User Comments - barto

Posted on: 中国崛起

愛國主義是一種又可怕又殘忍的東西。

龍應台曾經說過，爲什麽大家都要作一個”堂堂正正的中國人？“難道不能做一個堂堂正正的人？

Posted on: 北京人上海人眼中的中国地图

http://140.111.34.46/newDict/dict/index.html

這是我最喜歡的辭典，如果你們要查一個字“臺灣囯語”裏有什麽音，可以在這兒看看。不過他們的拼音有點怪。

Posted on: 北京人上海人眼中的中国地图

据我所知，大部分的臺灣人不會說han4,

我已經在臺北呆了兩年，而只能想起來兩三次聽到人說han4.

Posted on: 北京人上海人眼中的中国地图

東北的女生比較漂亮，東北人比較客氣

（我個人的偏見！）

臺灣人太愛可愛，比較像日本人，漸漸地已經不像大陸人了。

Posted on: Farewell, Son 游子吟

http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=fSqDIMZOZWA

have you heard this one, Changye? The singer took the lyrics from 李清昭。

Posted on: Farewell, Son 游子吟

@sushan

詞　are lyrics, they're meant to be recited with music.

That's why a lot of them have the same name, and in English are usually translated as "To the tune of XXX."

@Raspa

Don't study the actual characters, study the context. The characters will change in meaning depending on the context...

學而時習之，不亦說乎？（它）

子曰：“道千乘之國：敬事而信，節用而愛人，使民以時。”（的）

荊軻之秦　（ｗａｌｋ）

之　is impossible to memorize as a "word," I suggest "learning the context." Then you can understand this:

夫子之求之也

and not get confused by a memorized definition.

Posted on: Farewell, Son 游子吟

 @Changye,

Thanks for the 古音

@Pete,

Nice job, Pete. I enjoyed listening.  One thing though, I think you forgot to mention one of the best parts of the poem, namely, the parallelism in the poem. Changye mentioned 密密/迟迟, but it goes a lot further than that in the poem.

慈母手中线，

游子身上衣。

慈母/游子 手中/身上  中线/上衣

And so on

Poets sometimes matched grammatical structures and units in order to create this kind of effect. Noun to noun, etc. In more subtle cases, the only relation in the parallel structure of two lines might be the radicals the characters share...Interestingly, this effect also shows up in wenyan prose, as well.

As an aside, I just thought I'd share one of the ways I think we can all appreciate Chinese poetry. That is, to do as the Chinese did and memorize the poem, or at least a few good lines from it. Once you encounter a similiar situation, image, or feeling that brings the particular poem or line to mind, you can connect the two in a very fulfilling way. The ancient Chinese believed that, if something someone says reflects what's in your heart, STEAL IT!^_O

(PS, I vote for some 曹子 poetry, but that might be a little bit early, historically speaking)

Posted on: Guided Plan Gets Better! Plus: Poetry is Pending

@pete,

I know, but I was saying that the majority of 成語 are not allusions, and generally have no specific story attached to them in the minds of native speakers. They usually do bring to mind a specific incident to a scholar, but not to the average 老百姓 (as I delightfully discovered when given the chance to explain the origin of 分我一杯羹!) These words will, I'm 100% sure, continue to be used. So, I wasn't disagreeing with you about the more obscure and useless ones slowly fading away, just pointing out that the majority of 成語/四字詞組 are here to stay.

@Tvan

A 文言 peg in a 白話 hole would be exactly what Pete is going to do here, perhaps you meant it the other way around. ^_^

But frankly, poetry is based on meter, and the ability to appreciate Chinese poetry the way it was meant to be is dependant on that. You might think it's elitist, but it's the truth. I don't doubt what Pete is going to do will be able to provide a great deal of interesting insight and information, but such a program is, by its very nature, limited in what it can do. If Pete's just trying to get everyone interested, I think that's great, but what would be useful and interesting for me is the more academic approach. If my desire to see content I enjoy in my subscription is "elitist," well, okay!

But anyway, don't you think it's a little strange to be nitpicking whether one's opinion over something that was only written and appreciated by the elite of the elite in Ancient China is elitist or not is a little...silly? Everyone's already learned enough Chinese here to make the attempt to learn Chinese poetry, I don't think it's akin to studying Homer in the original Greek. It's just a matter of making the effort.

Anyway, that's the last I'm going to say about poetry on Chinesepod; I hope Pete inspires everyone to open a book and make an effort to appreciate and understand Chinese poetry more.

Posted on: Guided Plan Gets Better! Plus: Poetry is Pending

Pete,

I think you're underestimating the phological tendency of Mandarin speakers to use 2/4 syallable configurations in writing. In formal writing, getting even numbers of syllables, but especially four, is still highly admired. While the obscure and not-often-used aphorisms may or may not disappear, the tendency to use/speak 2/4 combinations is not going to go away without some significant changes in the phonological system. The vast majority of 成語 a foreigner might encounter at first are of the story variety, but these are also the least often used statements. There are thousands of 成語 to describe thousands of situations and emotions, and the vast majority of them are transparent in meaning to a literate Chinese speaker who hasn't encountered them before.

As long as there's a large fanbase of people in China who like 三國演義，孫子兵法，唐詩三百首, these kind of expressions will definitely live on. And even if they don't, new four-character expressions will definitely make their way into the language, one way or another. It's also possible Chinese is looking at a major linguistic evolution in the near future, but I wouldn't think that's worth betting over.

Posted on: Guided Plan Gets Better! Plus: Poetry is Pending

Changye,

I disagree about the importance of the 入聲. While it might not always be used for rhymes, (although it often is) knowing which sounds are 入聲 is the key to knowing what 平仄 schema is being used， ie what sounds are 平 and what sounds are 仄. Problems with 平仄 for modern day students are rooted in 入聲. 台大大學部的學生 spend many tedious hours memorizing 平仄 charts. Unless, that is, they know Hokkien, Hakka, or Cantonese well enough to play it by ear! I believe the issue of the now missing ptk endings is a real problem in the appreciation of poetry by "northerners." My 導師 has encouraged me and other students to put serious time into learning Taiwanese if we want to really appreciate 詩詞。In Mandarin, classical Chinese poetry simply doesn't have the musical qualities of language that were prized by its original creators. It sounds okay, but not fantastic. Some things like the 詩經 and 楚辭 suffer very much from being read aloud in Mandarin。

I suppose it's all rather snobby and bookish, but that's exactly what the tradition is: snobby and bookish.