User Comments - bento
bento
Posted on: Speaking and Writing
October 13, 2007 at 5:37 AMfunny joke, does it change when told by foreigners or Chinese? I guess Chinese people wouldn't state their writing system hàn zì in the question, they know what their language is. So, is it correct to ask a Chinese "ni3 hui4 xie3 ma?", or do I have to add the han4 zi4 before the ma?
Posted on: Table Manners and Tipping
October 13, 2007 at 1:04 AMhi Amber why ins't the DA available for download? I enjoy the show, but I can't circumvent the censorship unless by downloading. I would also like if I could bookmark this lesson.
Posted on: Wang Wei's Diary: Food and Girls
October 6, 2007 at 12:48 AMdoes anyone remember a nineties sitcom called Parker Lewis Can't Loose? There was one nerdy character called Jerry Steiner, who always had some useful object in his trench coat pocket. I cannot think of any other character Wang Wei could be based upon. I can imagine Jerry keeping a diary, he was addicted to electronic games and spoke German. He was very analytical, the kind of guy that observes some girl's cloths. http://www.geocities.com/santodomingohigh/mugs/jerrymug.jpg. a question on collocation: You translated "Wo yızhı kan ta" as "I’m always looking at her", but that does not seem natural in English to me. Of course this is the point of view of a "English as second language person". Translated this way this sentence sounds "obsessive", like that Michael Douglas - Glenn Close movie. Does this sentence have approximately the same meaning as "I can't take my eyes off of her"? another question, would a Chinese write right to left (the Hebrew way) and then top to bottom as is implied by the lesson picture?
Posted on: What's tomorrow?
September 16, 2007 at 3:26 AMthis introduction applies so well to me. I'm going to the forest, no TV, no Internet, no papers, only Ken, Jenny, birds and monkeys off-setting the muteness of the trees. I hope to loose track of time! I'm amazed how much Chinese and Portuguese share some similarities. "Tea" for instance, is spelled the same way in pinyin and Portuguese. Now the weekdays denominations, we also use numbers to name the days. Do you never associate the moon, planets or pagan deities with the weekdays, as in the western tradition?
Posted on: Election Candidates
September 7, 2007 at 9:18 PMHi Henning I remember I discussion I had in Germany with a friend who followed latin. He wandered which gender was to be chosen for "nutella", which is a italian brand name. He said nutella should be "die Nutella (fem.)", because that's the logical gender by the latin rules, which sometimes german borrows.
Posted on: Extreme Tourism
September 7, 2007 at 9:07 PMHenning I don't remember hearing the word Spelunke when I lived in Germany, by the city of Köln. Is this word more common in southern germany dialects? It is interesting that "espelunca" in portuguese has almost the same meaning as in german. I like the english lessons I get here in Cpod too, today I also got a german lesson!
Posted on: Confession of Love
July 12, 2007 at 6:56 PMorkelm, your guess is right, but apparently people there use this expression to say "I love you". It's like spanish speaking people saying "te quiero".
Posted on: Confession of Love
July 9, 2007 at 2:51 AMken i just remembered this. an old girlfriend taught me how to say "i love you" in her native language, which uses more than three words. They say: "Mi é dodo na bo". Six syllables, very untelegraphic. Her language is the crioulo of Guinea Bissau, only a million people speak it. user26513 the brazilian portuguese "te amo" is also two syllables long. Portuguese people otherwise say amo-te, which is a three syllable.
Posted on: Studying Japanese
July 3, 2007 at 4:45 AMI'm too newbie to understand this lesson, but I enjoyed the comments. They make me see how great this community is, how poddies share common ideals of mutual understanding, prejudice-free world-views, anti-racism, etc. Those ideals are, sadly, extremely scarce in the web. about Japanese people. Brazil has a large and ancient Japanese community. So common Brazilians have a long and peaceful contact to Japanese culture, what must occur in other countries in the Americas that have large Japanese communities, like the US, Canada and Peru. Up until now I've enjoed Japanese culture rather than Chinese, cause their immigration to Brazil started just recently. My interest in chinese culture increased greatly, however, thanks to CPod. One way i enjoyed getting to know Japanese culture was reading Eiji Yoshikawa's famous novel "Musashi". One of the things that amazed me was the authors anti-expansionism. He wrote a novel which condemned Japan's 16th century invasion in Korea, revered Chinese culture as almost superior to Japanese and clearly more civilized than other cited nations. He described the Portuguese and Spaniards as barbarians. All this opposed Japanese foreign police of the author's time, when they waged war against Manchuria, Korea and other nations, if I'm not wrong, I'm not a schooled historian. I think there might be understanding and peace among China, Japan and other Asian countries.
Posted on: Speaking and Writing
October 13, 2007 at 11:07 PM@Kyle Suppose a boss wants to hire a new secretary, how does he ask the applicants if they are literate? Literacy rates in china reach 90%, it is not to difficult to find a Chinese who doesn't write, and therefore unfit for some job. @destiny you're scaring us newbies out! thank you for the translation, but lee7777777 got the wrong idea from this lesson, which was a relatively easy one. could you add pinyin to your next comments, please? "Wǒ cāi Zhōng rén bù huì shuō tā men xǐe de hàn zì yǒu wèn tí de, tā men zhī dào tā men de yǔ yán shì shén me. Sǔo yǐ, wèn yī ge Zhōng wén: "Nǐ huì xǐ ma?", hùo zhě wǒ kě yǐ tiān jiā "hàn zì" zài "ma?" zhī qián shì zhēn ma?" @ changye i like 篆 and 金, they're curvy and asymmetrical. they're cuter than 甲骨, but your dog prefers 骨, for sure.