User Comments - everett

Posted on: Are You Busy?

Is the 儿 (er) in 有事儿 (you3 shir4) optional? Can you also just say 有事 (you3 shi4)?

Posted on: Drinking Game

shenyajin, thanks! Anyway, to connect back to the topic (my bad): yi1 zhi1 wu2gong1 you3 yi1 bai3 tiao2 tui3 ;-) Or maybe you can call a big centipede a tiao2?

Posted on: Drinking Game

Great lesson!

Sorry for asking a totally off-topic question, but does anyone know the Chinese word for those really big reddish fuzzy centipedes?

Posted on: Toilet Types

Bruce Lee famously climbs up onto a western toilet to squat in Way of the Dragon. Because of that scene I knew what to expect. However I wasn't prepared for the bathroom at the place I was staying, where there were two squat toilets right next to each other and a bucket to stand and do #1 in. So up to three people would be doing their business in a cramped space at the same time, plus maybe a few more in line busy elbowing their way in and talking with the squatters.

Posted on: How Many Zeroes?

Thanks a lot, Dunderklumpen and Lujiaojie. That's a different way of using 了 (le) than I had known about up until now. Nifty stuff!

Posted on: How Many Zeroes?

Could someone explain the use of le 了 in this sentence from the expansion? 这么远，我不去了。 (It's so far. I'm not going.) It looks to me like the second part say "I didn't go". Is the scope of the le 了 the whole phrase instead of just modifying the verb 去 qu4 ?

Posted on: Gone Fishing

Great lesson. I hope y'all do more lessons with children in them!

Posted on: Hong Kong Visa Run

Once again CP sets the standard for up-to-date, reality-based lesson contents. Where do I click to rate this one a 6?

Me, I'm just a steenkin tourist, but I remember hearing a lot of talk, gripes and worries over visas among some long-term expats. They could sit there sharing immigration stories for hours. One guy was doing the HK visa run once a month for a period just after the Olympics (took a whole exhausting week each time with bus trip from Henan), and there was also talk of some service in Shanghai that very well may have been this Magic Chen. How nifty to log in and find a lesson on that very stuff!

Posted on: Watch Out!

That recorded message really gives the lesson atmosphere. On the street I thought that noise was a recorded sales pitch or a police command. Nice to find out what it really meant.

On the subject of the noises appliances make, a friend bought a soy-milk maker – pour the beans in with water and it does the rest – and when it was finished it played jingle-bells (in sine-wave beeps, sounding like a greeting card)

I sometimes get the feeling that in China, and especially on the streets, people like noise and they like it loud. Loud is good.

Posted on: Hungry Traveler: Inner Mongolia

There's currently a commercial running on Swedish TV for headache pills that shows a human pill singing in what I now know is Mongolian throat singing. You learn something new every day! Btw is 蒙 in the sense of Mongolia 2nd or 3rd tone?