User Comments - changye
changye
Posted on: Hold the Elevator
February 18, 2009 at 7:06 AM.
Posted on: Pregnancy Series 3: Prenatal Checkup
February 18, 2009 at 6:43 AM我以前看到好几个中国男人在妇产科门口走来走去。一般汉族男人很愿意请假陪老婆上医院，这完全是日本丈夫做不到的事情。听说，老公表现不好的话，老婆和丈母娘都会很不高兴。做一个男子汉大丈夫真不容易呀！
Posted on: Pregnancy Series 3: Prenatal Checkup
February 18, 2009 at 3:39 AMWater birth
水中生产 (shui3zhong1sheng1chan3), 水中分娩 (fen1mian3).
Posted on: Counterfeit Money
February 18, 2009 at 12:10 AMHi sousou4
你的这张比真的要薄多了。
The 要 emphasizes your guessing, so this can be interpreted as "should be" or "must be". You can also place the 要 before 比, like 你的这张要比真的薄多了。
Posted on: Drinking Alone Under the Moon 月下独酌
February 17, 2009 at 1:21 PMHi ilearnben
Yeah, your are very right. A Chinese vowel basically consists of three parts, namely 韵头 (head vowel), 韵腹 (main vowel), and 韵尾 (tail vowel), and only main/tail vowels are taken into account when maiking a rhyming poem.
And therefore, Chinese characters were grouped based on whether or not they have the same main/tail vowels, regardless of head vowels, in traditional Chinese rhyme books such as 广韵.
To put it another way, for example, two characters that are classified into the same rhyme group don't necessarily have the completely same (from head to tail) vowel.
Posted on: Hold the Elevator
February 17, 2009 at 1:04 PMHi beaver
You can say both "我住在十层" and "我住在十楼".
Posted on: Hold the Elevator
February 17, 2009 at 12:27 PMHi light487,
Wow, it's not a trip, but a tour (or a travel/journey?)! 兵马俑 are waiting for you in Xi'an.
Posted on: Hold the Elevator
February 17, 2009 at 11:39 AMHi light487
Your trip to China is just around the corner, isn't it?
You have to say "你去几楼？" even at the Oriental Pearl Tower in Shanghai. Don't ask me why, haha.
Maybe "几楼？" is the abbreviation of "第几楼?", but you can't say "第多少～", cause it's grammatically incorrect, so "几楼?" is exclusively used regardless of the hight of a building, perhaps.
Incidentally, "多少楼?" means "how many buildings?", but not "which floor/what floor".
When you would like to ask how many stories the Oriental Pearl Tower is, you say "东方明珠塔有多少层(ceng2)？, however in the case of the White House, "白宫有几层？" Haha, it's a bit confusing.
Another example : "你几岁" is used when asking a child his/her age, and "你多少岁" is for adults.
P/S 1
I've just come up with another "etymology" of "几楼". When there were only low-rise buildings in China, the phrase "几楼" deeply rooted in Chinese. And people still use it even when asking about high-rise buildings.
P/S 2
there is no requirement for elevators in buildings that are less than 8 storeys high.
You are right. The same goes for my small city here in northeast China. And this is the reason why there is the word "电梯楼" in Chinese, which indicates a building equipped with elevators. Unfortunately, my apartment building is not a 电梯楼！
Posted on: Lao Wang's Office 8: Trimming the Fat at the Office
February 17, 2009 at 8:31 AMHi henning
没那么容易 = 没你想像的那么容易
Posted on: Hold the Elevator
February 18, 2009 at 7:10 AMHi light487
The "一" in "一下" is grammatically different from that in "看一看". Actually, 下 is a measure word (量词) that indicates the number of actions. And of course, 点 is a measure word too, so 一下 is grammatically the same as 一点, as you expected.