / Lar / genius loci / CL: 片
老百姓 lǎo bǎi xìng ordinary people / the "person in the street" / CL: 個｜个
观点 guān diǎn point of view / viewpoint / standpoint / CL: 個｜个
太空舱 tài kōng cāng space capsule / ejection capsule (cabin) – space craft
手机 shǒu jī cell phone / cellular phone / mobile phone / CL: 部
保护 bǎo hù to protect / to defend / to safeguard / protection / CL: 種｜种
谦虚 qiān xū modest
星球大戰 xīng qiú dà zhàn Star Wars
严肃 yán sù solemn / solemnity
里根 Lǐ gēn (Ronald) Reagan
过程 guò chéng course of events / process / CL: 個｜个
食物链 shí wù liàn food chain
亚洲 Yà zhōu Asia / Asian
商场 shāng chǎng market / bazaar / CL: 家
兼职 jiān zhí to hold concurrent posts / part-time / concurrent job / moonlighting
体力 tǐ lì physical strength / physical power
工厂 gōng chǎng factory / CL: 家, 座
体操 tǐ cāo gymnastic / gymnastics
鞍马 ān mǎ pommel horse (gymnastics)
瘦 shòu tight / thin / lean
真个 zhēn gè really / truly / indeed
焦点 jiāo diǎn focus / focal point

I have a feeling I have missed something but I couldn't work out what Jenny said in a few places - sounded like shenqi or shengqi eg at 0:18 and 4:08.

I didn't understand the meaning of 'diduan de tili huo' at about 8:44

Hi mikeinewshot

0:18 and 4:08 -- 神七 shén qī（a shortened form of 神舟七号）

8:44 -- 低端的体力活 dīduān de tǐlìhuó

Connie

Thanks.  How does 低端的体力活 translate into English?

Hi mikeinewshot,

低端的体力活 is low-level manual labor.

You know 活 means "to live" but here it means "work," as in the phrase 干活. Interesting that both English and Chinese make a connection between living and working, as in the English word "livelihood."