User Comments - Grambers

Posted on: Organic Food

In the expansion sentences, the roll-over info on 买得起 (in the 吃不起 section) has it meaning 'Can't afford to buy'. This should be the opposite, should it not?

Posted on: Yellow Mountain

What's the difference between 迎接 and 欢迎? Is it the case that the first is a verb and the second a noun? If so, where does that leave the classic 欢迎你们来到[...什么什么国家]? If both are verbs of sort, when should we use 欢迎 and when 迎接? 

Posted on: An Unplanned Tan

Great. Thanks so much. This is really helpful!

Posted on: An Unplanned Tan

Can anybody explain the positioning of the 了 in the following two sentences from the expansion dialogues:

对不起，我忘了带书。

你带伞了吗？

Specifically, why in the first the 了 follows the verb, and why it only comes after the noun in the second? Is this convention, or is there a technical linguistic reason for this? Could I not say, "我忘带书了" or even "我忘带了书"?

Posted on: A Tour of Xi'an

I think it's "zǎ", not "zuó". I've just looked up the word, and it's an adverb which translates as "how". So the translation would probably go something like, "No matter how you say it, I'm not going out", or a more creative translation which retains the original 气势 (is that correct usage - I've only just learnt that words from the 'Chinese Traditional Painting' lesson???), might be something like "You can speak to me in whatever way you like, I'm not moving!".

All that said, I have to confess that I didn't know the word zǎ until about two minutes ago, so I could have this completely wrong!