User Comments - JasonSch

Posted on: Blown Fuse

Yeah, I definitely 'budgeted' the first year or so I was here. (read: worked as little as possible!) The apartments themselves weren't bad, actually, but the buildings? That's another story. I think it was worth it though. Not only were my neighborhoods really interesting, but I had much more time to explore and learn Chinese. A great introduction to life in China.

Posted on: Blown Fuse

I've actually lived in two buildings here in China that still used fuses/fuseboxes. (Shanghai, Nanjing) So they are still in use. Not sure about how old they were exactly, but they were certainly older by Chinese standards.

I grew up in a house that was over 100 years old in the U.S. And that was in the 80's. Great house. :)

Posted on: Blown Fuse

Hey pretzellogic,

This lesson specifically discusses fuses. A fuse box is a 保险丝盒 and a circuit breaker is a, 断路器.

So, if you want to say 'the circuit breaker tripped', you could say 断路器断开了.

Posted on: Blown Fuse

circuit breaker = 断路器

(Fuses are still pretty common in older Chinese buildings.)

Posted on: Hungry Traveler: Yunnan

Did that happen to be at 云南味道？(One next to the stadium entrance on 广州路 and one in 1912) Great restaurant.

Posted on: Hungry Traveler: Yunnan

Woops, I knew that! Thus the reference to 'rice-noodle variety of dishes'. Slip of the mind.

Posted on: Mother's Day

No problem. Oh, and thanks to Barbs as well! I guess I hadn't read the comments clearly enough before I posted.

As for the tone sandhi, phonologically the sentence would be split up like this:

辛苦 xīnkǔ / 你了 nǐle

So here, kǔ remains, kǔ.

Posted on: Hungry Traveler: Yunnan

I went to 云南 (yǔnnán) around Chinese New Year this year. I really enjoyed myself. 昆明 (kūnmíng) was a very pleasant place. We have some poddies in 昆明, no? The other big highlight for me was 虎跳峡 (hǔtiàoxiá), or Tiger Leaping Gorge.

Food-wise, I've always loved 桂林米粉 (guìlínmǐfěn) and as far the rice-noodle variety of dishes goes, 过桥面 (guòqiáomiàn) has definitely been my favorite so far.

Posted on: Mother's Day

Woops, sorry about the typo and thanks for pointing it out.

辛苦你了 is one of those expressions that doesn't always directly translate well into English. So, like you said, it's all about the context.

Here, 辛苦你了 is like a set-phrase that expresses gratitude. It may carry a bit of a feeling of 'troubling the other person', but as much so, it's about recognizing their efforts. (I think, 'thanks for all your hard work', would work just fine here as well)

Also, 辛苦你了can be used simply as a sincere 'thank you', to anyone who's done something for you. (a service worker, a teacher, etc)

Hope that helps clear things up. :)

Posted on: Working at the United Nations

Hi ides,

牛 can be translated a number of ways. 'Cool', 'badass', 'impressive', 'powerful' and 'tough' are all possible depending on the context. In the dialog, this 牛 is a way of describing the 常任理事国的代表 as having an authoritative, powerful or imposing air in the workplace. So, 'tough' here isn't only 'difficult', but also something like 'uncompromising', which could also be interpreted as positive.