User Comments - chris

Posted on: Los Angeles

Thanks Amber.  I see you've been very busy today responding to all the CPoddies' questions from the last week!  辛苦!!  Chris.

Posted on: Lao Wang's Office 3: A Call for Innovation

Changye, Amber,

Perfect, got it. Thanks!

Chris

Posted on: Lao Wang's Office 3: A Call for Innovation

Thanks Huibert and Changye,

Another question, in an area I always struggle with!

Expansion sentence:

"Ta1 shi4 zuo4 fu2zhang1 jia1gong1 de"

"He does clothing manufacturing"

Is this an example of the "shi4.....de" construction?  Or is this an example where a final word is dropped, because the "de" and the context make it obvious - in this case the final word could be "gong1zuo4"?

"Ta1 shi4 zuo4 fu2zhang1 jia1gong1 de gong1zuo4"

"He does clothing manufacturing work/job"?

Thanks, Chris

Posted on: Los Angeles

Hi all,

I like one of the Expansion sentence chunks:

"mei2 hao3 ye3 mei2 yan2zhong4 qi3lai"

"not any better and not any worse".

Can someone explain what the "qi3lai" is doing?  This is a very high frequency expression and I often hear it bolted onto the end of various verbs, most often "kan4", i.e. "kan4qi3lai".  What exactly does it mean?

Thanks, Chris

Posted on: Lao Wang's Office 3: A Call for Innovation

Hi all,

A question regarding the dialogue sentence:

Wo3men de chan3pin3 mei2 shen2me chuang4yi4

(Our products aren't innovative)

Why is it "mei2 shen2me" and not "mei2you3"?

Also, I know "chuang4yi4" is the noun, i.e. innovation or creativity.  What is the equivalent Chinese word for "innovative" or "creative", i.e. the word that would fit in the following sentence:

Wo3men de chan3pin3 bu4 shi4 X.

Thanks, Chris

Thanks, Chris

Posted on: Post-Holiday Preview

I'm listening to the broadcast now - but I'm confused.  Wasn't National Holiday week in China the week just gone (w/c 29 September) not next week (w/c 6 October)?  I was the only one in our office last week - so I'm hoping all my colleagues weren't mistakenly on holiday?!

Thanks, Chris

EDIT - sorry, just read the intro narrative.  My bad!

Posted on: Recovering a Cell Phone Number

Dear all, a grammar question.

In one of the expansion sentences is the following construct:-

Gen1 zhao4pian4 shang4 de yi1yang4 piao4liang

She's as pretty as in the photo.

Is this a set grammar pattern?  I am thinking the pattern is:

"Gen1.....X.........de yi1yang4....Y...".

So could we say something like:

"Gen1 dianying de yi1yang4 pa4"

It's as scary as in the movie?

Thanks, Chris

Posted on: Lesson Preview, New Team Member

Do any other native English speakers here find that they start mis-reading English words as Pinyin, when for example reading an English newspaper.

For example, I always read "women" as "wo3men" rather than the plural for ladies and "pang" as "pang4" (fat) rather than pang as in pang of pain, etc.  Another classic is "you" - i always read it as "to have".

I actually like this though since I treat it as evidence that I'm starting to think in Chinese, albeit Pinyin Chinese!

Posted on: Recovering a Cell Phone Number

Changye,

I found a bit more background on the expression "touch wood" here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knocking_on_wood

Interesting stuff.

Chris

Posted on: Recovering a Cell Phone Number

Hi Changye,

Any chance you could provide the Pinyin?  My Hanzi comprehension is still a bit behind!

Also, I'm not sure if you're aware of the expression "Touch wood" in English.  I've never understood where it comes from myself - but basically, it is something we say (in England, at least) after making a statement about how lucky we've been.  We say it in order not to tempt fate, i.e. by saying that I've never lost a mobile phone yet is just tempting fate for it now to happen!!

Language is a strange thing!

Chris