User Comments - Tal
Tal
Posted on: Taking it all off
February 23, 2009 at 1:20 AMHey bababardwan, thanks for the help with the pic! I'll try your method next time! (Actually I tried like 2 or 3 urls offered by the file hoster, put in the dimensions etc, but still didn't get there!)
Now if you can just tell me how to post hot links too, you'll make me so happy... lol ;-)
Posted on: Taking it all off
February 22, 2009 at 2:34 PMsuxiaoya says "Here, 脱掉 (tuo1 diao4) rather than just 脱 is used. This is to emphasise the item is completely removed, no?"
Indeed suxiaoya, 掉 (diào) is often used after a verb, as a complement to mean 'finish [doing...]'
e.g. chīdiao 吃掉 = eat up
水果都吃掉了。Shuǐguǒ dōu chīdiao le. The fruit is all eaten up.
màidiao 卖掉 = sell out
那些书还没有卖掉。 Nà xiē shū hái méiyǒu màidiao. Those books aren't sold out yet.
Posted on: Taking it all off
February 22, 2009 at 2:16 PMhttp://img140.imageshack.us/my.php?image=wenlin.jpg
changye, I'm confident yours is bigger than mine - lol. Anyway it's a pity you didn't mean that, I thought it was really droll in that context!
PS, I was trying to post a picture at the beginning there, but cannot figure out how to do that here! Basically the link shows that Wenlin uses the quite widely used (and not I think especially arcane ABC Chinese English Dictionary, also used in Pleco.)
Posted on: Taking it all off
February 22, 2009 at 11:59 AMOne definition for 出口 (according to Wenlin) is: go to the regions north of Kalgan or north of the Great Wall !
Posted on: Taking it all off
February 22, 2009 at 11:50 AMchangye
It's hard to express a bow in a text message, but I do so to you. "Even Homer nods." ;-)
Yes, actually I loved that TV show which was shown in England when I was quite a small boy. It was my first exposure to the characters and stories from 西游记 (The Journey to the West) and I still recall it with great fondness.
By the way I liked the way you said to Jenny (with your usual style!): 不好意思说出口..., which I take to mean something like: sorry to speak of going north of the Great Wall...
Posted on: Taking it all off
February 22, 2009 at 10:54 AM她穿着一件牛仔裤
changye, a small point perhaps, but shouldn't one say 一条牛仔裤?
Posted on: Lao Wang's Office 8: Trimming the Fat at the Office
February 22, 2009 at 1:47 AMbababardwan
great stuff! :-D
Posted on: Evading Nosy Questions
February 22, 2009 at 1:35 AMIt could be argued I suppose that the reluctance to discuss or reveal what one earns is actually a kind of modesty, a wish not to appear smug and uncaring, a desire to 'save the face' of the other person(s). (Of course resisting the desire to press someone else on the matter, someone who you can be pretty sure is getting more than you, is saving your face as well as theirs!)
That's an interesting point that sushan makes, but I rather feel that it's a kind of excuse! (请多多包涵!) It may sometimes be the case, but generally I feel it is just unrestrained curiosity that makes Chinese people so keen to ask this question. I'm happy to tell people about my job, my students, how hard they work, how happy I am to see them learn and grow, and the admiration and approval I see in their eyes at such moments does I think give me 'face', and I like it. But when taxi drivers (for example), refuse to give up until they have an exact figure for my salary, and then quite clearly feel bad about what they've learned, (even when I've deducted a 千 or two from the real amount!), I don't feel anyone has gained face, least of all me!
Posted on: Evading Nosy Questions
February 21, 2009 at 4:06 AMIn my opinion, one reason why westerners prefer not to talk about how much they (or another person) earns, is to do with not wanting to be envied, or indeed not wanting to have to suppress envy in themselves. Maybe this is tied up with western concepts of politeness, and how offending against such concepts can be considered 'vulgar' and marks one out as being unsopisticated, (很土).
I myself am a 老外, teaching in China for a pretty modest sum (by western standards). But I am sometimes painfully aware that I am earning a lot more than local people, most of whom work much harder than me, and whose lives in comparison to mine are much harder.
Of course I am constantly asked this question by taxi drivers, and for a long time would pretend my Chinese was not good enough to answer them or some other such ploy, but there are many who will simply refuse to accept this, and will continue badgering for an answer. One day with one such pesterer I simply told him how much. There was a longish pause, and then he spat noisily out of the window, ( a gesture which I know does not necessarily have the same connotations as it might do in the west, and yet I could not help feeling that under the circumstances it was a sincere expression of angst!)
There have been numerous other occasions when being even partly truthful seems to leave Chinese men crestfallen, and I now routinely lie when pestered about this.
I in turn do not really want to learn that another 老外 with a PhD is getting paid twice (or more) what I earn just because of their paper qualification, (especially when I usually also feel that their work experience and general efforts are less than mine!)
Posted on: Being Vague: 大概 (dàgài), 左右 (zuǒyòu), 上下 (shàngxià)
February 23, 2009 at 1:33 AMMaybe so, but I sure miss Amber's.