User Comments - cinnamonfern
cinnamonfern
Posted on: Which is better: China or the USA?
January 1, 2011 at 6:27 AMAre you talking about overseas or in mainland? My understanding is that most of the immigrants who came overseas and work in restaurants came from southern China/Hong Kong - hence why they would speak Cantonese. Also, dim sum - 点心 [diǎnxīn] is Guǎngdōng cuisine - 粤菜 [yuècài], the same as Cantonese is the Guǎngdōng language - 粤语 [yuèyǔ]. (粤 [yuè] is the abbreviation for Guǎngdōng.) So it makes sense if you think about it. :)
I can't say which I like better - I think Cantonese sounds a little nicer, more melodic than Putonghua, probably because of the 8 tones. But because of these 8 tones, the language is also harder to learn. Of course, I haven't tried - 4 tones is difficult enough.
Posted on: Which is better: China or the USA?
December 31, 2010 at 9:50 AMMy friends have recommended using the spoon as well. I was actually successful for the first time this week at eating a spring roll with chopsticks! It was a very flattened one, so I guess that helped. :)
Posted on: Which is better: China or the USA?
December 29, 2010 at 2:27 PMI seriously get very, very sad if I have Chinese food and there are no chopsticks around. I cannot eat until I have chopsticks. I even eat fried rice with chopsticks...the only thing I still cannot manage are the spring rolls. Is it terribly rude to eat them with your hands?
Posted on: Which is better: China or the USA?
December 29, 2010 at 5:38 AMI had someone once ask me: "Which is better, Cantonese or Mandarin?" How do you answer a question like that? :)
Posted on: A Special Christmas Gift
December 28, 2010 at 2:47 PMGreat lesson! I really love that you are incorporating more grammar into the Elementary lessons. I've always been confused by the "sòng - something - gěi - someone" sentence pattern and why the gěi is there. Well, I still don't really understand why it's there, but at least I know the pattern now. :D
In the lesson we learned the word: 主意 (zhǔyi) - “idea/opinion" (noun). At first I thought it was 注意 (zhùyì) as "to pay attention" (verb). They are so similar! I thought they were even the same characters until I looked more closely!
Posted on: A Visit to the In-laws
December 28, 2010 at 9:13 AM恭喜恭喜！ Congrats on becoming a mom! That's so exciting!
Posted on: A Visit to the In-laws
December 28, 2010 at 9:11 AMThe phrase "get butchered" is definitely not a term you would use in formal written English, but it sounds fine to me when spoken. Okay, I've thought about it some more, and if I wasn't used to the phrase, it would sound very strange grammatically. But it is used quite often in spoken American English.
"I really hope I don't get butchered on that test that's coming up."
"Man did you see the Lions play last week?" "Yeah, they totally got butchered."
Posted on: Lots of Musical Instruments
December 23, 2010 at 2:45 PMActually, that was actually so much fun, I think I should do another...with even more onomatopoeias! I'm thinking something along the lines of...*singing*... "老 Mao Zedong had a farm, 哎哦哎哦哎"!
*crickets chirping*
What?
Posted on: Lots of Musical Instruments
December 23, 2010 at 2:09 PMMy coworker/friend helped me edit anything in the translation that didn't make sense...but on the whole the editing wasn't too painful. And all the onomotapoeia's passed inspection! All that searching paid off - whoo!
So although there may be other ways, I now know for sure that you can use 嘟嘟 (dudu) to make the sound of a clarinet, 嗒嗒 (tata/dada) to make the sound of a trumpet, and 咚咚 (dongdong) to make the sound of a bass drum.
1) Changed "wenhe" 温和 in 2nd line to "dongting" 动听 - I think just because it was a better match to the original translation. And it rhymes now.
2) Changed "zao" 早 in tuba part before shuo to “qi" 齐 - as zao didn't make sense and qi can be used in the sense of "all the tubas".
I guess there were only two changes! :D
Posted on: Which is better: China or the USA?
January 1, 2011 at 7:19 AMSo, now that I've actually listened to the lesson I have a question on the content. :) At the beginning of the lesson John said that "你来中国多久了?" refers to coming to and staying in China. So, this question doesn't have any implied meaning as to whether I'm living in China or not, right? For example, I could answer "yī ge xīngqī" or "sān ge tiān", if I've been visiting here for a week or three days, respectively?