User Comments - JasonSch

Posted on: Flying a Kite

Great mnemonic!

Posted on: Let's Just Be Friends

You can also think about how in this particular sentence, "我觉得我们还是做朋友比较好。" there are two different indicators of a desire to 做朋友 in contrast to something else (还是 and 比较). That 'something else' being a romantic relationship. So, in this way, it's already quite emphatic.

Interesting question/discussion!

Posted on: Visiting the Hospital with a Fever

In my experience, whenever 血 is used with food (鸭血粉丝汤, 猪血, etc) people pronounce it xuě.

As a side note: I love me some 鸭血粉丝汤！It appears to be nothing special, but it really grew on me when I lived in Nanjing.

Posted on: Flying a Kite

@go_manly: 早恋 means 'falling in love young'. We'll get the pop-up changed.

@tal: The "isn't a huge problem, but it certainly can't be ignored." comes from the 不大不小. In the other expansion sentences, 不大不小 simply means, 'just the right size', but in this context, the meaning is quite different. It means that it's not a big problem, but it's not a small one either. (The connotation being that it's big enough to require attention)

Posted on: Meeting ChinesePod's Teachers

I'm not 100% on this, but I think 三八 started to be used as 'stupid or foolish girl' because of the holiday. Like a sort of sarcastic, parody of the meaning of the day. At least that's what one Chinese person told me once!

Posted on: 望子成龙

Yeah, Changye is right. The confusion lies in the 口, which is a measure word, rather than a word as paired with 气.

争口气 doesn't specifically include the word 'pride', but 'make me proud', includes the idea of 'credit', and also it's the expression we would use in English in a similar situation.

Posted on: Man-to-Man Advice on Women

On more than one occasion, a Chinese person has told me that their parents told them they were found in the garbage! 垃圾桶! So cruel! I'd assume it's said jokingly though.

Posted on: Man-to-Man Advice on Women

Hey Laobi,

The translations at the sentence level are translated into what would be the 'English equivalent' in spoken English. However, realizing that here at Cpod, our aim is to actually learn the material, we also have the pop-up translations, which offer a direct translation of each word. This way, we can offer both the equivalent, and the direct translation.

Unfortunately, those aren't available on the PDF and are only available on the live site. Maybe we could look into including a document with all of the 'pop-up', or direct translations of each word. Would you be interested in that?

Posted on: Broken, Busted, and Smashed

When used like this (晕死我了，我晕) 晕 is used to describe a lot of things. Among them are shock, surprise, exhaustion and frustration. I think it's best to remember that it means 'to faint' and then pay attention to the situational context in which it's used, and you'll get it. Hope that helps.

Maybe a native speaker could provide some examples though.

Posted on: Hiking

驴友 is a fun word!

It pretty much means 'travel buddy', or 'traveling friend'. As you noted, the characters literally mean 'donkey friend', which has somewhat of a traveling (pack animals?) connotation, but it also sounds like 旅游 lǚyóu, or travel. So, it works on multiple levels.