User Comments - changye
changye
Posted on: Drinking Alone Under the Moon 月下独酌
February 17, 2009 at 5:21 AMHi ilearnben
You are sharp. As you said, this poem is fully rhymed in modern pronunciations. For the record, 亲，人，身，春 all belong to the rhyme group called "人辰", and 乱，散，汉 is classified into "言前" in modern Mandarin.
On the other hand, according to rhyme books used in the era of Tang dynasty, 春 and 乱 were classified into different rhyme groups respectively, which means, for example, 春 was not considered to be rhyming with 亲/人/身 in those days.
That said, ristrictions of rhyme were drastically loosened in a new rhyme book 《平水韵》 edited in the 13th century. In short, the number of rhyme groups was decreased from traditional 206 to 106, which makes it easier for poets to make a rhyming poem.
《平水韵》 is also called 《诗韵》, and has long been regarded as the standard rhyme book for poetry in China. This poem is fully rhymed based not only on modern Mandarin pronunciations, but also on the 平水韵 rhyme grouping.
P/S Rhyme change is called "换韵" in Chinese, which is often seen in 律诗 styles.
Posted on: Eating Dead Flesh 猪吃死人肉
February 17, 2009 at 3:47 AM寒山 had long been ignored in China until the first half of the 20th century, while the Chinese poet has been highly appreciated in Japan since one thousand years ago. The 寒山 boom in Japan was introduced to USA between 50's and 70's, and was later brought back to Hong Kong.
Why did Japanese intelligentsia love 寒山 so much? Some say that is because of 禅宗 (Zen) that has been very popular in Japanese society. They say that 寒山 was grealy influenced by the Zen tenets, and his poems also reflect it. Here are some Chinrese articles about the story.
当代美国，日本“寒山热”原因探索
http://www.guoxue.com/www/xsxx/txt.asp?id=1124
百度百科 寒山
http://baike.baidu.com/view/16480.htm
Posted on: Interesting or Boring?
February 17, 2009 at 12:04 AMHi furong
You are right. The pattern "对～有意思" is usually used to mean "be attracted to someone". As for 我对很多人有意思, hehe, I should have listened to the lesson more carefully! I admit this is a good (and natural) joke. As wchan said above, I also believe that our Connie is not so 花心, haha.
Posted on: Interesting or Boring?
February 16, 2009 at 1:33 PMHi furong
有意思 is "interesting", and 对～感兴趣 is "be interested in", and therefore your first example 我对很多人有意思 is not a natural sentence, at lease it doesn't show what you'd like to mean. That said, you can say, for example, 他对我有意思 (有 + 意思), which means "He has a crush on me/He is attracted to me". So, 我对很多人有意思 is a somewhat weird sentence!!
Posted on: Lao Wang's Office 8: Trimming the Fat at the Office
February 16, 2009 at 1:20 PMHi suxiaoya
What your native friend said is very right. It's "another" way of saying "I got fired." There is a nice example in today's Expansion.
没等老板炒他鱿鱼，他先炒了老板。
He didn't wait for his boss to fire him. He fired the boss first.
Posted on: Tech Fixes and Traditional Characters
February 16, 2009 at 12:57 PMThanks for the great version up. My only request is that "Lesson setting" button should be more noticeable, if possible, please show the title "setting" for the benefit of newcomers.
Posted on: 学术抄袭
February 16, 2009 at 12:30 PMHi christine30550
我好向校领导反映 is grammatically a little tricky sentence. The 好 has the same function as that in 好学 (easy to learn)， 好走 (easy to walk) or 好办 (easy to handle).
So the breakdown of the sentence is 我好向校领导反映. In short, the most important part of this sentence is 好反映, which has the same grammatical structure as 好学 or 好走.
In this case, the verb 反映 means "report". The translation should be "(Your proof) makes it easy to get the school leader's reaction" or "(Your proof) makes it easy to report to the leader."
Posted on: Hungry Traveler: Hangzhou
February 16, 2009 at 9:06 AMHi zhenlijiang
The word 茶艺师 is also used in Chinese in the same sense as that in Japanese. Actually, the Japanese word 茶芸師, which exclusively indicates a Chinese tea ceremony performer in Japan, is an imported word from China.
For the record, the traditional form of 艺 (yi4) is 藝 (yi4) in Chinese. 芸 is pronounced as "yun2" and doesn't mean "art" in Chinese, unlike Japanese 芸. In short, the traditional character 藝 was simplified as 艺 in China, and 芸 in Japan.
Honestly, I know almost nothing about Japanese tea culture. I had my first and last experience of a tea ceremogy at a high school festival more than three decades ago. My main purpose was .... eating a traditional Japanese cake served at the ceremony, haha.
Posted on: Lao Wang's Office 8: Trimming the Fat at the Office
February 16, 2009 at 3:20 AMChinese people often say 旧的不去，新的不来, but in this series, it seems that 新的不来，旧的不去.
Posted on: Hold the Elevator
February 17, 2009 at 6:25 AMHi bababardwan
You can find a lot of 一 (first tone) followed by fourth tone. The tone of 一 remains unchanged when it's used as an ordinal number, such as 一月 (yi1yue4)，第一次 (di4yi1ci4)，一号 (yi1hao4)，and 一二九七年.
Additionally, you need to pronounce it "yi1" when you read a "naked" number such as 31791. That said, native people usually read it this way, san1 yao1 qi1 jiu3 yao1, so as not to mistake 一 (yi) for 七 (qi1).