User Comments - chris

Posted on: Antiperspirant in China

Thanks Auntie68, I'm having a re-think about the various ways we could say such sentences in English now.  For example, "be careful of....." or "be careful not to......".

I've never really been a linguist - so taking up Chinese has been great because I often find myself giving my native tongue further thought as an unintended consequence!

Posted on: Antiperspirant in China

Hi all,

Quick question on the first expansion sentence.

"Bie2 xiao4 le, xiao3xin1 ba3 fan4 pen1 chu1lai5"

"Don't laugh, be careful not to spit out your food"

In English we use the negative after instructing to be careful, i.e. "not to spit out".

I think the literal translation of the Chinese is:

"be careful to take food spray out".

Why is the Chinese not also in the negative, e.g.

"xiao3xin1 ba3 fan4 bu4 pen1 chu1lai5"?

Or is this a case of just accept the difference between the two languages and move on?

Thanks, Chris

Posted on: Afraid of Dogs

Thanks Amber, very clearly explained as ever!

Posted on: Afraid of Dogs

And another one.....

"yi1qi3" (together).  Are there any rules when this word is and is not required.

For example:

"Wo3 gen1 ni3 yi1qi3 qu4 ba" (I'll go with you)

Could we simply say:

"Wo3 gen1 ni3 qu4 ba"?

Thanks, Chris

Posted on: Afraid of Dogs

Hi all,

As usual, a grammar question from yours truly!

I would like some more understanding of the positioning of "gen1...." in sentences.

In the expansion, we have:

"Ta1 bu4 xiang3 gen1 wo3men shuo1hua4"

Jenny said in the lesson that the "gen1" has to come before the verb.  However, in this sentence we have two verbs, namely "xiang3" and "shuo1hua4".  Is the positioning rule actually for the "gen1" to be before the final verb?

For example, would the following be incorrect:

"Ta1 gen1 wo3men bu4 xiang3 shuo1hua4"?

Thanks, Chris

Posted on: The DVD Vendor

Thanks Amber.  I guess if I'm unsure in these situations it's better to err on the side of caution and include both the words (to ensure I'm understood) rather than risk dropping one of them and have the meaning possibly change unintendedly.

Thanks, Chris

Posted on: Pretty Clothes

I'm so with you Ken!  I'm a shave-it-all off type of guy, so I'm in and out of my local barber here in Shanghai in about 60 seconds flat.  Even with it all shaved off they're still trying to offer to wash and dry it as I'm running out!

Chris

Posted on: Changes on ChinesePod

Hi CPod team,

I posted a suggestion a few weeks back elsewhere but this seems a more appropriate thread for it.

On the flashcards, you will recall that there is a self-scoring mechanism for users to click whether they were right or wrong.  It would be an excellent feature if, at the end of one's flashcard session, the user could recycle through JUST the incorrect flashcards.  Even better would be if CPod could somehow automatically tag all the incorrect flashcards such that they went into a sub-group.  Therefore, next time the user goes to the flashcard page he/she could just select this sub-group to be able to focus on the words they know they have problems with.

Would this be an easy improvement to make??

Thanks, Chris

Posted on: The DVD Vendor

OK, no idea what's wrong with the formatting in my above post.  Tried to edit it, but to no avail.  Hopefully you get the point though!

Thanks, Chris

Posted on: The DVD Vendor

Hi all,

I have a question about one of the expansion sentences:

Ta1 de suo3you3 cai2chan3 dou1 bei4 mo2shou1 le