User Comments - cinnamonfern

Posted on: Toothache

@Jenny - thanks! I had this fear of attempting to say someone was bored and actually saying that they were boring. :)

@light487 - haha :D

Posted on: Toothache

So, how do you say 'bored' in Chinese? I asked my Chinese friends once and they could not tell me how to say this - I'm not sure if they understood what I was asking though.

他很无聊. (He is really boring.) [Can you say that a person is 无聊, or would 没意思 be better?]

??? (He is really bored.)

Posted on: Interested in Chinese Medicine

So in English we can say "I am interested in 'noun'.", or "I am interested in 'verb'."....for example "I'm interested in Chinese." or "I'm interested in studying Chinese."  Can you do the same with 对。。。感兴趣？

我对中文感兴趣。

我对学中文感兴趣。

The last one just feels wrong to me for some reason.

And good job Jason!  恭喜！(Not sure if that's the proper word to use here, but it's the one I know.)  :D  I'm a little behind on my lessons so I just got to hear your first podcast!

Posted on: Beards Are for Old Men

Thanks Jason. Oh - I just noticed from your profile that you're from Michigan! Me too! :)

Posted on: Beards Are for Old Men

Ok - so in the supplemental vocabulary, a razor for shaving one's face is "剃须刀".  As a girl, I hope I will never need to shave my face, but I was wondering if there a different word for a razor to shave one's legs? 

Posted on: Dancing in Public

So has swing dancing ever made it to China? I imagine if most of the people who are dancing are middle-aged, then they might have trouble with the speed and the aerials. :) Is there a word for swing dancing?

Swing and scottish country dancing are definitely my favorites because you move so quickly. In Michigan we usually dance inside because it's just too cold in the winter to be outside (and icy). One time we went country dancing and because we'd brought too many girls, including some Chinese friends who'd never gone dancing before, I got to be a guy for the evening (they even made me wear a tie!).

Posted on: The Hunan Accent

Yay!  This lesson came out after my wall post on accents & traveling in China!  I'm so happy.  :) 

I have a friend from Hunan who came to the U.S. to work for six months.  He would swap the "l" and "n" sounds, even in English (my friend from Chengdu in Sichuan also does it). We have a friend named Leo, and he called him "Neo", so needless to say, there were many Matrix jokes.  I wish I had space to tell all the funny stories that resulted from him mixing these sounds.

Posted on: Walking the Bird

My previous roommate actually has two leashes/harnesses for her cats.  It was really funny to put the harnesses on them, because they became immediately petrified.  They would slink around very, very slowly.  But then she actually started taking them outside for walks.  At first they were really freaked out, but then they got used to it and came to expect it.  They now wait at the door and meow at her to take them outside.  We imagine the neighbors all thought she was very strange.  :)

Posted on: Utensils in the New Kitchen

Thanks Jenny! :)

Posted on: Utensils in the New Kitchen

I had a question about one of the expansion vocabulary words. You have 胡椒粉 as black pepper - which is how I originally learned it in the Newbie lesson on salt and pepper (胡椒).  But when I visited China my Chinese friends said that black pepper is actually 黑椒.  Are these two different spices or two different ways of saying the same thing?  Is one secretly pretending to be black pepper?  Or is 黑椒 the evil twin?