User Comments - changye
changye
Posted on: Not So Silent Night
December 25, 2008 at 12:07 AMHi daizi,
December 25th is celebrated as the birthday of Isaac Newton
Thanks, I didn't know that. I hear that some Santa Clauses (圣诞老人) fly from Lapland (拉普兰) to China following a ballistic trajectory (弹道) in accordance with Newton's law of universal gravitation (牛顿万有引力定律).
Posted on: Not So Silent Night
December 24, 2008 at 11:53 PMHi lydia1981,
I'm afraid that 巴迪 is a devout Buddhist (佛教徒), haha!
Posted on: Not So Silent Night
December 24, 2008 at 2:24 PM圣诞节快乐, Merry Christmas, メリークリスマス！
Nobody gives me a Christmas gift, so I pulled myself up by my bootstraps. God helps them that help themselves! I hereby proudly announce that I finally bought 《甲骨文字典》 (170 yuan, 1600 pages) and 《甲金篆隶大字典》 (60 yuan, 1046 pages) at a Chinese online bookstore today as Chiristmas gifts for myself, hehe. I've long been wanting to get both of them. I will probably receive them around January 10 !! Good night.
Posted on: The Person Component
December 24, 2008 at 2:19 PM我一直认为Chinesepod的工作人员都是智者，但是偶尔失败是难免的。我只希望他们以后不会过分地小心起来。中国有个成语“惩羹吹齑” (cheng2 geng1 chui1 ji1)！
Posted on: The Person Component
December 24, 2008 at 1:38 PM智者千虑，必有一失。子曰，过犹不及。
Posted on: Always in Chinese: 总是 (zǒngshì) and 老是 (lǎoshi)
December 24, 2008 at 9:24 AMHi dunderklumpen,
Grammatically speaking, those two sentences are definitely different from each other, and therefore their exact English translations should also be different from each other.
Having said that, in reality, both of them might have the similar connotation, or "effect", when used by sales clerks at shops, after all.
In Japan, you can also hear both phrases at shops, but the "你需要什么？" (what do you need?) version is more commonly used than "你需要什么吗？" there. I guess the same holds for China.
Posted on: 三十六计
December 24, 2008 at 8:45 AM我写错了，刚才我提到的日语成语不是“红颜薄命”而是“美人薄命”，但是这两句话的意思都一样。对了，还有一首歌叫《好花不常开》， 我很喜欢听邓丽君的歌曲。很可惜，她就是“红颜薄命”的一个典型例子！
Posted on: 三十六计
December 24, 2008 at 6:57 AMHi wchan and yarika,
英语中也有一句类似的俗话。
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.
马到河边不喝水，逼马低头亦枉然。
日本有一句脍炙人口的成语“红颜薄命”，当然是从古代中国传到日本的。我家小胖狗老说，“主人，您用不着担心，我一定会长寿的。”
Posted on: 三十六计
December 24, 2008 at 6:28 AMHi chistudent and yarika,
谈“女祸”，别忘了“江青”！她可能是有些中国人说“政治的事女人少插嘴”的主要原因之一吧。供你参考，“倾城倾国”这句成语就是“美女”的意思。中国还有一首很有趣的古诗。
北方有佳人
绝世而独立
一顾倾人城
再顾倾人国
宁不知倾城与倾国
佳人难再得
Posted on: The Person Component
December 25, 2008 at 1:01 AM陈博士, 你好！
Thanks a lot for your overestimation of me! To tell you the truth, there is a trick. “惩羹吹齑” is actually not so commonly used here in China, but its Japanese version "羹に懲りて膾を吹く" is relatively frequently used in Japan, and that is the very reason I know the Chinese chengyu. FYI, the 四个字 means "Once better, twice shy" / "A burnt child fears the fire", or something like that, in English.
失败是成功之母！(Failure is the mother of success.)