User Comments - changye
changye
Posted on: 对症下药
May 4, 2008 at 5:06 AMHi henning, I guess that the phrase “吃不惯” might be more commonly used than “吃不习惯”. Btw, one of my Chinese friends also told me that “吃不来” does not seem to be so frequently used here in 东北地区, but strangely I’ve found the word without indicating “方言” in 现代汉语词典. Anyway, how to use the word “习惯” properly sometimes bothers me. 我还不习惯于”习惯”这个单词的用法！ 我还不习惯吃臭豆腐。 我还不习惯于吃臭豆腐。 吃臭豆腐，我还不习惯。 对于吃臭豆腐，我还不习惯。 我对吃臭豆腐还不习惯。 我对于吃臭豆腐还不习惯。
Posted on: 对症下药
May 3, 2008 at 7:50 AM在中国除了医疗事故意外等所谓医疗风险之外， 还有老百姓受骗买假药或者不良药品的可能性。 药店老板仔细地检查你交的一百元纸币的时候， 你也需要好好地查看盒子上是否贴着防伪标签。 你在比较有名的医院看医生买药吃也不能放心， 我曾经看过假药杀人悲剧发生在大医院的报道。 中国药厂规模一般不大而且其技术水平并不高， 都起因于医药市场蔓延假药仿制药的社会背景。 假药使制药企业降低研制新药或投资的积极性。 我认为围绕中药的各个问题也许比西药还严重， 比如有些实在不太可靠的中医大夫或者甚至是 假冒医生骗卖既昂贵又莫名其妙的自制秘方药。 在国际医药市场中最被认可和信赖的中药制品 却不是中国制造的而是日韩制造的就真是奇怪! 国产中药竟只占全球天然药物市场的百分之五。 作为一个中药大国这确是一件非常尴尬的事情。
Posted on: Diet Coke
May 3, 2008 at 2:35 AMIn Japan, there are only two brands of cola, i.e. Coca-cola and Pepsi-cola, but in China you can drink another one, 非常可乐 (fei1 chang2 ke3 le4), which should perhaps be translated as “Extraordinary Cola” or something like that. This Chinese brand cola is referred as to “中国人自己的可乐” in its commercials. Its meaning is “Chinese people’s own cola”, but I don’t know whether or not 非常可乐 is produced under their “own” technical know-how. photos of 非常可乐 http://images.google.cn/images?complete=1&hl=zh-CN&newwindow=1&q=%E9%9D%9E%E5%B8%B8%E5%8F%AF%E4%B9%90&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi
Posted on: Yoga
May 3, 2008 at 2:10 AMHi eulloba, There is something I forgot to mention in my previous posting. "China : Empire of Living Symbols (汉字王国)" by Cecilia Lindqvist might not be satisfactory to already-knowledgeable readers just like you, but I still believe that it would be an excellent ABC book in the field of Chinese etymology. This best-selling book has a good point. All the characters listed in it are categorized according to genre of things, such as nature, animals, tools, farming, books and instruments, abstract things, and so on, which I think makes the content of the book more readable, memorable and entertaining. I myself have several books and dictionaries on Chinese etymology, but characters listed in them are arranged according to number of strokes, pinyin, radicals (this is not so bad), and even according to 韵部 (types of ancient rhymes) like 广韵 or 集韵. They are good for reference but not for “enjoyable reading”. Etymologies are very interesting, and at the same time, very confusing, because sometimes there are a few different etymologies for one character. And I think this makes learning etymologies more intriguing and exciting in any languages. Btw, may I have your comment on my posting about “冥”?
Posted on: Formal Introduction
May 2, 2008 at 11:15 AMI looked deeply into the two characters “你” and “您” today. To my surprise, “你” was already being used in the sense of “you” in 秦朝 (Qin dynasty) or earlier dynasties, which was more than two thousand years ago. Of course, its forms (伱, 伲, 尔, 爾) and pronunciation (nia or nie?) was slightly different from those of the modern character “你”. On the other hand, the history of “您”, or its alternative “恁”, seems to be much shorter than that of “你”. It is said that those characters began to be used in Jin dynasty (金朝, 1115－1234). Interestingly, “您” or “恁” are the condensed form (or sound) of “你们 (ni men)”, and originally they only meant “you (both single and plural)”, but not “you (honorific)”. And later those two characters “您” and “恁” gradually obtained another meaning, i.e. you (honorific) just like today’s 您 has. It is also interesting to know that second person pronouns in ancient Chinese, such as 女, 汝, 尔, 你, 伱, 伲, 爾, 若, 而, 乃, 戎, all had the consonant “n” or one very similar to “n”. There should probably be some reasons for this.
Posted on: Yoga
May 2, 2008 at 7:17 AMHi eulloba, Thank you very much for letting me know about Leon Wieger and his work “Caracteres Chinois”. I didn’t know both at all until today. You wrote the book was published in 1899, therefore the first edition could not reflect the information obtained from 甲骨文 (bone oracle scripts), which were discovered in the same year, 1899, in China. I wonder whether or not Wieger took in such new findings when he published the book’s later editions in the early 20th century. But anyway I believe the author had through knowledge not only about 小篆 (seal scripts) but also about 金文 (Chinese bronze scripts) and research achievements by scholars in Qing dynasty, such as 说文解字注 by 段玉裁. In that sense, the book “Caracteres Chinois” should still have a great historical value and significance, even though its contents are somewhat outdated today. I think that the same goes for 中国音韵学研究 (Etudes sur la phonologie chinoise) by Karlgren. It is already a little out-of-date, but still important in historical Chinese phonology. I’m very surprised to know that some excellent European scholars (or missionaries), such as Karlgren and Wieger, came to China at THAT time, unstable politically, and had great academic achievements despite difficulties. Btw, as far as I know, 说文解字 is widely believed to be edited by 许慎 around 100 A.D., not 200 A.D. Sorry for nitpicking!
Posted on: Yoga
May 1, 2008 at 8:06 AMHi chanelle77 and guolanusa, What a coincidence! Aert is Dutch too, and he said that he also read the book in his language. I love to read this kind of books because just seeing illustrations in them is very interesting and amusing. As far as I can judge from the sample pages, the Chinese edition seems to be relatively easy to read for foreigners, as is often the case with translated books. You can find a lot of books on etymologies of Chinese characters and words, as well as Chinese literatures, in bookstores here in China. My vague impression is that those books have been getting more popular among Chinese people over the past ten years or so, which I think might perhaps be reflecting the growing national and cultural pride in Chinese society.
Posted on: 撒娇
May 1, 2008 at 6:05 AMHi pituitaryadenoma, Thanks again for your advice, and sorry for the late reply. It is always a tough job to restore the infected PC. Now, I know this is not IndonesianPod, but let me stick with the word “manja” a little more. Below are the definitions of the word in all of my Indonesian dictionaries and some online Indo-English dictionaries 1) Indo-Japan, 甘える (verb) 2) Japan-Indo, 甘える (verb) 3) Indo-China, 矫，娇滴滴 (adjective) 4) Indo-Eng, spoilt, intimate (adjective) 5) online dictionaries, spoiled, etc (adjective) Interestingly enough, only dictionaries published in Japan insist that “manja” is a verb, and I must admit that the odds seem to be against “the Japan Imperial team”! Both (1) and (2) dictionaries were edited by prominent Japanese scholars, so I wonder why they thought that “manja” was an adjective. There might be some “profound reasons” for this, or I guess they carelessly adopted the word “甘える (verb)” simply because they couldn’t find a right adjectival Japanese word to mean “manja”. If so, they should have offered more “explanatory” definitions, such as “甘えている” and “甘えたような”, instead of “甘える”.
Posted on: Yoga
May 1, 2008 at 3:30 AMHi guolanusa, Let me introduce you an excellent (and famous) book on the etymologies of Chinese characters. I am afraid that I myself have never read it, but aert, a Cpod listener who is a seasoned linguist, strongly recommended it before, so I guarantee that you will not regret buying it. Btw, the author "Cecilia Lindqvist" is a disciple of a prominent Swedish linguist / sinologist "Bernhard Karlgren. " Engnlish edition. http://www.amazon.com/China-Empire-Symbols-Cecilia-Lindqvist/dp/0201570092 Chinese edition, you can see some sample pages here. http://www.amazon.cn/detail/product.asp?prodid=zjbk480230&source=dapenti
Posted on: 对症下药
May 4, 2008 at 5:37 AMHi auntie68, 看样子你总算买到了一台新的电脑, 恭喜, 恭喜, 恭喜你!! 不过我有点担心你以前用的苹果电脑是不是已经变成了你侄儿(or 外甥?)的高级玩具。如果那样的话，我估计他会很快就成长为一个电脑大师。小朋友们学什么都很快，我这个中老年真羡慕年轻人啊！ 我很感谢你看我写的破中文，但愿我的帖子以后不给你的汉语坏影响。关于中国药品问题，其实我根本就没有资格批评, 讽刺, 或嘲弄中国制药企业， 因为我平时挺爱吃”摩罗丹”, 就是很有名的中国养胃药。连我的小狗狗都爱吃，没有摩罗丹我就活不了几天！