User Comments - changye

Posted on: Learning the Lei Feng Song

Hi barto,

合久必分，分久必合

I don't know how many words I need to say the same thing in English or in Japanese. I'm always impressed with the word-saving manner when they say something profound in Chinese. Brevity is the soul of wit!

Posted on: The Person Component

Hi John,

If you want to memorize the 214 Kangxi radicals, you certainly don't need video to help you.

Just out of curiosity, please let me know how many radicals you were planning to show in this series of videos.

Posted on: Learning the Lei Feng Song

Hi xigua2,

I know what you'd like to say, but don't worry. Foreign learners of Mandarin are not so naive as to easily get fascinated by Lei Feng propaganda, haha.

Posted on: The Person Component

Hi wchan,

I fully agree with you. I also don't like to use the term "部件" instead of traditional "部首/偏旁". I don't think there is enough reason to use a Chinese word that makes no sense to native Chinese speakers.

Posted on: The Person Component

Hi changbiyuan,

Those "royal we" are typical mother tongue influence often seen in English written by us East Asian people, namely Chinese, Korean and Japanese. I also sometimes feel like using "royal we" when writing in English. Conversely, you are required to use "我们" instead of "you (= people)" when writing/speaking in Chinese, for example, "我们应该尊敬老人/You should show your respect for elderly people."

Posted on: Best Friends

Hi guys,

I had 蓝带啤酒 (PBR beer) for the first time when I came to China on business ten years ago. The beer served then was lukewarm. I think you can easily imagine the taste of lukewarm PBR beer.

Posted on: Best Friends

Hi houban,

I don't know why, but 蓝带啤酒 (Blue Ribbon Beer) is well known here in China, as you said. Probably this might be because the company advanced into a Chinese market earlier than other foreign beer companies. For the record, 蓝带啤酒 was established in China in 1990, and 百威啤酒 (Bud) in 1995. To be honest, I don't like the brand as it's expensive and NOT tasty. I also like 哈尔滨啤酒 (Harbin beer), which is the oldest beer brand (1900) here in China.

Posted on: The Person Component

This series is named "The Radical Show", and the title of this video is "The Person Component". To make matters more complicated, John uses the word "part" in his comments. I don't know which one is most appropriate in English.

Posted on: Learning the Lei Feng Song

On the other hand, there were other political slogans such as "工业学大庆" (gong1 ye4 xue2 da4 qing4) or "农业学大寨" (nog2 ye4 xue2 da4 zhai4) in China. In this case, the "学" means "follow, imitate", but not "study, learn". So you can say "我们应该学雷锋".

Anyway, it seems that there are a lot of things people have to learn/follow in a communist state.

Posted on: Learning the Lei Feng Song

There are mainly two versions of slogan about 雷锋.

(a) 向雷锋学习
（b） 学习雷锋精神

You can say "学习雷锋精神 (Leifeng spirit)", but not "学习雷锋". You can't place a person as an object after a verb '学习". So, you have to say "向雷锋学习".