User Comments - changye
changye
Posted on: SBTG: Sun Yatsen
June 11, 2008 at 12:43 PMHi LostinAsia,
Thanks for those English titles of Chinese classics. It would take leaps of imagination for me to guess their original titles, if I didn’t know they were Chinese literatures beforehand. Even if I knew, just seeing its English translation “The Water Margin” wouldn’t easily remind me of 水浒传.
“The journey to the West” must be the name of an American movie starring John Wayne. Is “The Romance of the Three Kingdoms” a new novel by Rowling?
水浒传 The Water Margin
三国演义 The Romance of the Three Kingdoms
聊斋志异 Strange Tales of LiaoZhai
红楼梦 The Dream of the Red Chamber (Mansion)
西游记 The Journey to the West (or Monkey King?)
灵山 Soul Mountain
Posted on: I Can/Can't Afford it (...得起 & ...不起）
June 11, 2008 at 11:47 AMHi pingjeans,
I don’t think just using one character 赞, as a verb, is common in Chinese. It is usually used in combination with other characters, such as 赞扬 and 赞美, both of which means “praise”. And then if you are reluctant to praise someone, I suppose you can say 不愿意赞扬，不太情愿赞美，不太想赞美, etc.
And another option may be; 你不值得(not worth)赞美，他不太值得表扬, etc. If you are a more word-saving guy, just saying 不怎么样 would be OK depending on the situations. You can also use 表扬, 夸奖 and 称赞 for praising, although their connotations are probably not always the same.
Posted on: Sightseeing at Tiananmen
June 11, 2008 at 8:46 AMHi suburbanite,
I'm also a faithful user of Chinese-perakun. That is an excellent Add-on! I don't feel like reading Chinese webpages without using it now. But please be careful, you occasionally come across a mistake in pinyin indications.
The add-on is weak especially in 多音字 (duo1 yin1 zi4) or multi-reading Chinese characters. I guess the same goes for other online dictionaries, perhaps. I think that is just the limit of online materials.
Posted on: Sightseeing at Tiananmen
June 11, 2008 at 5:47 AMHi tucsonmichael,
I usually say 往左拐 (wang3 zuo3 guai3) for "turn left", and of course 往右(you4)拐 for "turn right". I guess that 拐 is a little more conversational than 转. By the way, the 传 (chuan2, or zhuan4, but not zhuan3/4) in your comment is a typo. Don't fail to turn properly in CHINESE!
Posted on: Sightseeing at Tiananmen
June 11, 2008 at 3:28 AMHi Chinesepod (and poddies),
May I please ask when you are going to add a notice such as “Indicate Pinyin, if you please” in Newbie and preferably Elementary lessons? Or, are you just letting the same thing, i.e. a no-pinyin comment and warning to it, repeat over and over in the future? Do you think it’s a productive way for both Chinesepod and its learners?
It is NOT that I don’t want to see comments written in Chinese without pinyin, I welcome anything, but it is that I’m tired of seeing warning comments posted OUT OF GOOD WILL, making some benign (and sometimes a bit careless) commentators feel embarrassed and end up apologizing just for not having indicated pinyin.
Of course, I admit pinyin is important for beginners, but it won’t hurt you to occasionally look up dictionaries on your own, even if it is NOT “on your terms”. You have online-dictionaries, Chinese-perakun, or paper dictionaries. If they are all unavailable, please just neglect no-pinyin comments. I’d say they are not your things. No offense.
About the notice, forget old lessons.
Only adding it to new lessons would be OK.
Posted on: SBTG: Sun Yatsen
June 11, 2008 at 3:01 AMHi sophie,
Let me supplement the information about 香山县. Its name was changed to 中山县 to commemorate 孙中山 in 1925, after the death of the great revolutionist.
Posted on: I Can/Can't Afford it (...得起 & ...不起）
June 11, 2008 at 2:05 AMHi sushan,
I also saw the film “大红灯笼高高挂” several years ago. It was, in a sense, a hilarious movie, where the husband has four wives, and the big red lantern is raised in front of a wife’s room every night to indicate “HE IS HERE TONIGHT”.
More interestingly, 红灯街 literally means “red light district” in Chinese. I can’t afford four wives both economically and physically. And, anyway, I have no management ability of controlling multiple wives and arbitrating possible troubles!
Posted on: I Can/Can't Afford it (...得起 & ...不起）
June 10, 2008 at 11:45 PMHi rash,
Thank you, because you’ve just inspired me to read “Wild Swans”. Actually I bought the famous (or notorious in China) book (a Japanese version) many years ago, but I’ve never read it. It’s long been sitting on one of my bookshelves here in China.
The reason is very simple. I know, at least, the story is TOO heartbreaking, so it takes a kind of will for me to begin reading it. But I also know it’s one of the best books to read for learning the social atmosphere during the Cultural Revolution in China.
By the way, “Wild Swans” has been banned in China, as well as another sensational book “Mao: The unknown story” written by the same author “Jung Chang”. I’d like to read it too, but still don’t have the heart to bring the banned book into to the PRC…!
Posted on: SBTG: Sun Yatsen
June 11, 2008 at 1:57 PMHi tvan,
I don't know much about things such as "Napoleon Bonaparte starring Jackie Chan", but at least I know that the PRC has been making a tremendous number of so-called 抗日战争电影 (or 电视连续剧), films featuring the registance war against Japan, where a lot of "evil" Japanese soldiers are played by local Chinese people. They commonly speak terrible Japanese.