User Comments - JasonSch
JasonSch
Posted on: Giving up a Seat on the Bus
April 7, 2010 at 11:16 PMYeah. I'm not sure if it's becoming common in other English speaking countries, but in American English, it certainly is. (For example, I would expect an answer to 'How many beers are left?', to be 'There's 2 more' before it would, 'There are 2 more') But! This is a habit, not a rule, and as you say, technically incorrect. :S
Posted on: Getting Nationalities Straight
April 2, 2010 at 4:44 AMWoops! Thanks for that. I suppose I don't think in pinyin enough these days...
Posted on: Monopoly, Uno, or Twister?
April 2, 2010 at 2:23 AMSome of my personal favorites from this lesson:
玩腻
吹牛
and of course, 扭屁股
:)
Posted on: Getting Nationalities Straight
April 1, 2010 at 10:40 PMYeah, xiao_liang is right.
You can put 人 rén, on the end of a country's name to describe a person from that place, and 我是 wǒ shì, means, 'I am'. A few more nationalities:
爱尔兰人 àiěrlán rén Irish
中国人 zhōngguó rén Chinese
英国人 yīngguó rén English
日本人 èrběn rén Japanese
Posted on: New Clothes
March 31, 2010 at 4:56 AMI'd say 人好 is closer to 'good person' or, 'good character', rather than 'good personality' specifically. That being said, it is a pretty general description and maybe implies a good personality somewhat as well.
Posted on: Mild Swearing
March 30, 2010 at 8:25 AMHi go_manly,
For this 就, you can think of the 'whenever' as being the equivalent in English. I also think it helps to think of it as a 'whenever - just'. Then also indicating a lack of reasoning on his behalf. (Whenever he's in a bad mood he just yells at people for no reason.)
As for 小生, it should be understood in connection with 奶油 as a single phrase. 小生 is only used to refer to young male opera actors and as a nickname young students (小[学]生) use to refer to themselves.
奶油小生, on the other hand, refers to a not very masculine, but effeminate and 'pretty' young opera actor/man. (The term was originally used to describe these opera actors, but it's now a more general term) So, yeah: pretty boy is right on the mark!
Posted on: How is this sold?
March 30, 2010 at 8:01 AMNo prob.
Whenever you see 二 it's always pronounced èr. Only when the word/character is substituted with 两 does the pronunciation change (b/c the word/character did) to liǎng. This substitution usually happens when counting things, (like above) but doesn't when counting 两s. (二两)
Posted on: How is this sold?
March 30, 2010 at 12:02 AMHi xiao_liang,
When 两 is used as a measure word (一两，二两，三两) it means the unit of measurement of about 50 grams.
Otherwise, it's used as a number (2) and requires a measure word itself. (两个人，两辆车，两只狗，两棵树)
Hope that helps!
Posted on: Warcraft in China
March 29, 2010 at 4:02 PMHi Henning,
Good question!
当机 means for a server, or some kind of service which requires a connection, to be 'down', whereas 死机 means to 'crash'. （a server, service, or a computer itself)
So, for example, when Warcraft became no longer available in China, the servers were 当机, but had not necessarily 死机了.
Interestingly, the 当 in 当机 seems to have come from the English, 'down', which explains the meaning as well as the pronunciation.
Posted on: Back to Basics: Making People Plural with 们 (men)
April 7, 2010 at 11:26 PMHey, Siteng,
Just stepping into the conversation, but I just Googled 您們 and most of the results are questions/discussions on whether or not 您們 can be used. I'm on my way out the door right now, but it looks like it's actually not proper (and may have something to do with 您 meaning 你們 in the past), but many people, including some news broadcasts, still mistakenly use 您們. Maybe a more definitive source can comment though.