User Comments - BillJefferys
BillJefferys
Posted on: Buying a Bouquet of Flowers
December 22, 2007 at 11:32 PMWikipedia has an article on tone sandhi which includes a section on tone changes involving 一 and 不. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwoyu#Tone_sandhi Check it out.
Posted on: Night Cat
December 22, 2007 at 1:52 AMA question about '哥们儿' Actually two questions. First, the '儿' seems to be a Northernism, that is, it would be heard near Beijing. Would it also be pronounced this way in Southern China? Or would it be pronounced ;'哥们' there? Second, I thought of another way of translating this, that might be appropriate in the context. The dialog discussion suggested 'dude'. Closer or more analogous might be 'bro' (African-American slang abbreviation of 'brother' but it has similar impact to the usage in the dialog). 朱勇谋
Posted on: Buying a Bouquet of Flowers
December 15, 2007 at 8:48 PMAndrewm: Both the Xinhua Zidian and the online MDBG dictionary give the tone of the character 瑰 as first (guī), not fourth as stated in the dialog. I suppose it could be neutral. Can either Ken or Jenny corroborate this? 朱勇谋
Posted on: Hold the MSG
December 10, 2007 at 1:02 AM也不要 (yě búyáo) should be 也不要 (yě búyào). Typing error. Bill
Posted on: Hold the MSG
December 10, 2007 at 12:58 AMA subtlety on tones.... The normal tone for 不 bù is fourth tone. However, if you listen carefully to the dialog, you will hear 请不要 (qǐng búyào) and 也不要 (yě búyáo) where the first word in the phrase is in third tone, and the 不要 sounds like búyào , that is, second tone - fourth tone. (Might be buyào, neutral tone - fourth tone). On the other hand, in 我不喜欢 (Wǒ bù xǐhuan) (not in the dialog, but you'll hear it elsewhere), the 不 bù will definitely be heard in fourth tone. There is a phenomenon in standard Chinese (and other tonal languages as well), where the tone of one syllable can affect the tone of another. This is known as 'tone sandhi'. The most common example in standard Chinese occurs when you have two third tones together, and the first syllable is changed to second tone. This seems to be another example of this. Comments by our experts would be appreciated. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_sandhi for information about tone sandhi. Bill
Posted on: Winter Fun
December 2, 2007 at 12:32 AMI hope that one of our native speakers will say something about this. The difference may be subtle. My sense is that "dong tian dao le" just means that the arrival of winter has been completed, that is, it is now winter but was not before. It could have been just a day or two ago, or it could have been earlier. On the other hand, "dong tian yao dao le" has for me a greater sense of immediacy. That is, the arrival of winter is imminent or has just happened. (This would make sense in the context of the dialog). This is because 'yao' seems to me to be a shortened version of 'kuai yao', which would mean "it's about to happen." I have to admit that I haven't heard the 'yao' all by itself in such sentences, so I am not sure of this. I am going by what my gut says. 朱勇谋
Posted on: Sailing
December 1, 2007 at 12:16 AMI notice that in my question I inadvertantly left of the 'you3' in my pinyin transliteration. Should be 我从来没有看过帆船比赛。 Wo3 cong2lai2 mei2you3 kan4 guo4 fan1chuan2 bi3sai4. 朱勇谋
Posted on: Sailing
December 1, 2007 at 12:14 AMI have a question about usage. The dialog has the comment 我从来没有看过帆船比赛。 Wo3 cong2lai2 mei2 kan4 guo4 fan1chuan2 bi3sai4. and response 我也没有。 Wo3 ye3 mei2 you3. My first instinct, which I can only justify because it "sounds right," would have been to say in the first sentence, 我从来没看过帆船比赛, omitting the 有 'you3'. I think this is correct Chinese. But my instinct may be wrong. If I am right, I suppose the best response to that comment should be 我也没看过。 But I am not sure about this. I'd appreciate knowing what our native Chinese speakers think about this. 朱勇谋
Posted on: Winter Fun
December 1, 2007 at 12:00 AMI have a question about vocabulary. It concerns "ice skating." Many years ago I learned 滑冰 for this, and recently noticed (my wife and I are figure skating fans) that the world grand prix China cup competition was called 中国杯世界花样滑冰大奖赛 on the big banner at the rink. The dialog gives 溜冰 with the same translation (although the MDBG dictionary doesn't recognize this combination). So my question is, is there any difference in nuance between these two ways of saying "ice skating?" Are there contexts where one would be preferred to the other? 朱勇谋
Posted on: Getting Water Delivered
January 4, 2008 at 1:35 AMThe greeting here is 喂，你好。(Wei, ni hao) When I was first learning Chinese many years ago, the telephone greeting we were taught was 喂，你那儿。 (Wei, ni nar) Is there some subtlety here, has the normal greeting changed, are both equivalent, should they be used in different circumstances, or am I missing something? 朱勇谋