User Comments - changye
changye
Posted on: The DVD Ploy
January 31, 2008 at 1:15 AMHi bazza, “oishi” on the popcorn bag in the photo is a Japanese word. “おいしい (美味しい) = tasty, delicious. Google China (simplified) 爆米花 3,610,000 玉米花 1,970,000
Posted on: The DVD Ploy
January 30, 2008 at 11:51 AMGoogle China (simplified) 撒盐车 629,000 洒盐车 316,000
Posted on: The DVD Ploy
January 30, 2008 at 8:33 AMHi johnb, Wow, thankfully, today I got a lot of things to learn. I often misuse 撒 and 洒. The followings are their definitions in my dictionaries. 撒 (sa1) release e.g. 撒谎，撒尿，撒气，撒泼 撒 (sa3) sprinkle (mainly granules) 撒播，撒种 洒 (sa3) spill, spray (mainly liquid) 洒水，洒泪 撒 (sa3) also has a meaning “spill (liquid)”. In case of 撒盐车, its pronunciation should be “sa3 yan1 che1”, but I do not know how natives actually pronounce it. Let’s wait for answers from our teachers. Hi henning, CARAMEL POPCORN…? Does it go with German beer?
Posted on: The DVD Ploy
January 30, 2008 at 8:04 AMHi henning, Which do you think is healthier, salty popcorn or sweet one? In Japan, popcorn is usually salty. I am always a little disappointed when I eat sweet one here in China.
Posted on: The DVD Ploy
January 30, 2008 at 7:17 AMHi stdev, I sometimes “encounter” those four characters you mentioned above when reading Chinese history books in particular, but I have already given up the idea of memorizing their pronunciations and meanings. Now let me try to straighten them out again. 戊 (wu4)…...the 5th of the 10 Heavenly Stems 戌 (xu1)…....the 11th of the 12 Earthly Branches 戍 (shu4)…..garrison, defend 戎 (rong2)….army
Posted on: The DVD Ploy
January 30, 2008 at 5:20 AMHi sparechange, This is a set of similar characters that I often misuse. I need a magnifier to distinguish them. 拨 (bo1)……..allocate, dial 拔 (ba2)……pull, draw out
Posted on: The DVD Ploy
January 30, 2008 at 3:28 AMHere is some advice for impatient young guys. 1. Select DVD carefully to suit your needs. “色戒” might be one of the bests for your purpose, and I do not think that “邓小平你好” is a good choice. 2. Haste makes waste, and do not waste your beer so hastily. Wait until she, NOT you, has drunk a few bottles of Budweiser or a half-bottle of 白酒. 3. Every last but not the least, a clothes on which you need to spill drink is NOT yours, but HERS. Never use A4 printing papers to dry her clothes. Proceed at your own risk.
Posted on: 恶意取款
January 29, 2008 at 8:10 AMHi hannahlm, Where did you find such a “mysterious” sentence? Leaving that aside, let me try to translate it a little freely. “Massage girls have the liberty to choose to wear school uniforms, and that is none of your business. What’s wrong? “ I must also add that there might be other profound/philosophical hidden meaning behind the sentence. In that case, deciphering it is completely beyond my competence. My motto is “a wise man never courts danger.” 按摩女 (massage girls) 穿(wear) 学生装(school uniforms) 是(be) 自己的事情(their own business) p.s. typical schoolgirl uniforms. http://www.rakuten.co.jp/teens/
Posted on: Evading Nosy Questions
January 29, 2008 at 5:10 AMHi aert, I have just remembered! Somewhere I have heard that “一点 (one o’clock)” might NOT be an ordinal number, but a cardinal number, since it is a shorten form of 一点钟, which means one gong-ringing/striking. In ancient China, the time was shown by the number of rings of a gong. Ten rings meant, of course, ten o’clock. I am not sure, but this might has something to do with the confusion of tones of 一点 or 一点钟. As to the tone of “一” in “antique” textbooks edited in Korea, it had the first tone in the edition published in the early sixteenth century. The newer editions, published in the 17/18th centuries, do not indicate tone marks. Please be noted that “一” had a different tone, “入声 (ru4 sheng1)”, in earlier ages in China, which is still preserved in some Chinese dialects. “一” was pronounced something like “iet”, and later changed to “iei”, then “yi”. One of Japanese readings for “一” is “ichi”, and Korean reading is something like “il”, which means both of them reflect the ancient reading of “一 (iet)” in China. That is why historical Chinese phonology fascinates me. I did not know the book you mentioned until today. There is still no translation of it in Japan. At least I could not find it in Amazon. I think it is partly because there are already a lot of similar books by Japanese scholars. You can find a great number of books on Chinese characters at bookstores in China too, but Cecilia Lindqvist is special for China. She was a disciple of Karlgren, who was a great contributor to historical Chinese phonology! The Chinese title of the book is “汉字王国”, the kingdom of Chinese characters ( by 林西莉) . I will get it at an online shop later. Lastly, The following is the link to a PDF file which shows you some pages from 老乞大. http://www.for.aichi-pu.ac.jp/museum/pdf/hangul.pdf
Posted on: The Super Bowl
January 31, 2008 at 2:53 AM超级 (super) 碗 (bowl) What a simple translation it is! At first I thought it was a new version of 铁饭碗 (tie3 fan4 wan3, an iron rice bowl), which means very secure jobs, such as civil servants.