User Comments - chris

Posted on: 1949

I'm also in process of making the jump from Inter to UI, and went back to the beginning.  Pretty tough stuff!  But will persevere.

Chris,

PS - Ken has particularly heavy breathing in this lesson!

Posted on: 1949

I'm also in process of making the jump from Inter to UI, and went back to the beginning.  Pretty tough stuff!  But will persevere.

Chris,

PS - Ken's has particularly heavy breathing in this lesson!

Posted on: Giving 给 Another Look

Lujiaojie, does the \"diao4\" here indicate that the ice-cream was all eaten? I'm confused since I had learnt this word as meaning \"to fall/drop\", e.g. I dropped the book on the floor.

Perhaps when \"diao4\" acts as a complement to the main verb it has the meaning in Christine's sentence above?

Thanks, Chris

Posted on: Why is everyone looking at me?

Bodawei, loved the bracketed comment. Made me laugh out loud! I tried doing this in SH on occasions the last couple of summers, remarkably comfortable in the humid heat. Unfortunately, the wife ran a mile (perhaps that should be fortunately ;-))

Posted on: Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes

btc10, the actual Expo site is temporary - under expo rules they're required to pull all the pavilions down within a few months of the expo finishing. However, the big deal for longer term SH residents (as opposed to those just visiting for expo) are the major infrastructure improvements they've made throughout the city. Trust me, the whole city has been like a big building site for the last 12-18months. And it's been non-stop - they redeveloped the road outside my flat recently, and were working from around 630am straight through to 3am, 7 days a week. The real benefit will be with SH for years to come after the expo.

An interesting fact I read the other day is that over 95% of expected visitors to expo are Chinese. The 4-5% overseas visitors that are expected to come (i believe around 3-3.5million) is no higher than the average number of overseas visitors to SH apparently!

Posted on: Chinese Idol

Thanks lujiaojie. Are there any rules to follow for when these verbs can be split? Or do we just have to learn them as we come across them?

Posted on: Chinese Idol

Hi baba, seems we're both having similar thoughts on this one! A theory I've got is that when the first part of the compound is a verb in its own right, and the second part of the compound is a noun in its own right, then you can split them. I'm pretty sure I've seen examples on CPod (although i can't recall exactly where) when "shui4jiao4" (to sleep) has been split. Hopefully we'll get an official answer once the working week gets started tomorrow!

Chris

Posted on: Chinese Idol

Hi, a quick question about "tǎolùn".  In Expansion Sentence 5C we have "nǐmen zài tǎolùn shénme?".  I'm struggling a bit with these two-character verbs at the moment (another example being "cāoxīn" from the previous lao wang finale intermediate lesson).  Could we also have said "nǐmen zài tǎo shénme lùn?" instead of the above?  I never know when we can split the verb like this or not.....

Thanks, Chris

Posted on: Lao Wang's Office 14: The Finale

Couple of questions:-

1) In Expansion Sentence 1A - we have "zhème dà yī ge gōngsī" meaning "such a big company".I would've said "zhème dà de gōngsī". Is this ok? Or do we definitely need to use "yī ge" instead of the adjectival-clause-joiner "de" in this instance?

2) Those pesky verb-noun split-complements (at least I think that's what they are!) - in Expansion Sentence 3B we split "cāoxīn" (to worry about) with a "shénme", i.e. "cāo shénme xīn", i.e. what are you worry about. Is it necessary to split the "cāoxīn" or could we simply have put the "shénme" at the end, i.e. "nǐ xiā cāoxīn shénme? (what are you worrying blindly about?)?

Thanks, Chris

Posted on: Grab Some Veggies From the Store

Very useful to know. I'm around 100kg and often wondered why people looked unconvinced when I said I weighed a 100! Must remember to double it in future!