User Comments - JasonSch

Posted on: Thank You Note

@joeborn

Good catch. There's a few interesting issues here.

The verb 帮 is generally translated as 'to help', but it can actually mean both, 'to assist' and also 'to do something for someone'.

If the sentence,

非常非常感谢你帮我准备生日派对

ended there, it might not be clear if the writer was 'assisted' in planing/preparing a party or if the party was prepared 'for' the writer.

Given the rest of the sentence and the letter,

非常非常感谢你帮我准备生日派对，我太感动 了。这是我最难忘最开心的一个生日。

it's safe to assume that the author is thanking the Zhenzhen for 'doing something for the writer'.

Another (quite simple) example of this would be

‘帮我开灯’

But sometimes, it's not so clear. For example:

‘谢谢你帮我做饭了’

could mean either, 'Thanks for helping me make dinner' or 'Thanks for cooking dinner for me' depending on the context.

Lastly, the 准备 issue.

Although in English we do say 'to plan a party', the verb that most directly translates to 'to plan' would be 

计划

and you can't say 计划派对

But, you can say, 安排派对 or 准备派对. Both of which could be translated as 'to plan', but more specifically 'to arrange' and 'to prepare', respectively.

But, in spoken English, I don't think 'prepare a birthday party' is as natural as 'to plan' or 'to put together'.

In the podcast, John was sticking to the literal translation for clarity's sake. Given that at this level, it may be a bit confusing to learn that 帮 and 准备 don't always translate so nicely.

Anyway, hope all that helps!

Posted on: 扎着麻花辫的女孩二

@changye

This:

A good conscience is a soft pillow.

I've never actually heard that expression before, but it seems to fit quite well! Especially because it includes both the idea of 'unconscionable acts' (亏心事) and not being afraid or disturbed by your conscience because of avoiding them. (soft pillow / sleeping well.) Rather than simply the idea that 'actions have consequences'.

When I couldn't find a better equivalent in English, I went with what would seem appropriate in similar contexts, but had to sacrifice a bit of the literal meaning/feeling.

This one, however, seems to cover that all quite well. Thanks!

Posted on: 扎着麻花辫的女孩二

@changye

You're right in the sense that the English saying 'what goes around, comes around' can also include doing good things and thereby having good things happen to you, whereas the Chinese,不做亏心事，不怕鬼敲门 doesn't.

You could just simply translate it literally and retain the direct meaning:

"If you don't do bad things, trouble won't come knocking on your door"

Which does work, (we do say things come knocking on one's door as figure of speech as well) but it's not a set saying or expression.

"You reap what you sow"

is pretty similar as well, but also not perfect. It doesn't carry the same feeling of a 'warning' as the Chinese, but rather, an admonishing after the fact.

Posted on: Which Time Zone?

@munnin266

There are two sets of Chinese characters in use around the world: traditional and simpilified.

There's some more info at the following link:

http://chinesepod.com/learn-chinese/

Mainland China uses simplified characters, whereas Hong Kong and Taiwan (as well as the Chinese characters in Japanese) use traditional characters.

The default on the site is simplified, but you can enable traditional as well.

The simplified form of the character 東 is 东.

Hope that helps!

Posted on: Taxi to the Airport

@chiwind

The 傅 fu5 in 师傅 shi1fu5 is in fact pronounced like Jenny and John pronounce it.

It sounds like in the dialog, the speaker adds a 啊 a5 on the end of the 师傅 which is a colloquial 'ah' sound added on the end of words to make them more casual. 

But also, sometimes I think this pronunciation just gets naturally extended. Maybe a native speaker can chime in and verify which it is.

Either way, both pronunciations would be okay in a real-life situation.

Hope that helps!

Posted on: Visiting a Friend at the Hospital

I like the pun at the end of the dialog with the 重 from 保重 as 'heavy' in reference to the guy getting fatter.

A: 身体健康是最重要了。你要好好保重身体。

B: 哎哟，我都这么重了，我才不要保重呢。

Chinese is full of these!

It's a bit tricky, however, to translate these into English. Especially if you want to retain both the humor and the double-meaning. Any takers on another (maybe funnier) translation?

Posted on: Costume Ball

@changye,

Yeah, 谁 is definitely different than 给 (and others) in that sense. I guess I just always included it in my definition of 多音字 simple because it was a 字 with 多音！Ha! 

The Chinese people I've asked and the answers others have given online in 百度知道's Q&As all seem to think that it is, but you're right, they may be using a very casual definition of the word. I think this especially because a quick search for 常用多音字 doesn't seem to bring up a single 谁！And given it's commonness (esp. as shei2) you'd think it'd be listed. So, now I don't know what to think!

About the 方言 stuff: agreed!

Posted on: Costume Ball

@ changye

Interesting! I had never heard 又音 before. From what I can tell, shei2 and shui2 are the 又音s (pronunciation variants, or 异读) of the character 谁, which makes it a 多音字 regardless of retaining the same meaning. This page here:

http://baike.baidu.com/view/642394.htm

has a lot of info on the different types of 多音字. It also mentions characters with pronunciation effected by dialectal differences. (type 4)

Good stuff!

Posted on: Costume Ball

@alexyzye

Actually 谁 is a 多音字, or a character with multiple pronunciations. So, shui2 and shei2 are both okay. 

As far as I can tell from my own experience it seems as though there isn't a difference between the two. I've definitely heard shei2 much more than shui2 though. 

On a similar note and also in this lesson, the character 血 (blood) is a 多音字 as well. Dictionary-wise, the two pronunciations are xie3 and xue4, but the thing is, Chinese people often also pronounce it xue3! 

Ah...多音字

Posted on: Anybody home?

@orangina:

 牛 has come to be an adjective meaning, 'cool', 'awesome' or maybe also, 'bada**' in recent popular slang. For example,

太牛了！

好牛啊！

他很牛！

It comes from the two-character, 牛B (niu2 bi1), the second character is quite vulgar, however, and so many people often replace it with the English letter 'B'. You'll hear this often as well, but it's definitely a bit rougher than simply 牛.

As to how this word came to mean this, I'm not so sure. Most Chinese people I've asked also don't even seem to know!