User Comments - chris

Posted on: Voucher Promotion at the Mall

Great effort go_manly, I recall the original transcripts with Tal group, but didn't realise pinyin versions now existed as well. Fantastic job!

Posted on: Can't Get to Sleep

Excellent, thanks Catherine. I knew I vaguely recalled one from a while ago, just didn't realise it was that far back. Amazing how long I've been listening to CPod now!

Posted on: Can't Get to Sleep

I'm sure there must be a QW somewhere covering this, but it's a question that drives me crazy re complements:  For this lesson what would the difference be between (1) 睡着 shuìzháo and (2) 睡得着 shuìdezháo?  I know that "bu" is necessary in the sandwich to negate, but I never know whether a "de" is needed or not for the positive statement.  To help illustrate my point, let's use another example: 看到 kàndào vs 看得到 kàndedào.  What is the difference??

Thanks, Chris

Posted on: Football and Dragon Boats

Hi Bodawei, my experience with Chinese female friends of my age and younger is that qipao are really only worn on their wedding day and the day of the wedding photos (rarely the same day in my experience!) This was certainly the case for my wife (the one time I've ever known her to wear her qipao was our wedding day) as well as a number of other friends who have got married the last few years. I should point out that my experience is limited to Shanghai and Fujian, so this may be different in other parts of the country.

Chris

Posted on: Fun at the Beach

Xiaophil, I guess there can be a fine line between personal preference and racism. I firmly believe everyone should be entitled to their personal views/opinions about anything, including what is considered as attractive or ugly, but a line should be drawn if that personal view/opinion causes distress or discrimination against someone else. As an example on the current theme, I personally think my own skin is ugly (very pale, freckly, burns at the slightest hint of sun, etc) but this is of course quite simply a personal viewpoint (my wife actually takes the opposite view :-)) and I would never discriminate against anyone for having similar skin to me and likewise I would not expect anyone to discriminate against me on that basis. I've no issue being discriminated against for non-performance, but just because I look attractive or not from another person's point of view would be just silly.

Anyway, I'm at risk of dragging this completely off topic, so I'll stop there and get back to catching up on my backlog of Intermediate lessons. Chris

Posted on: Medicine Doses

My mum suffers regularly from chest infections/colds. She tried these lozenges last time she visited me in China and she rates them very very highly, to the point of asking me to bring back boxes with me when I visit the UK. Apparently, they're the only thing that works for her (and she's tried lots of western remedies to no avail).

Posted on: Getting Taller (Not Fatter)

Jenny, when I first listened to the expansion sentence including zhǎngpàng, I mistakenly heard it as jiāpàng (加胖), literally "to add weight". Can we also say this in Chinese? Or can it only be zhǎngpàng?

Thanks, Chris

Posted on: Hot Pot Chitchat

Hi Sebire, your comment is interesting. I just mentioned the phrase "shang4huo3" to my wife, who is Chinese, and asked her take on it. The very first thing she mentioned was mouth ulcers! Not quite sure what they have to do with heat though....

Posted on: Picking things up: 拿、带、取

I find it helps me to think of qǔ (取) as "to collect something".  For example, I most frequently use it when I'm off to collect my clothes from the dry-cleaners here in Shanghai.  I tested my theory on all the example sentences in this QW and it seemed to work ok for all, except possibly "I have to go to the bank and collect some money", which is a little awkward sounding.  However, I note that my Lingoes roll-over does not include "to collect" as a translation.

Chris

Posted on: Picking things up: 拿、带、取

Changye, not sure if it's covered anywhere else in the 100+ comments on this QingWen, but in English "hold it" is also a phrase used to tell somebody to stop doing something. For example, if somebody is walking towards you and you want them to stop you can say "hold it right there". Hope that makes sense - I've never really thought about why we use this expression in that scenario though!