User Comments - Grambers
Grambers
Posted on: Driving in China
December 9, 2011 at 1:52 PMMy earlier bit of flippancy was written before I had heard the dialogue. Now I have heard it, can I add my voice to the masses celebrating the most excellentness of Sunix's podcast 'presence'? There's such an urgency, a verve to his lines - I love it. I was reminded of my personal favourite Sunix line, from the beginning of this year. The dialogue, which involves Sunix explaining how he had a masterplan to pull a duty-free tax heist during a Hong Kong shopping trip, ends with this memorable bit of self-justification:
还不是被逼的！
The line seemed to sum so much about life in China and the way it was delivered sounded, even to my hetrosexual ear (!?!), positively 'cute'!:)
Maybe my ear is positively homosexual, I dunno.
Posted on: Lucky and Unlucky Numbers in Chinese
December 8, 2011 at 5:53 PMCan we agree that the similarity is MORE THAN 50% but considerably less than it could have been, and therefore not necessarily THE MOST likely point of comparison (though this obviously all an enormously moot point given that 八 and 发 are inextricably and eternally connected in the Chinese psyche!:))
Posted on: Lucky and Unlucky Numbers in Chinese
December 8, 2011 at 5:49 PMHmmmm...'Tis a good point, fairly made. But then, if you wanna drag me back to 33% on the basis of tone, I could say, well, then if we want to really take the 'true' Chinese form, we must consider the written character which shares....oh, bollocks, yeah, it does feature the same two strokes. OK, OK. You win.
Posted on: Lucky and Unlucky Numbers in Chinese
December 8, 2011 at 4:11 PMJust me being facetious. Though, from my peculiar POV, number 7 would seem to be a more likely contender for 'lucky number'. Its pronunciation - tones aside - is exactly that of 'qi', the vital energy/life force that is at the heart of Daoism and Tai Chi (forgive the Wade-Giles, won't you) etc.etc. You might argue 气 is pretty mutable and can mean various different things, but 发 seems to me to be even more so in this sense (one of the word's of last year for me was 发呆 - to me 'space out' which has scant to do with getting rich, right?!). But, ah, like I said, just me being facetious.
Posted on: Lucky and Unlucky Numbers in Chinese
December 8, 2011 at 4:06 PMAssuming of course you accept the premise that B is 100% different to F.
Posted on: Lucky and Unlucky Numbers in Chinese
December 8, 2011 at 4:04 PMDepends how long you sustain the 'aaaaaa' I guess. Going on the Romanized form, I think you'd have a hard time arguing with the fact that it is precisely 50%.
Posted on: Driving in China
December 8, 2011 at 1:55 PMIt's great that Chinesepod is doing its bit to uphold good old-fashioned Marxist values, fighting valliantly against the alienating effects of the division of labour and ensuring staff can try their hand at all kinds of roles so that they no longer feel likes cogs in the machine. I think the next stage should see John sent to the proverbial countryside (ie. he can clean the toilets for the week) and let the Ayi in to present.
Posted on: Lucky and Unlucky Numbers in Chinese
December 8, 2011 at 1:27 PMAm I alone in thinking that 八 doesn't sound all that much like 发? I mean, that's 50% of the word which has a completely different formation?
Posted on: Market Prices for Seafood
December 8, 2011 at 12:46 PMVery much agree with cobalt23. 'Seasonal price' I think makes things much clearer in English (as is probably a more precise translation), as 'market price' has a wider variety of resonances.
Also, the last sentence 时价嘛，就是饭店说了算 seems to be a contradiction in terms. Surely you can't on the one hand admit the invincibility of markets (时价嘛) and then say, well, the restaurant is free to charge whatever price it wants to (饭店说了算). The restaurant has to follow the 'market' price, right, which - as some very clever people discovered in 2008 - can actually go down as well as up?
Or am I reading too much into this?
Finally, in response to review11 and azotte, I'm thinking that 市场价格 is a legitimate expression (though would love confirmation of this from a native speaker).
Posted on: Driving in China
December 9, 2011 at 2:00 PMI dunnno, pretzellogic. This sounds a bit dry for a man of Sunix's verbal range. The cut of his jib is more like that of a cheeky chappy gangster. Try replacing all mentions of 'server' with 'dope', and 'network' with 'ho', and 'gig' with 'semi-automatic firearm' and see how the script runs.