User Comments - bodawei

Posted on: You Smell Terrible!

每天 is clinically correct but 天天 is more poetic ...

好好学习天天向上

The Chinese apparently love this kind of repetition. Me too.

Posted on: What Does This Word Mean?

Valuable expansion Tal, thanks. I endorse your view that they are all worth listening to.

读书 dúshū is another verb which means both read a book and attend school.

Curious that we don't have this blurring of meaning in English. At one stage I thought that 读 implied reading aloud (it was one of the first words I heard in Chinese, in a Chinese class, and in that context I was being instructed to read aloud) but now I am not so sure.

Posted on: Addressing Women

My answer won't be definitive, but Jenny has already pointed out that 阿姨 can start after 25 (my daughter's experience was that it started about when she turned 30) but obviously it depends on who is addressing whom. A sweet young child may speak to an 18 year old and call her 阿姨 I am sure; they may be unaware of age.

奶奶 my guess starts around early to mid-50s (that was my wife's experience) but it may depend on other factors including how old the person appears.

I don't think either term is necessarily offensive; rather the reverse, very friendly.

As to why they weren't mentioned - reminds me of a post John made once of the number of terms for was it husband and wife (there could be 30 or 40 different ways of referring to your spouse, more if including all the dialects.)

In our family my wife is 阿婆 and I am 阿公 - I used to think that was regional (SW China, or RJ's bizzaro China) but a post in this thread made me realise it may occur elsewhere in China.

Posted on: Addressing Women

You can just say 'Hi!' - it is safe and common.

Posted on: Sensitive Topics

I'll file this under 'death' and hope I don't have to use it much. :)

Posted on: Sensitive Topics

whoops - sorry about that. Thanks for giving me a geographical excuse - only you would think of that. I think I might have copy and pasted someone else's mistake but that is a poor excuse.

There are so many words to keep track of: bàn (11) and rén (5); bān (8) and rèn (14). Actually the frequency of each gives a different picture; there are many 人 rén related words, and fewer 任 related words, and the former are probably more frequently used. Similarly, bàn related words are probably more frequent than bān related words.

BTW I am back in China, totally jet-lagged, maybe I can blame that. Stayed up all-night last night watching tv. (That is the wrong thing to do, right?)

Posted on: Sensitive Topics

Hi Dusan - the 班主任 would know his or her students from day 1 of first year and may follow them through their four years (assuming undergraduate at university), so they know the details. There is not much mobility in China but you may get subject teachers receiving new students at some point, or new subject teachers that need to be briefed - either scenario is feasible. But you said it involved 'new students arriving', and I am just speculating that a 班主任 is involved - it could be just one teacher passing on details to another about new students.

Posted on: Sensitive Topics

' who would this person be who has all this info about newly arrived students?'

I understand that the lesson involves discussion of sensitive student information (sorry - I am not currently subscribed), but ...

That could certainly be the 班主任 bànzhǔrén. Although as Baba says, this lesson is written for language learning purposes it does not need to be totally authentic, this sounds thoroughly authentic to me.

It does not translate well into English because in Australia at least we do not have this role. There is a person assigned to each class who would know all kinds of intimate, including family, details of each student.

It is a kind of combination coach, confidante, surrogate parent, big brother/sister, counsellor. They are the usual path for party membership as far as I can work out. Last semester I walked into class and the 班主任 was writing a message on the board that said something along the lines of 'anyone interested in pursuing party membership should contact 张老师'

Posted on: Addressing Women

' Forum software needs a bit more intelligence'

It's nothing to do with the users. ;)

I am finding an unusual user experience lately - replies to posts are not 'taking' easily. It is rather like the memory running out on my phone.

Posted on: Addressing Women

' keep to non-committal greetings 你好、嗨 etc until you have a chance to hear what neighbours of similar status as you call her. Follow the crowd. '

This is excellent advice - I would go as far as to say that there are no strict rules, except the default when you have no-one around to advise you.

But it seems Chinese people can last longer in a Chinese-foreigner conversation without names or greetings than we Australians can. I am always dying to get it sorted out, while Chinese people I talk to don't have it as a high priority. It's like ... 随便 whatever. Maybe this is because they typically accommodate at least half a dozen different names/sobriquets/titles in a day and easily switch between them.