User Comments - akalovid
akalovid
Posted on: Can You Lend Me Money?
July 26, 2012 at 10:48 AMAlways good to hear from a native speaker. And then some people dare say Chinese grammar is easy ... :( :)
Posted on: Addressing Women
July 25, 2012 at 8:54 PMThanks, I appreciate. I think I will attempt it IF people start throwing 帅哥's my way :) Do men as well say 帅哥 to other men?!
Posted on: Can You Lend Me Money?
July 25, 2012 at 5:36 PMAlthough I'm newbie, I'm pretty sure there isn't. My book states that when you have the pattern 'zai4...li3', 'zai4...shang4', or other 'zai4...location word', then 'zai4' can be omitted if it is in the beginning of the sentence. There are exceptions: geographical names must be preceded by 'zai4' and cannot be followed by 'li3' and such words.
As far as I understand, when 'zai4' is used in temporal function, it is always optional
Posted on: Does He Have Children?
July 21, 2012 at 5:07 PMYou can of course do so, but I have observed many times that Chinese people will pronounce the 儿 if they do so in their normal speech, whether it is written or not.
Posted on: Which City Do You Like?
July 19, 2012 at 6:18 PMI am wondering the same thing. I GUESS the difference is the following:
Wǒ zài túshūguǎn xuéxi hànyǔ.
I am learning Chinese in the library. The location is of secondary importance only
Wǒ zhù zài Běijīng
I live in Beijing (in contradiction to Shanghai). The location is the main info and the alternative emphasized before.
I would appreciate if someone who really knows would enlighten us both with a few examples!
Posted on: Addressing Women
July 17, 2012 at 3:21 PMThank you both! It seems that this is all very circumstance dependent... I take it that there is no safer alternative, otherwise someone would have mentioned.
Posted on: Addressing Women
July 16, 2012 at 4:37 PMSo the only term given as a direct adress for young women is xiǎojie. Right?
My teacher recently mentioned that it has become unpopular in parts of China, being increasingly assosciated with working girls. She said that "měinü3" becomes popular. Does anyone have experience with that? Is this not likely to be misunderstood? I would think that the surest way to come off as a creepy guy who tries to harass a girl would be to call her "beauty" at first glance.
What do the CPod ladies think of being adressed as "měinü3" by a stranger?
Posted on: The Glorious 了(le): Part 2
April 30, 2012 at 1:59 PMOr "Crazy little thing called 了". I can hear this one becoming a song :-D
Posted on: Making Introductions
April 9, 2012 at 5:09 PMHi, giu,
I am a newbie myself, but if you were expecting the particle ma, I have only heard it in yes/no questions. So it should be ok to say:
Nín guìxìng?
What is your name?
Wǒ jiào Wáng.
My name's Wang.
Ní shì lǎoshī ma?
Are you a teacher?
Now I start GUESSING:
I think grammatically - never heard it - you can expand the sentence to:
Nín guìxìng shì shénme?
What's your name.
So the question is in the - implied and omitted- shénme.
I have a slight doubt about the expanded sentence, because I am unsure whether for a Chinese it is more natural when asking to think of guìxìng as noun or verb (my dictionary says it can be both).
Posted on: Paying the Bill
August 2, 2012 at 5:38 PMToday I had a very nice lunch with Chinese friends and managed to pay the bill using Qǐng mǎi dān. Naturally I had to pay in a moment where my Chinese friends' attention was occupied. Still I am very proud :)