User Comments - changye

Posted on: What is your job?

Hi hitokiri,

当/做老师 become a teacher, make a teacher

他是当老师的。(ta1 shi dang1 lao3 shi1 de)
他是教书的。(ta1 shi jiao1 shu1 de)
他是老师。(ta1 shi lao3 shi1)
He is a teacher.

Posted on: Seoul

Hi auntie68,

I think that Korean people shouldn’t have abolished Chinese characters, even if using them didn’t satisfy their pride and nationalism. As you know, Korean people are very diligent and education minded, therefore I’m confident that learning Chinese characters is not a burden for them at all.

Writing and typing only in Korean characters are really easy, but at the same time, reading serious or academic books is not an easy job, not only because their contents are difficult, but also because those books usually contain a lot of Chinese words, which also means there are tons of homonyms in them.

I hear that some Korean scholars lament that people are reading less and less recently, partly because of using no Chinese characters. You can often easily deduce even the meaning of an academic jargon if they are written in Chinese characters, but they are just mystic words in Korean characters.

I also hear that Korean people have been increasingly avoiding using (difficult) Chinese words, and trying to use more indigenous Korean words. It’s a very good way to make conversation warm and intimate, but you cannot always take this strategy when you’re writing academic books. The same goes for Japanese.

Posted on: Seoul

Hi rich,

Until the end of the Second World War, China, Taiwan, Korea, and Japan had used almost the same Chinese character set, i.e. traditional characters, which were mainly based on characters shown in 康熙字典 (1716). But after the war, the four countries followed a different path in using Chinese characters.

As you know, the PRC officially introduced simplified Chinese characters (简体字) in 1950s. Chinese people’s “pragmatism” made drastic simplification possible. At first, 简体字 was invented as the first step to the full abolishment (romanization) of Chinese characters, but fortunately 汉字 are still in use now.

In Japan, traditional characters are usually referred to as “旧字体” (old print), and 新字体 (new print) were introduced soon after the war. 新字体 are much simpler than traditional ones, but not as simple as 简体字used in the PRC. Japanese respect Confucius, therefore they followed a middle course (中庸之道)!

In Korea, alas, Chinese characters were virtually “eradicated” a few decades ago due to strong pride and nationalism, so they didn’t even need to simplify characters. And therefore you can say they still “use” traditional characters in Korea. You can very occasionally come across 汉字 in Korean historical dramas and books.   

Trad    Japan    China

學        学        学
體        体        体
舊        旧        旧
鐵        鉄        铁
幾        幾　   几
機        機　　机
華        華　　华
衛        衛　　卫
骨        骨　　骨
步        歩　　步

Can you tell the slight difference in the last two lines?

Posted on: Wake-up Call

Hi dammoon,

Hehe, I should not have posted "seconhand knowledge" without careful consideration (as usual)! Now let me leave this big issue to our beloved native teachers. Come in, cassie and sophie!

Posted on: Wake-up Call

Hi damoon,

Maybe there is no difference in meaning. If you speak fast, 知道 (zhi1 dao4) would naturally become (zhi1 dao), and vice versa. And if you want to emphasize the word, just like "I know that!!" in English, you can articulately say "wo3 - zhi1 - dao4!!". Anyway, don't much care about what I wrote.

Posted on: Wake-up Call

知道 (zhi1 dao4) is sometimes pronounced as "zhi1 dao", with 道 in the neutral tone, but you always have to say "zhi1 dao4" in the case of "不知道", at least according to one of my dictionaries. Native speakers don't care much about such trivial things, though.

The character 道 has several meanings. One of them is "reason" or "logic", therefore the phrase 知+道 originally meant "understand logic, or see reason", and later the spin-off word 知道 that has a present meaning "know" appeared, perhaps. Just a guess.

Posted on: 垃圾回收

Hi guolanusa,

I just feel the same way as you do. Plastic bags are really "precious" these days. I usually go out with a pocket full of plastic bags, i.e. shopping bags, doggy bags (for my chubby dog) and pooch bags.

I hear that a lot of plastic bag manuracturers in China have already gone bankrupt、or forced to shutdown, due to the new regulations and recent massive hike in prices of raw materials including oil and gas.

P/S. I believe you are a good daughter!

Posted on: Seoul

Hi rich,

You can find the answers to your questions in some comments previously posted in this thread. Let me tell you the conclusion, the capital of Korea was named 汉城 because 汉江 (the Han river) flows through the city, however there is still a big remaining question. Why was the river named 汉江, NOT 韩江？

Was it because the river flew through 汉城？Just joking. Anyway, I believe there must be good explanations on Korean web pages. I hope Korean poddies would give us the etymology of 汉江, but it seems to me that they are too shy to join the discussion on their own capital city, as far as I can judge from this thread.  

Posted on: 垃圾回收

日本有个很重要的概念叫做粗大垃圾，就是家里不用的旧家电家具等比较粗大的废物。你可以只在每月指定的日期时间和场所扔掉这种废品，还有需要提前申请，而且最近扔出粗大垃圾并不是免费，所以把旧货卖给回收站的人很自然就多起来了。

但是日本存在连回收商都拒绝收购的另一个”粗大垃圾”，就是像我这样中老年的丈夫。休息天我们”粗大垃圾”一般都整天在家里闲呆着，无所事事地过一天。孩子已经长大了，越来越不想跟爸爸说话了，老婆忙着参加社会活动，就没有时间管老公。

日本有一个说法叫”老公有精神上班，不在家最好”，很惨！

Posted on: Best Friends

Hi johns,

Budweiser bought out Harbin beer? I didn’t know that. No wonder 哈尔滨啤酒 (ha1 er3 bin1 pi2 jiu3) is as costly as Budweiser (百威, bai3 wei1) here in China. Actually, Harbin beer is very tasty, but expensive.

The Harbin Brewery Factory is the oldest beer company in China, which was established by a Russian merchant in 1900, and therefore I think the buyout is a very symbolic event in this “internationalized” world.  

An American company bought out a Chinese company, which was established by a Russian guy. I believe that’s just why I feel that I’ve become a cosmopolitan every time I drink expensive 哈尔滨啤酒！