User Comments - changye
changye
Posted on: Asking for Leave
November 13, 2008 at 7:04 AMHi tucsonmichael,
There are a few Chinese words that mean "paid holidays". The offical one should be "带薪年休假" (dai4 xin1 nian2 xiu1 jia4), and others are "带薪年假" or "带薪休假".
When you want to take a paid holiday, you can say "我想请年休假" or "我可以请年假吗？". Just saying "我想请假" would also be OK, if your company provides paid holidays.
Posted on: “混在中国”最字榜
November 13, 2008 at 3:52 AMHi Jenny,
不瞒你说，我觉得今天的课程内容有点漫无边际，所以只好采取“没事找狗”战术，很不好意思了。
Posted on: Birth by Chinese Zodiac
November 13, 2008 at 3:05 AMGee, I didn't know at all the difference between 逗号 and 顿号！ 少年易老学难成！Now, let me givi it a try,
我家小胖狗很喜欢吃牛肉 、猪肉 、羊肉等荤食，但是我比较喜欢吃素食。
Posted on: Birth by Chinese Zodiac
November 13, 2008 at 2:33 AMConversely speaking, classical Chinese is concise because of lack of punctuations. It was not easy for ancient people to write long sentences without using punctuation marks, unlike English or Japanese.
The same can be said for modern Chinese, of which grammatical structure is not so advantageous for writing a long sentence, and therefore native Chinese usually like to write relatively concise sentences.
You have to build up your Chinese vocabulary for writing short, concise and sophisticated (?) Chinese. For example, you sometimes need to use "熟人" instead of "熟识的人", or "生人" instead of "不认识的人".
Posted on: “混在中国”最字榜
November 12, 2008 at 2:25 PM陈博士，你好！
我家附近的邻居养一只小狗已经十几年了。这只小狗是黄色的，所以主人叫它“黄黄”。 我觉得它看起来一点也不好吃，因为有点太瘦，可能这就是个长寿秘诀吧。恰恰相反，我家六岁的超级肥胖狗虽然是白色的，可是它被绑架的可能性比“黄黄”要大得多，再说得成人病的可能性也很大。很遗憾它们两只狗根本就合不来，在路上一碰到就开始猛烈地干仗！看来我家小狗好像缺乏点尊敬老人的美德，太不好意思了。
Posted on: Can you Speak Chinese?
November 12, 2008 at 12:35 PMHi worm99,
The pronunciation of the "yingwen" in the vocab is correct. The pinyin "ying" is rather difficult to pronounce. To be honest, I still can't pronounce it properly!
Posted on: “混在中国”最字榜
November 12, 2008 at 8:10 AMHi chistudent,
谢谢你的关怀。你说的很对，说实在的，我家的小胖狗同志看起来非常好吃。我的爱犬总是很想出去散步，但是我很怕她被人劫走，所以绝对不让小狗自己去外头溜达。在中国丢小狗的人很多，我家楼下的太太已经丢了三只狗。
中国路上除了小狗遭绑架的危险以外还有另一个隐患，就是鞭炮。在春节的时候中国传统的“鞭炮声”特别厉害，吵闹得要命，我家小狗一听放炮的声音就吓跑！过春节的前后几天，她简直无法出门散步，只好整天在家睡懒觉。
Posted on: Fortunate Cookies
November 12, 2008 at 6:19 AMHi doezeedoats,
I read the article before. I love the author's conclusion very much;
So to summarize the fortune cookies: the Japanese created it, the Chinese popularized it, the Americans consume it.
Posted on: Birth by Chinese Zodiac
November 12, 2008 at 2:41 AMHi pete,
I can eat fish, but I can't beat you in a pun contest.
Posted on: Asking for Leave
November 13, 2008 at 8:15 AMHi azzote,
"礼拜" is a more conversational word than "星期" is. "礼拜" originally means "prayer/worship", and, for example, "礼拜天" means "Sunday" because people go to church and say their prayers (礼拜) on the day (天). As you might expect, the words "礼拜天～礼拜六" are originated in Christian churchgoing practice, which was introduced to China by missionaries from western countries. So these words were invented relatively recently, perhaps a few hundred years ago in China.