User Comments - PeonyM

Posted on: Do you drink hot water? 你今天喝热开水了吗？

Thanks for the comment! So most foreigners just drink 凉水 or even 冰水, sometimes sparkling water (苏打水 or 气泡水). In some countries, we can directly drink tap water (自来水).

Posted on: An ad for a holiday in Tibet 西藏旅游广告

I'd like to travel to Tibet again! I visited the breathtaking Namtso Lake in Tibet when I was in primary school. I came back and wrote a short essay saying that "那里是神仙住的地方".

Posted on: 京都动画作品毁于一旦；电影《小Q》呼吁社会增加导盲犬认知

Thanks for your feedback! Apologies for my pronunciations, still cannot distinguish front and back nasals from time to time. 

Posted on: Summer Poem 夏日荷花—小池

Hi, Aileen 12, as learners we think it’s necessary to be exposed to different formats. This time we chose poems which are taught in school as native speakers. So we know it’ll benefit you in your language learning. We’ll certainly also have Chinese history, famous persons in future lessons.

Thanks for your suggestion!

Posted on: Mobile payments in China 移动支付遍布中国

They are very similar, but not exactly the same. 

“幸好” can be translated as "fortunately", to describe a favorable condition. 

"幸亏" can be translated as "luckily or thanks to".  我饱餐一顿后发现居然没有带钱包，幸亏你来救急，不然我可就惨啦.

Posted on: Dining preferences-what’s yours? 餐桌争辩—什么才是你的菜

Actually, I'm not very sure about how to translate it. 冷冷清清 could describe the place or the person's feeling, or even both. 

Haha, that could be a cultural difference. Speaking of loneliness, I learned from Zhihu, a Chinese question forum, that the loneliest thing in the world is to eat hotpot alone! 

Posted on: Emojis 脑洞大开—表情包

Thank you for the comment!

You're right, 客户 often pay for a service, whilst 用户 (users) is more appropriate in this context. 

"不太和群众相接触" is actually directly referring to "群众欢乐的源泉". But of course, “不够接地气” is a more colloquial way of saying it! The antonym of “接地气” is "不食人间烟火". 

Thanks for the elaboration on “猥琐”! Here in the conversation, it's probably just referring to the weird and wretched emojis that are beyond the guy's understanding!   

Posted on: Dining preferences-what’s yours? 餐桌争辩—什么才是你的菜

Thank you for your question! I think your confusion reflects the dispute of the two people in the conversation!

First, the explanation of 上次去吃自助餐，冷冷清清的. Obviously, the person prefers table meals to the buffet. When eating at a buffet, you go to get the food yourself and return to eat, instead of a group of people discussing and ordering food together from the menu. So it could be a "lonely" experience for someone who's used to table meals. Also, another association I make with the word 冷冷清清 is that there could be some cold dishes served in the buffet that makes one feels cold. In some Chinese traditional dinner tables, they prefer every main course to be hot, so that it's fresh and tasty! 

This sentence just reveals some people's prejudice toward buffet, but it doesn't represent all of us. In ancient China, beggers queue up with empty bowls to get food. But nowadays, the way we order and eat food has certainly changed. 

Posted on: How thin is too thin? 适可而止──老人养生别太瘦

"牙不好" 和 "牙口不好" 的意思和用法非常相似，都是形容牙齿健康状况的。

我能想到的不同点是，"牙口好不好"一般用来形容老年人，因为老人常常会牙齿松动，就有很多东西不能吃、或者不方便吃，一个老人"牙口好"是健康与长寿的标志呢。

而牙好不好则可以用来形容各个年龄段的人，可以是有蛀牙的小孩子，经常牙疼的中年人，也可以是老人。

Posted on: Are reserved seats REALLY reserved? 坐立不安──高铁霸坐

Haha, thanks for the question! 

"倒车" has two different meanings. When it's pronounced as dao4che1, it means to reverse the car. When it's pronounced as dao3che1, it means to interchange from one line to another in public transportations. 

"倒" is a very interesting but complex word, check the lesson "你倒是试试" to learn more about its different usages.