User Comments - changye
changye
Posted on: I Can/Can't Afford it (...得起 & ...不起）
June 10, 2008 at 10:11 AM中国看病贵，生不起病！
中国什么都贵，生不起，养不起，学不起，活不起，病不起，死不起！
Posted on: Hiking
June 10, 2008 at 9:16 AMHi mmoldovan,
You don't have to pull punches, especially when discussing (or debating about) languages and linguistics here in Chinesepod forums. I don't mean to be sarcastic, but I'm actually curious about your professional opinions on issues such as impeccable English, bilinguals, and so on, simply because unfortunately I myself don't have much knowledge about them yet. Thank you.
Posted on: Hiking
June 10, 2008 at 7:30 AMHi perle,
Let me get you confused a bit more!
买 (mai3) buy
卖 (mai4) sell
实 (shi2) actual, real, etc.
One more tip. It is said that there was only 买 character before Qin dynasty, more than two thousand and two hundred years ago, and later 卖 was invented by combining 出 (chu1, go out) and 买 for "sell", maybe in the era of Qin dynasty.
Don't ask me how ancient Chinese people did business without using the character 卖 (sell). I only know that other character 鬻 (yu4, sell) was also used in bronze inscriptions at that time, and later it was replaced by newly-invented 卖.
Posted on: SBTG: Sun Yatsen
June 10, 2008 at 6:13 AMHi artkho,
I agree with you. 宋庆龄 should make a good lesson topic, and perhaps 宋氏三姐妹 might be slightly better than it, simply because the more, the better…..!
Posted on: Hiking
June 10, 2008 at 4:01 AMStarange, my previous comment was posted after derek's but it is located above his comment.
Posted on: Hiking
June 10, 2008 at 3:56 AMHi perle,
"Ears are burning" is much better than its equivalent in Chinese, at least the English saying has the "ear" in it, which is the important sense organ that hears other guys speaking ill of you.
In China, you can say 打喷嚏 (sneeze) in the same figurative sense. Interestingly, Japanese also have the same expression "くしゃみをする" (sneeze). Maybe, it came from China.
By the way, confusing enough for learners, the form of the character 步 is a little different in Japan. Do you tell the difference between them, 步 (Chinese and Korean) and 歩 (Japanese) ?
Posted on: SBTG: Sun Yatsen
June 10, 2008 at 3:39 AMThe Chinese clothes ?中山 wears in the photo is called "中山服" or "人民服". The former name is obviously named after ?中山. It's very cool, isn't it? By the way, there are a lot "中山公?" (park) and "中山路" (street) all over China.
中山服（人民服）
Posted on: SBTG: Sun Yatsen
June 10, 2008 at 3:37 AM.
Posted on: Hiking
June 10, 2008 at 12:43 AMHi perle,
As you wrote, the top part of 步 means the toe radical (止=趾, zhi3), and the lower part also means toe, although its form is different from the top one in modern Chinese.
In 甲骨文 (oracle bone script) and 金文 (bronze inscriptions), the character 步 was a combination of two almost same toe radicals, which indicated two foot, maybe the right and left ones.
Posted on: SBTG: Sun Yatsen
June 10, 2008 at 2:07 PM孙中山先生和日本人有很深的关系。孙中山访问过日本几次，尤其是他在中国二次革命失败后再亡命日本，从1913年到1916年的3年间，孙中山在滞留日本期间取得了不少日本知识分子，革命烈士，商人等的庞大支持。这些日本人士从精神和物质两方面提供了很热情的援助，非常有助于孙中山在日本的革命活动。孙先生在日本的时候和宋庆龄女士正式结婚，并且他的名”中山”也是起源于日本。
孙中山在东京偶然走过一所住宅的时候看到了门牌，其门牌上写的姓名就是中山忠能。这日本人是一位很著名的公爵，而且竟然是日本明治天皇的外祖父。孙先生用这位公爵的姓”中山”给自己起名叫”中山樵”，他还有另一个日本姓名”高野长雄”。中国人日本人都没想到的是孙中山的名字和日本天皇有关。更讽刺是中国人偏偏爱用”孙中山”，与此相反，一般日本人却只知道”孙文”这个名称，太可惜！