User Comments - changye

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changye

Posted on: Riding the Subway
September 26, 2008 at 12:55 PM

double posts, deleted by me.

Posted on: Riding the Subway
September 26, 2008 at 8:26 AM

Looks like the subway system of Shanghai is very advanced. To my surprise, there are only 扶手 on the train, but not straps (拉环, la1 huan2). Is that only in China? Here is the rate table of Shanghai subway.

http://www.tomshen.com/interest/other/shanghai%20metro%20price.htm

Posted on: Recovering a Cell Phone Number
September 26, 2008 at 7:28 AM

我在中国丢过两次手机。

Posted on: Lao Wang's Office 3: A Call for Innovation
September 26, 2008 at 5:18 AM

Hi zaneclaes,

I've found a honest typo in your comment. It is 四海为家, isn't it? I also love this chengyu, caus I live in a foreign country, China, now. Let me show you another similar Chinese saying, 人间到处有青山 (Home is where I hang my hat). One more bit of advice. I suppose that 学习中国文化 might be better than 学习中国文明.

Posted on: 涩女郎
September 26, 2008 at 3:41 AM

I watched all the episodes of the television version titled “粉红女郎”, made in mainland China, several years ago. I usually don’t watch Chinese TV dramas, but this show was really good and hilarious. I was completely “bewitched” by 万人迷!

I especially enjoyed watching some episodes in which the four girls visited Tokyo. You can see the scenes in the opening credit of 粉红女郎. I now know why the lead characters went to Japan. This TV drama was based on a Taiwan cartoon！

粉红女郎http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=CF70lH9CCJs

Posted on: Farm Animals
September 25, 2008 at 12:57 PM

Hi kybod4,

There are a few ways to express “male/female” for animals, i.e. (A) 公(gong1) / 母(mu3)，(B) 雄(xiong2) / 雌(ci2)，(C) 牡(mu3) / 牝(pin4). (A) is by far the most frequently used in modern Chinese, and (B) is usually used in the context of biology.

So, “an ox” and “a cow” are translated as “一头公牛/一头母牛” in Chinese respectively. In East Asian languages, Japanese included, the character “牛” includes ox, cow, bull, and even calf. In a sense, 牛 should be the counterpart of “cattle” in English.

Posted on: Farm Animals
September 24, 2008 at 7:46 AM

A Chinese dog and a Japanese dog can communicate without a interpreter since both of them bark as "wang-wang" (汪汪, わんわん), but a Korean dog, which barks as "mong-mong", can't join their conversation.

Posted on: Lesson Preview, New Team Member
September 23, 2008 at 1:47 PM

Hi wuansen,

Thanks for your interest in Japanese.

Chinese and Japanese are very different from each other, except for the use of Chinese characters. Grammatically speaking, Chinese should be more similar to English than to Japanese. So, learning 汉语 and 日语 simultaneously would be less confusing than foreign people might imagine.

Having said that, memorizing two types of Chinese characters, 中国简体字 and 日本简体字, at the same time might not be an easy job unless you have a very good memory. I recommend you learn basic Chinese simplified characters first, say several hundred at least, and later begin to learn Japanese.

I guarantee that looking into the historical relation between Chinese characters and Japanese kanji (and preferably ones in Korean) is extraordinary intriguing, which is one of the highlights of linguistics in East Asia. I hope that you will be able to fully enjoy learning both Chinese and Japanese!

Good luck!

Posted on: Buying on Taobao
September 23, 2008 at 1:16 PM

日本人古来非常重视读书，爱惜书籍，所以古籍旧书行业自然就成为了有代表性的日本产业之一。东京神田神保町有日本规模最大的旧书街。据说这条很热闹的街道一共有大约二百多家二手书店，其中有的是延续好几代的老铺子，有的是专卖与中国有关书籍的老字号店，甚至是全国连锁公司分店。

我家乡的人口只有十万多，可是城里有好几家比较大的旧书店。其中最大的还是全国连锁分店叫做BOOK-OFF，商品种类很丰富，服务周全，而且不管原价多少，半年卖不出去的书都是一百日元(六元人民币)。虽然是个二手书店，但是商品和店铺既干净又很漂亮。我对国人爱书籍的美德总感到很骄傲。

http://www.bookoff.co.jp/en/index.html

http://www.bookoff.co.jp/webmagazine/walker/vol01/index.html