User Comments - changye
changye
Posted on: Chinese New Year News
January 27, 2009 at 3:50 AMThe ability to select the information you need (and just ignore things you don't need) is very important especially in modern society. And, people have different needs.
Posted on: Chinese New Year News
January 26, 2009 at 12:58 PMHi cassie,
我错过了，真的很可惜！我今天看了报纸才知道这个“英伦组合”。昨晚我一直到零点坐在电脑前面发了不少帖子，然后跟几个朋友一起包了很多饺子，所以几乎没看春节联欢晚会。那么，以后我要在土豆网找个视频吧。
Posted on: Birth by Chinese Zodiac
January 26, 2009 at 9:19 AMHi zhenlijiang,
I've found other translations for "じゃじゃ馬", 野丫头 (ue3 ya1 tou) and 淘气姑娘 (tao2 qi4 ku1 niang). I feel that 野丫头 might be the best translation for じゃじゃ馬、and 男人婆 for お転婆 (hoyden, tomboy), perhaps, although there is no guarantee, hehe.
As for dictionaries, yeah, you are very right. So you need to look up, at least, two or three dictionaries, preferably including a synonym dictionary. Internet is also a useful tool for finding whether a word is frequently used or not in modern Chinese.
By the way, what Chinese dictionary (published in Japan) do you use now? Mines are 中日/日中词典（小学館, 初版）.
Posted on: Birth by Chinese Zodiac
January 26, 2009 at 8:45 AMHi wchan,
Correction : It's not 眞理絵 (ma-ri-e), but 眞利江 (ma-ri-e). FYI, there are a lot of "marie" in Japan, such as 真理江, 麻里江, 万理江, 万里江, 麻理江, 麻利江, 真理絵, 麻里絵, 万理絵, 万里絵, 麻理絵, and so on. Flood of homonyms is one of the characteristics of the Japanese langugage.
Posted on: Birth by Chinese Zodiac
January 26, 2009 at 8:18 AMHi wchan,
Please be noted that 眞理絵 is a given name. Three-character names, both family and given names, are not uncommon in Japan, while the most common pattern of Japanese names is "a two-character family name + a two character given name".
Hi zhenlijiang,
悍妇 seems to be a somewhat formal/classical way of saying "じゃじゃ馬". You can even find the word in a poem of 白居易. Furthermore, 悍妇 connotes much more negative than 男人婆. There should be some guys who like 男人婆, but very few who makes a pass at 悍妇!
P/S. 中国春节晚会 is also a doodling "four-hour" show!
Posted on: Gong Xi Fa Cai!
January 26, 2009 at 5:58 AMHi davidtzau,
身体健康
"sun tuy geen hong" good health
步步高升
"bo bo go sing"
wishing someone a higher promotion
Posted on: 北京人上海人眼中的中国地图
January 26, 2009 at 4:50 AMHere is an interesting map: 中国汉语方言地图 (Chinese Dialects Map). Click the map to see a large one (it's too large, though). Actually, the area where so called "southern dialects" are used is not so large.
http://www.uijin.idv.tw/download/%E5%9C%B0%E5%9C%96/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9C%8B%E6%BC%A2%E8%AA%9E%E5%9C%B0%E5%9C%96.jpg
Posted on: Gong Xi Fa Cai!
January 26, 2009 at 4:37 AMThere is an example "你来啦" (ni3 lai2 la) in the expansion. The 啦 (la) in it was made combining the sounds of 了 (le) and 啊 (a). So, it has the both meanings of 了 and 啊, that is , "completion" and "interjection".
Posted on: Pregnancy Series 2: Pregnancy House Ar-rest
January 26, 2009 at 3:57 AMHi leeht,
Your Christianity-based etymologies of hanzi are really intriguing. It's not a joke, but I'd like to recommend you write a book titled "Christianity in Chinese Characters". It would greatly help western people learn and memorize Chinese characters.
As for the character “我”, actually it doesn't consist of "戈" and "手", but originally indicates a kind of three-pronged pike used in ancient China more than three thousand years ago. Here is a webpage that shows you the transition of the shape of "我".
http://chinese-characters.org/meaning/6/6211.html
Actually there is a character that represents a shape of a guy who sholders a pike, as you expected. It is "何", but its modern meaning has nothing to do with "shoulder". Don't worry, in fact "何" is the original character of "荷" (he4, shoulder)!
Posted on: Pregnancy Series 2: Pregnancy House Ar-rest
January 27, 2009 at 4:27 AMHi leeht,
Your etymology of "船" is just excellent/plausible. In particular, "八 + 口= eight people in Noah's family" is too much to be a coincidence! Let me show you another "Christian" etymology I've come up with.
The character "甲" indicates "the first heavenly/celestial stem", and also means "the best" in Chinese. And its original shape in oracle bone scripts is "十" (not ten, but something like a cross).
http://chinese-characters.org/meaning/7/7532.html
Slightly ironically, "甲" also indicates "armour", so some people might associate it with Christian Crusade. For the record, actually the "十" in oracle bone scripts (甲骨文) indicates "cracks in leather".