User Comments - changye

Posted on: 户籍制度

Hi dunderklumpen

中国人说, 老婆总是别人的好！

Posted on: Thoughts on Returning Home 回乡偶书

I was taken in, haha. At first, I thought this poem would be a 七言律诗 (7 characters x 8 lines), however the rhyming pattern in this poem doesn't follow the rule for the style. For instance, why are there two kinds of rhymes (red and blue) in the poem? I was rather confused.

少小离家老大回，(huoi)
乡音无改鬓毛衰。(tsuoi)
儿童相见不相识，
笑问客从何处来。(loi)

离别家乡岁月多，(ta)
近来人事半消磨。(mua)
唯有门前镜湖水，
春风不改旧时波。(pua)

Then, I've realized this is not a 七言律诗, but a set of two 七言绝句 (7 characters x 4 lines). One of my anthologies of Tang poetry lists the two poems separately. Their titles are 回乡偶书（其一） and 回乡偶书（其二）. The symbols in ( ) are sketchy middle Chinese sounds.

Posted on: 北京人上海人眼中的中国地图

国家领导人一般不能轻易用“让步”这个不好听的词语。老百姓听到"我国让步"就很不高兴。与此相反，“求同存异”很好听，听起来很有道理，也很有说服力，这就是一个方便好用的代用词。

Posted on: 北京人上海人眼中的中国地图

哎呀，没想到是个官方成语！我看，这个句子好像就是一种《黑猫白猫论》吧。讽刺的是，这条新成语诞生的第二年(66年)中国人民就开始文革，轰轰烈烈的红卫兵根本不讲究求同存异的精神。

Posted on: 中国崛起

它真实地展示了现在中国年轻人的想法，对外国学习者很有价值。

古人也说，知己知彼百战百胜。我同意这个传统"战术"对提高汉语能力会起作用。

Posted on: Lao Wang's Office 7: A Firing Afoot?

Hi meiguo_ben_dan

The tone of "一" (yi1) changes to second tone when it's placed before a Chinese character that has fourth tone, and changes to fourth tone when placed before first, second, and third tones. 

That said, the tone remains unchanged when "一" is used as an ordinal number such as 一月 (yi1 yue4), 一号 (yi1 hao4), and 十一号 (shi2 yi1 hao4).

So theoretically speaking, 第十一章 should be pronounced as "di4 shi2 yi1 zhang1", but I don't know if native speakers actually do so.

Furthermore, the tone of "一" doesn't change when you read numbers, for example, 1938815159 or something like that. The "1"s in the number are pronounced with first tone.

By the same token, the "1" in 1987年 or 21世纪 are also pronounced with first tone, like "yi1 jiu3 ba1qi1 nian2" and "er4 shi2 yi1 shi4 ji4".

Interestingly, one of my textbooks, published in 1984, says the tones of "七" (qi1) and "八" (ba1) also change to second tone when they are placed before fourth tone, like 七遍 (qi2 bian4) and 八块 (ba2 kuai4).

But I don't find the same explanation in other textbooks and dictionaries I have. Are they just used in Beijing dialect? Or, are they old pronunciations? Do native speakers sometimes pronounce them like that? Please someone enlighten me.

P/S. "一个" is pronounced as "yi2 ge", where the tone of "ge" is neutral (轻声) but its original tone is fourth tone. It makes sense.

P/S2. "一" in a number is often pronounced as "yao1" so as not to mistake 一 (yi1) for 七 （qi1）。

Posted on: Thoughts on Returning Home 回乡偶书

Hi pete and henning,

Thanks. I'm very honored to hear that. Looks like I should have selected a more easy-to-pronounce ID. For the record, its past and present participles are changyefied and changyefying respectively. I just hope the new word would not mean "nitpick".....

Posted on: 户籍制度

Hi dunderklumpen

Congratulations, the two of us seem to have got the same conclustion.

In short, the consonant "sh" has the same sound as that of "shi", so you don't have to move the lips after generating the consonant sound "sh". But this doesn't apply to other sh-related sounds such as sha, shan, shen, shou, shu, shuo and so on. 

The same goes for pinyin "ci, si, zi". For instance, the consonant "s" has the same sound as that of "si".

Dictionary-wise, I don't think you have to place "?" mark after 是吧, that said, in reality there seem to be a lot of "是吧？" phrases used on the Internet.

Your way of enjoying music is very ideal. I don't have sensitive ears probably partly because I've always been heavily dependent on musical notes when I enjoy music, just like I always rely on dictionaries when learning languages, haha.

Posted on: 北京人上海人眼中的中国地图

我同意你的观点。我们都得接受分歧的存在，关键就是求同存异。

Posted on: 北京人上海人眼中的中国地图

很遗憾，普通日本人对中国的印象也确实不好，主要是由于当代中国人的行为。我不敢给你看日本人眼中的世界地图。