User Comments - changye
changye
Posted on: I Just.... 刚 & 刚才（gāng & gāngcái）
June 25, 2008 at 1:10 PMHi cagster,
You’ve found a very educational web page. John always explains linguistic things so beautifully. As for the (strange) classification of parts of speech in Chinese, in fact it is a relatively well-known topic among intermediate and advanced learners. And the slight difference between 刚 and 刚才, including a noun-or-adverb dispute, is one of typical examples in this issue. I remember discussing the same problem before here in the Chinesepod forum. To tell you the truth, I half expect to “encounter” the same discussion again in half a year or so.
With regard to 刚毕业 / 刚才毕业, I also “feel” the former one sounds more natural than the latter, although I can’t explicitly explain the reason. Anyway, I don’t think the explanation given in the CCTV site, only showing the definitions of 刚 and 刚才 quoted from 现代汉语词典, is not so persuasive. At least I could not get the point at all. I believe John or Amber would be able to explain it more clearly. That being said, I think the site is not so bad, since going through 常见错误 is definitely an effective way to learn grammar rules.
P/S. Unfortunately, my chubby dog can’t stand on my hand,
simply because she is too heavy!
Posted on: Wait!
June 25, 2008 at 11:28 AM中国交通规则 (zhong1 guo2 jiao1 tong1 gui1 ze2)
Chinese Traffic Rules
绿灯.....前进 (qian2 jin4) move forward
黄灯.....奋进 (fen4 jin4) bravely move forward
红灯.....猛进 (meng3 jin4) dash forward
Posted on: Chinese Medicine: Acupuncture, Cupping and Scraping
June 25, 2008 at 6:54 AM请大家注意，在打针灸之前一定要好好确认针灸针的长短粗细。
我以前陪中国朋友去过一所中医医院。我朋友想做针灸，因为他膝盖的老毛病又犯了，就是长期治不好的慢性关节炎。吃西药也不见效果，吃中药也不行，他想来想去，最后决定还是只好打针灸。不过不敢一个人去看大夫，所以我朋友要我陪他一起去医院。我也是个怕看病的人，但同时我对中国针灸很感兴趣，用针灸治病真的起作用吗？管事吗？
我得说结果很悲惨。我们在医院挂号后见了一位老大夫，他看起来很温和善良，对患者很体贴关心。但是可是，天啊，大夫拿出来的几条针灸针让我们俩吓了一跳！那几条针不像这节课图片里的那样既小又很细，而像新疆烤羊肉串的一样又长又粗！我朋友的脸色变得苍白，手脚也开始哆嗦了。后来的故事确实令人心酸流泪，我根本就不敢写下去了。
Posted on: I Just.... 刚 & 刚才（gāng & gāngcái）
June 25, 2008 at 2:53 AMHi auntie68,
I’ve looked into the pronunciations of 抓 (zhua1, grab) and 爪 (zhao3, zhua3), and let me 报告 the result. The ancient readings of both characters were “zhao”, and later the new reading “zhua” appeared. It seems that “zhua” is more conversational than “zhao”, and probably that is why people say 爪子 (zhua3 zi) or 爪儿 (zhua3 er), but not 爪子 (zhao3 zi) or 爪儿 (zhao3 er).
Posted on: I Just.... 刚 & 刚才（gāng & gāngcái）
June 25, 2008 at 1:39 AMHi auntie68,
The guys at 社会科学院 are very "smart". There is no mention of the part name of 爪 (zhua3) in 现代汉语词典, though 爪子 and 爪儿 are classified as a noun.
Posted on: I Just.... 刚 & 刚才（gāng & gāngcái）
June 25, 2008 at 1:14 AMHi foleadu,
I’m afraid that I can’t explain “isolating language” well in English, so please click the link!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic_language
Posted on: I Just.... 刚 & 刚才（gāng & gāngcái）
June 25, 2008 at 12:28 AMHi cagster,
Your pet is very cute. I also kept chickens (besides dogs and small birds) when I was a child. Now, as for 刚才, I understand well what you would like to say. One of my 汉英 dictionaries also says it is an adverb, but it IS a noun at least in Chinese grammar.
The concept of the part of speech in Chinese grammar is slightly different from that in English one. For example, the English word “today” is both a noun and an adverb, but the Chinese word 今天 is a noun called “时间词”, and the same goes for 刚才.
I imagine that there might also be discussions over the classification of part of speech in Chinese, but at least the most authentic ones are shown in 现代汉语词典 (edited by 中国社会科学院语言研究所), where 刚才 is clearly classified as a noun (时间词).
Anyway, I don’t think that “classification” is so important in learning languages, especially isolating languages such as Mandarin and Thai. I pointed out that 刚才 is a noun in my posting simply because I wanted to tell that you can say "刚才是谁?".
P/S. You can also say, e.g. 刚才的人，刚才的问题 etc.
Posted on: I Just.... 刚 & 刚才（gāng & gāngcái）
June 24, 2008 at 1:22 PMAnd therefore you can say,
刚才是谁？ and 刚才来的是谁？
Posted on: Harry Potter
June 24, 2008 at 12:59 PMFor guys who learn Japanese,
Here is the link to reading on-line (Japanese).
Posted on: I Just.... 刚 & 刚才（gāng & gāngcái）
June 25, 2008 at 11:59 PMHi cagster,
I’ve managed to come up with (hopefully) a good explanation on a distinction between 刚 and 刚才……..in my bed. Besides difference in the classification of parts of speech, there is also a difference in “time-span” or “time range” where 刚 and 刚才 are properly used. Let me explain this more concretely.
刚才 (noun) is generally used only to mean that something has literally just happened, say a few minutes ago, or a few hours ago at most, of course it depends on the situation. But at least I believe that natives usually don’t use 刚才 for the event happened LAST YEAR, LAST MONTH, or LAST WEEK.
On the other hand, 刚 (adverb) is more flexible than 刚才. It all depends on how you are feeling. For example, you can also say 我去年刚结婚 or 他前年刚从美国回来 and so on. But you can’t say that 我 (last year) 刚才结婚. Of course 我刚才结婚 is natural in the case that you have just married TODAY.