User Comments - drbilllong

Posted on: My Friend is Inside

There is no way you can learn the characters quickly.  You have to study them for years, be convinced repeatedly that you are an absolute moron and then, eventually, you realize you can recognize more of them.  But conviction of your absolute moronhood is a first essential in learning excellent Chinese....

Posted on: 超级细菌

Thanks very much for posting the (partial) transcript!  It helps those of us immensely whose listening skills don't quite yet match our reading skills...

Posted on: Wheelchair Access to the Great Wall

The evolution of the term "disabled" in American culture of late is interesting.  It was the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (1991) that officially made government start using "disabled" rather than "handicapped" (the "official" term previously).  The passage of the ADA, however, further sunk American English into a linguistic prison, as we struggled to determine if people really were "disabled" or "otherly abled" or some such word.  It seems that the prefix "dis" is increasingly associated with the "dis" of "disrespect"--hence, we are not sure what word to use to describe--um--"them."

Posted on: Chinese Solar Terms

Fascinating topic.  I wanted to write briefly to ask whether some of the final wording is correct.

1.  Should it be 冬至面 for the last sentence?  Then, should it be 一天长一天 rather than what is written?

2.  I noted, in the preceding one, that it ought to be bai(2) lu(4) rather than bai(2) luo(4), right?

Thus, when you have a moment, would you check to see that things are right for all of the five final statements/sentences?  Thank you.

Posted on: A Qing Wen to Our Listeners

I have three suggestions for Qing Wen. 

1.  I have read that one of the marks that distinguishes an elegant speaker and writer in Chinese is his/her effortless ability to use appropriate cheng yu, or four-character sayings, in the right circumstances.  Some, of course, are historically derived, many are redupllicated words, some employ two verbs and two nouns, etc.  Some create beautiful pictures that make the language so vivid as to make one believe that Chinese is simply the most wonderful language in the world.

So, my proposal would be to have one or more "Qing Wen(s)" on cheng yu.  Forgive me if there are these lessons all over the site..I would like to be directed to them.

2.  Another idea is more prosaic and relates to the variety of verbs one uses that attach to various modes of locomotion..riding bikes, taking cars, taking trains, cabs, etc.  I don't know the right situations to use which verbs...

3.  Finally, I know that measure words are occasionally discussed, such as when Jenny helpuflly differentiated "tou" and "zhi" depending on the size of the animal being considered (lesson on a trip to the zoo), but I wonder if one could do a Qing Wen on some of the lesser-known or used or, alternatively, on the "ten top" measure words or the ones that are most difficult, or the ones that seem to repeat each other--like the several measure words one can use for flat things...

Those are my Saturday night thoughts.

Posted on: Reading Fortunes

I seek a clarification regarding the cheng yu used in the first line of the dialogue.  In the dialogue we have tian(1) fang(1) di (4) yuan(2) or "square sky and round earth."  However, as I was doing a bit of research on the concept of evolution of the field of Chinese geography, I ran into an academic paper entitled, "tian(1) yuan(2) di(4) fang(1)" or "round sky and square earth."  So, which is it?  Please clarify!

Posted on: A Leggy Joke

The sound for the second and third sections of the grammar didn't work for me.

Posted on: What do you do?

I have also often seen the phrase conglaimei to mean "never."  Would you please differentiate briefly when to use conglaibu to mean "never" and "conglaimei" to mean never?  Thank you.

Posted on: Yang Jie's Diary: The Final Episode

I would like a clarification.

The supplementary vocabulary has the phrase 花心 or hua(1) xin (1) and defines it as "flirtatious.  When I checked the new Oxford Chinese Dictionary (2010), the entry for the same word read "unfaithful."  The example given was a 花心丈夫 or an "unfaithful husband."  I saw immediately that we had a problem of the lexical reach of the concept, for if I jokingly used the phrase to a male friend of mine, I might get more than my foot in my mouth.

So, would you be able to be more precise on the meaning of 花心?  I note that when I typed in the phrase "flirtatious girl" into Google Translate I got "嬌媚" or jiao(1) mei(4) 的女孩、The first meaning in the Oxford dictionary for jiao(1) mei(4) is "coquettish," which would be synonymous with flirtatious.

Thank you for your help on this!