User Comments - changye

Posted on: 日本人的起源

Personally, I don’t feel so offended by the remark “小日本”, probably because I don’t see much negative connotation in the character “小” in Japanese, and also because I readily admit that Japan is actually a small country compared to China, without feeling uncomfortable. I still remember geography teachers told us many times that our country is small when I was a student.

Furthermore, bigness doesn’t automatically mean “good” in Japan. On the contrary, Japanese people generally fond of small things, and as you may know, Japanese are quite skilled at downsizing something, such as a SONY transistor radio, Walkman and Bonsai trees. As the Japanese saying goes, 山椒は小粒でもぴりりと辛い (Good things come in small packages).

Even “日本鬼子” sounds comical and humorous to me.

Posted on: 日本人的起源

Let me take the liberty of translating yashimag-san’s comment into clumsy English.

I’m a Japanese. I’ve never heard the phrase “同种同宗” before, and I can’t find it in ordinary dictionaries. There is a similar phrase “同种同文” (homogeneity, the same characters) in Japanese, and I hear that it was often used in Japan before the war for the purpose of justifying the Japanese invasion of China, which is the reason why the phrase is usually not used anymore in modern Japan.

And therefore, I’m a little surprised to hear the phrase “同种同宗”, which seems to be similar to the slogan exploited by the Imperial Japanese army, in the dialogue script written by a Chinese. In the past, Japan called itself 大日本帝国 (Empire of Japan), and the 大 in the name reflected the intention to invade neighboring countries.

Thanks to flood of news reports on the Beijing Olympics, a lot of Japanese people now know that 小日本 is commonly used in China, and the 小 doesn’t necessarily carry the same connotation as that in 小朋友. I’m afraid Japanese people might feel that the sentiment behind 小日本 is basically the same as that behind 大日本 hailed by Empire of Japan. The issue of “origin” is not touchy for most Japanese people, however they are very sensitive about being called 小日本.

Posted on: Lao Wang's Office 2: Welcome to the Team

Hi xiaoanolga,

Haha, I didn't know that "我爱，你爱，他爱 ..." mnemonic, which just reminds me of "der, des, dem, den, die, der, der, die ...." that I tried to memorize (and failed) at university. By the way, "一定" is also used as an adjective in the sense of "certain", like "一定的关系" (a certain relationship). The 一定 in "我一定要去!" is of course an adverb "certainly".

Posted on: Lao Wang's Office 2: Welcome to the Team

Hi xiaoanolga,

You are right. 尽管 is used as both an adverb (副词) and a conjunction (连词). 你尽管(adverb)来吧！ 尽管(conjunction)下雨，我还是要去。Anyway, I think that classification of parts of speech doesn't seem to have much significance in Chinese. As auntie68 said, its concept is slightly different from that in European languages. Of course, difference often makes things more interesting.

Posted on: 日本人的起源

The origin of Japanese language (as well as Japanese people) is one of the most popular topics among history lovers in Japan. Actually, there still is no accepted theory about the origin of Japanese (日语) at present. I don’t think that the mystery will be solved in the near future. On the contrary, it might be a perennial mystery, which makes the issue more intriguing and attractive.

As lujiaojie said in the lesson, Japanese language, as well as Korean, is said to possibly belong to so-called “Altaic language family” that contains Mongolian, Turkish, Manchu (满洲语) and so on, which are (were) spoken in the northern, central and western Asia. They are all agglutinative languages, and they commonly have SVO structures and (more or less) vowel harmony.

On the other hand, Japanese scarcely has a word in common with other Altaic languages. In other words, Japanese is isolated in terms of vocabulary in the Altaic language group, which is the main reason why the origin of Japanese language is still unclear. The same can be said for Korean, which is incredibly similar to Japanese with regard to grammar and wording, but not vocabulary.

To make matters more confusing, you can find some southern elements in Japanese, for example, almost all the Japanese words end with a vowel, which is a characteristic feature often seen in Austronesian languages. Some scholars also say that there are some Japanese words that seem to be originated in those southern languages. Korean has a lot of words that end with a consonant.

Some scholars believe that the key in this issue is Korean, in particular, ancient Korean that had been spoken in 百济 (Baekje, 18 BCE～660 CE) and 高句丽 (Koguryeo, 37 BCE ～ 668 CE). Unfortunately, almost all the historical records had been lost a long ago, and it’s extremely difficult to reconstruct those old languages, which are said to have had more open syllables, just like Japanese, than modern Korean has.

I also buy this hypothesis.

Posted on: The 是...的 (Shì...de) Pattern

Hi rjberki,

Hehe, actually it's rather embarassing to say "你怎么这么漂亮？" or "你怎么这么美？" or something like that, but I (and my neighbors) often say to my chubby dog that 你怎么这么胖啊？

Posted on: Lao Wang's Office 2: Welcome to the Team

Hi auntie68,

Bad news. According to my dictionary, 尽管 and 不管 are not interchangeable, although I don't know whether or not natives are actually distinguish them.

尽管 (even though) + a fact
不管 (even if) + a hypothetical situation

尽管下雨，我还是要去。 I have to go, even though it's raining.
不管下雨，我都要去。 I have to go, even if it rains.

Posted on: Lao Wang's Office 2: Welcome to the Team

Hi xiaoanolga and auntie68,

Let me give you a supplemental explanation.

The above comment about 尽管 is very right, and the same goes for that famous "虽然", but in the case of a single character 虽, you always need to place it after the subject.

价格虽贵，但质量很好。(formal)
价格虽然很贵，但是质量非常好。
虽然价格很贵，但是质量非常好。

Somewhat confusingly, in formal writing, 虽然 (and 尽管) is sometimes used in the second clause, and in this case, you have to place 虽然 before the subject, and 但是 or 可是 are not required in the first clause.

质量很好，虽然价格贵。
质量很好，尽管价格贵。

Lastly, when you use 尽管 in the sense of "feel free to", it is usually put after the subject.

你尽管来玩吧！你尽管说吧！

Posted on: Lao Wang's Office 2: Welcome to the Team

Sorry, doubled, so deleted.

Posted on: Calling a Supplier for a Quote

Hi auntie68,

According to the latest revision of Incoterm,  FOB stands for Free Online Boke (博客，播客).  For your information, CIF is Chinese Instructed Free of charge.