User Comments - and0709

Posted on: Asking for a Raise

This is so typical of a Chinese conversation. When the guy "asks" his boss, "Will the company give everyone a raise?", the answer is, "Yes, we will. We'll consider it." Kind of contradictory, dui bu dui? Either they will give everyone a raise, or they will consider it. We've all been there. Gotta love the authenticity of the content 

Posted on: Chinese Idol

The question of butong and bu yiyang: Perhaps they could best be translated as "different" and "not the same". In English, these are also quite interchangeable.

Posted on: The Magic Word 把

Just discovered this Qing Wen about ba. Actually, I usually explain this to fellow foreigners as "the" which introduces a noun. For example, ta ba shu fang zai zhuozi shang, which translated says, he the book put on table. In fact, most clues on grammar can be found by listening to Chinese speaking english at beginner level. Quite often you'll hear the two nouns joined by "the" or, as we've just discovered, ba. 

Posted on: Outrageous Power Bill

Messrs changye and calkins - my understaning of zheme and name is kind of like "this is so" and "that is so".

Anyone care to comment?

Posted on: Regional Accents Part II

Once you think you've mastered Mandarin, come to Guangdong Province and find out how little you really know. And I'm not talking about trying to understand Cantonese either. When the locals here speak Mandarin and say things like, "Wo si zong guo yen" or "Jintian de tianqi hao ye", or perhaps you could try to decipher "si si si" from "si si si", where one is fourteen and the other is forty four. Maybe a lesson on Guangdong's version of Mandarin would be useful.

Posted on: Regional Accents Part I

And then, of course, there are our Guangdong friends with their Zhong guo "yen" and wai guo "yen". And in Hunan, they will tell you they are from Fulan. Took me a long time to find that one on the map!