Discussion
Glendale, Arizona. The home of Super Bowl XLII. No, that's not a world record sized wok, it's football, American style. The New England Patriots are trying to break every record by winning the Super Bowl to cap an undefeated season over the New York Giants... Writer may sound like a fan but only watches for the commercials. Worlds collide in this podcast as you learn about it all, in Mandarin Chinese.
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Connie, Very, very good. But you forgot the first 'a' in Oakland. Also,
Philadelphia is a Greek-based word meaning brotherly love, which is why
they call it the City of Brotherly Love. So why not Aixiongdi Laoying or
Aixiongdicheng Laoying? Sorry, my keyboard doesn't have a way to show
the tones. I guess you have to have a pinyin keyboard. Finally, a bit odd
how that extra '49' got printed. Zaijian, Bert
Yes, it's Bushudun. Just don't say Dubya Bushudun.
Connie, superb job with the teams' names and cities translations, thank you. Cool to learn how to say 'giant' and 'saint' in Chinese. Also realized that jeans are simply 'cowboy pants'. (牛仔裤） ^_^
My favorite translation of a city name is San Francisco's: 旧金山。 (Old Gold Mountain). I think that's the only city name on that list that isn't a transliteration of the English name. There's a story behind 旧金山 and the name of the team (49ers)。
超级碗是橄榄球比赛吗
What are some topics you can discuss with your chinese friend when your american
My chinese is about maybe elementary level but I just don't know what to say to him yet I know a little chinese
The great thing about watching a super bowl in China is that you don't have to put up with the continuous pregame.
Wow, I almost forgot we have a Super Bowl lesson. To be topical, the names of the two teams in 2010's final are:
1) 圣徒/shèngtú/Saints
2) 小马/xiǎomǎ/Colts
Interesting. I understood right away the Colts name in Chinese, and why it made sense. I didn't understand shèngtú for the saints, even though the MDBG dictionary translated it that way. Probably because I don't know the characters.
An American football game was played in Sydney a decade or so ago. The entire game was shown on TV. I have never seen anything so dull. It seemed as though 50% of the programme was ads, to fill in all the empty space. There was no continuity to the game at all. Watching highlight packages we get the illusion it is a fast-paced game, but nothing could be further from the truth. I think the game lasted 3 or 3.5 hours - how much playing time is there in that?
the game is 1 hour long, but with things that stop the game clock, like timeouts, incomplete passes and going out of bounds, the game lasts longer than 1 hour.
... team huddles, umpires explaining every decision to the fans, quarter and three-quarter time breaks, measuring 10 yards, ...
Go_manly, much of the appeal of the game is the strategy,that is, guessing what the other team will do next. Today's game had about 120 plays. Each play is a potential scoring opporunity. Think of it that way, and the game becomes more interesting.
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I was wondering whether you'd mention Union as I was under the impression you're a League fan,and your comments seem even more applicable to a well played game of Union.
There's a lot of animosity in certain circles in the UK between League fans and Union fans. It tends to be a class thing - the game of the working-man vs the game of the public school brigade. Is it the same elsewhere ? I used to play Union for a state school against public school teams, and it's my impression that Union is a tougher game and definitely not for cissies, but I'm willing to stand corrected.
I've always wondered why Australia and Britain use opposite words to describe State and non-state schools - over here state schools are Public, non-state are Private. My (perhaps distorted) sense of logic tells me our naming makes more sense, but perhaps Public and Private are not the best words to describe the difference. What is used in the US?
Class is not a big issue in Australia. It is true that Private schools tend to play Rugby, and Public schools tend to go for League. And perhaps Rugby players have a few more brain cells, and a bit more money. But that tends not to manifest itself in a class division.
Regarding toughness, I couldn't say - never played. I don't have a footballer's physique. Cricket was my thing.
Yeah, I always found the naming confusing - 'public' doesn't sound very 'elite'. Public and Private are pretty clear.
Actually, I've never found that the middle class/professional class, or whatever, have more brain cells. They just generally have a better education because their parents can afford it. I love England, but the thing I hate most about this country is that class still matters. That's what attracts a lot of poms to Australia - just like any other country you still have classes, but you don't look down your noses at each other.
( I think )OK, Rugby players behave as though they have more intelligence. Although that is probably changing with the money now available in Rugby.
Of course many individuals in Aus will look down on others who they perceive as being beneath them, as happens everywhere. But I have never noticed a group mentality that equates with people feeling that they belong to a particular class (except in a racial sense). And we don't have a system of peerage that feeds that sort of mentality - although Lizzie Windsor is still the nominal head of Australia.
I think I only picked up the following:
1st down: dì yī jié
2nd down: dì èr jié
3rd down: dì sān jié
4th down: dì sì jié
Ugh. I couldn't watch it here in HK. It's was on, but on one of the more expensive channels.
ps
probably was on regular tv but missed it.
Go Saints! What a turn-around for that team and more importantly that city.
Regarding the Expansion Sentence:
在决赛中，他发挥得很好。 (Zài juésài zhōng, tā fāhuī de hĕn hăo.) During the match today, he played to his potential well.
None of the dictionaries I've looked at describe 发挥 (fāhuī) as anything like 'play to potential'. Can anyone suggest a good meaning for this word, as it relates to this sentence.
Just to get the ball rolling with an answer ,I wouldn't take it from what you have above that 发挥 means "play to potential" on it's own.But one meaning of it is "to bring out implicit or innate qualities",so I think this meaning combined with “很好” would give us the equivalent of "playing to potential".Just my 2 fen mate. :)
Well, if that is a meaning for 发挥, then it certainly would mean 'play to potential'. What dictionary did you find this in, baba?
go_manly,
..just used my mandarin popup rollover mate
ps just checked and mdbg also has it [it often seems the same as the popup...I'm not sure if they're connected or not]
I keep forgetting I have Perapera-kun. I'll try to use it more in the future.