User Comments - clakkers
clakkers
Posted on: Letting go with 放
March 23, 2009, 01:40 AMthere's just one thing i don't understand too clearly.
Do i have to put the verb before the 别放弃 as in:
学中文别放弃
or can i say
别放弃学中文
I have a slight feeling that the last sentence is yingnese but I'm not 100% sure.
Can anyone help me? Please!
oh by the way, another term i heard for a number one or number two is to go and sing a song, as in 我要（去）唱歌. I don't know if that can be used for children though and it seems to be a phrase used in the dongbei area.
Posted on: China Fruit and Pre-Marital Sex
November 25, 2008, 01:44 AMi think the topic of sex in china is the same as most places in the world; people are quite willing to try on the goods before they buy them but talking about the situation openly is generally reserved to a small group of close friends over a few beers. Many beers later might be different but i guess that's another story. I know about the park thing as well and it makes me feel quite secure.. Where i'm from in England, walking through a park at dusk is likely to get you mugged at best whereas in Shanghai the people in the shadows are more interested in their own business. That makes life a bit easier when you are late for dinner in xu jia hui and need to cut through xu jia hui park. Lastly, duriam's are the devils spots. I tried a bit of one once and had duriam burps for 8 hours afterwards. Wrong.
Posted on: Often: Using 常常，经常，通常 (chángcháng, jīngcháng, tōngcháng)
November 24, 2008, 12:22 PMhurray for going to the shops in pyjamas!!
在通常情况下，我周末穿着睡衣去商店买烟、牛奶、别的早上吃的东西。
i'm never going back to england unless a law allowing the freedom to wear pyjamas is passed.
thanks pete for coming clean and admiting what many foreigners in shanghai try to deny (you know who you are)!
Posted on: An Executive Plan Report from Hong Kong
November 24, 2008, 05:51 AMi am a clakkers and i also have a cold:
wo3gan3mao4le. 我感冒了。
it's not a nice feeling, i want my mum and some mushroom soup.
get well soon masterkrang.
Posted on: Birth by Chinese Zodiac
November 22, 2008, 07:52 AMthanks ivanearnest, i actually tried to set my mind to becoming liu xiang's rival at the next olympics a couple of weeks ago but after headbutting four hurdles in succession i thought it wasn't going to happen.
Now I realise it was those pesky petty minded thoughts.
rah, i am a TIGER!!! yeah! (this is me setting my mind)
buzzin!
Posted on: Birth by Chinese Zodiac
November 19, 2008, 02:27 AMso why is being born in the year of the sheep/goat/ram/thingy bad again?
我属羊， 有些人告诉我因为羊有辛苦的生活， 在山上找草、水什么的， 所以属羊的人跟他们一样。
can anybody enlighten me?!
Posted on: London
October 27, 2008, 03:31 AMthis is well late to be saying this but a friend of mine told me i can say 米国 for britain because the lines on the british flag look like '米' the chinese character for rice.
It was a shanghainese friend who told me and i don't know quite how widespread the usage is or whether he was having a laugh. I quite like it though because the ultra long chinese paragraph for saying 'united kingdom' is not something i find easy to remember!
Posted on: Salt and Pepper
October 27, 2008, 02:07 AMgoing back to the saying about salt and rice; i am from the north of england and we have a version of that saying which my grandad uses when ever i open my mouth. He says 'shut up, i've forgotten more than you can remember'.
I may teach him the salt and rice phrase to give him some variety in his speech (although maybe i could change the rice to potatoes for him because he likes those better)!
Posted on: Transliteration into Chinese and the Long Pinky Fingernail
September 27, 2008, 09:38 AMwow.
Posted on: Zombies: Deader than Ever
May 01, 2009, 02:47 AMetherway,
the name of the famous hong kong movie is 僵尸道长 jiang1shi1dao4zhang3. the english name is mr vampire i think (which is strange because it's about zombies...)
i watched it last week on the chinese 'youku' website. it's quite funny, there are two versions, one is in cantonese and the other in mandarin with mandarin and english subtitles.
quality old skool entertainment!
i also think that lessons like this one are great because although i won't necessarily use the words everyday in china, it's a topic i don't get to study at chinese school or university. It's a good insight into chinese culture too. I think studying something lighthearted is a good way to pick up sentence patterns and grammar (but i love zombie movies so maybe i'm biased!)