User Comments - changye
changye
Posted on: Wake-up Call
August 9, 2009 at 7:57 AMHi desluo929
"I'll help you for a moment" is a translation of "我帮你一下", but not of "我帮你问一下", which shoud be translated as "I'll ask it for you".
Posted on: Is China Scary?
August 9, 2009 at 4:07 AMHi akii
It depends on who you are. For example, most Japanese people of today regard North Korean governmen as the most evil one in the world, but not the government of the USA. Also, I don't think of good reasons that you can say Chinese and Russian governments are less evil than the US government.
Posted on: Pair, Set, Match 双, 副, 对 , 套
August 9, 2009 at 2:37 AMHi miantian
Thanks a lot for the nice example, "She's got a great pair of legs", which really makes sense to me, considering that Google image search results of "一双腿"!
Posted on: Pair, Set, Match 双, 副, 对 , 套
August 9, 2009 at 2:33 AMHi rjberki
Many thanks for your quick answer. Having read your comment, I came to think that the usage of "a pair of legs" in English might be similar to that of "一双腿" in Chinese.
Posted on: Is China Scary?
August 9, 2009 at 2:07 AMHi akii
You can say there are several "the most evil government in the world" in this world.
Posted on: SBTG: Confucius
August 9, 2009 at 1:57 AMHi calicartel
不亦乐乎 bu4yi4le4hu1 extremely / awfully
This is clearly an error, as you pointed out. "不亦乐乎" is usually translated as "～ is pleausre, isn't it?". Here is the whole text of this verse and its English translation.
子曰，学而时习之，不亦说(yue4)乎，有朋自远方来，不亦乐乎，人不知而不愠，不亦君子乎。
Confucius said, to learn and to practice what is leared time and again is pleasure, is it not? To have friends come from afar is happiness, is it not? To be unperturbed when not appreciated by others is gentlemanly, is it not?
Posted on: Pair, Set, Match 双, 副, 对 , 套
August 9, 2009 at 1:40 AMI have a question. How do you use "a pair of legs" and "two legs" in English? What is the difference in usage between them? Which is more commonly used in conversation?
Posted on: Pair, Set, Match 双, 副, 对 , 套
August 9, 2009 at 1:31 AMChinese measure words are very graphic. Conversely, Chinese measure words were created in order to "graphically" express/show the number of things, just like 一头牛，一口猪，一座山，一双筷子，and 一条裤子.
Dictionary-wise, you can say "一双腿", but in reality "两条腿" is more commonly used than 一双腿. Probably this is because the measure word "条" is more graphic than 双 when talking about legs, which are long objects.
Then, when do Chinese people use 一双腿？ I guess that people tend to use 一双腿 when they emphasize/focus on legs, or "a pair of legs" are the very center of talks, such as 好美的一双腿， 最漂亮的一双腿，and 女人美不美就看一双腿.
As I said in my previous posting, you can find a lot of photos of woman's beautiful legs by image googling with the key word "一双腿", but not by googling with "两条腿". Probably 一双腿 is more "sexy" than 两条腿, hehe.
两条腿
http://images.google.cn/images?hl=zh-CN&q=%E4%B8%A4%E6%9D%A1%E8%85%BF&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi
Posted on: How many family members do you have?
August 9, 2009 at 12:59 AMHi carlos
你有几个兄弟姐妹？
How many brothers and sisters do you have?
Posted on: Wake-up Call
August 9, 2009 at 11:41 AMThat's right.