User Comments - everett

Posted on: Don't push that button

The expansion has: 你按了哪个键？ (Did you hit that key?) Shouldn't the translation be "Which key did you hit?"

Posted on: You First

Is it rude to address a young woman working at a supermarket as 小姐 xiǎojie ?! — like if you're going to ask her to weigh your tangerines and put a price tag on them or something. I just had to second bababardwan's question, because I thought the expression was totally alright.

Posted on: Mexico City

Thanks, changye. It's especially interesting how you found examples of first using the full expression for clarity, and then once the context is established following up with the shortened form. I wonder if Chinese people living in Mexico use 墨城 in speech.

Posted on: Mexico City

This is above my level, but I wonder if anyone knows whether 墨西哥城 is ever abbreviated. Would something like 墨城 work in any contexts?

Posted on: Sign Here, Please

Just to chime in, I enjoy the lessons just the way they are. I like their unrehearsed feel at the same time as it's obvious that content-wise they've been very well prepared. It never occurred to me to question the occasional um or erm. To me that's not unprofessional, just a very fresh way of being professional; in fact that's the first thing about the CP podcasts that really stood out and interested me in the site. Ken and Jenny don't need to change anything IMHO. The same goes for the rest as well. Keep up the great work!

Posted on: Illegal taxis

Last year I experienced an unofficial mini-van taxi driver trying to exit a Luoyang freeway onto an on-ramp. Three of us had to yell and scream from the back that you couldn't do that. He wanted to turn diagonally backwards 45 degrees to exit. I think the freeways were new and he wasn't used to them. I don't even want to think about what could have happened if we hadn't noticed and reacted. It seemed to bruise his pride to get told what to do by foreigners, but it wasn't the right situation to delicately think about protecting his face.

The funny thing is, it probably would've turned out alright in some mysterious way, though it would've resembled the millenium falcon going through an asteroid belt for a bit.

Otherwise, in the normal "flow" of traffic (to put a nice word on the symphony of constant weaving, dodging, evading, pouncing, honking, intimidating, reluctantly surrendering, forcing, swearing, rolling down the window and shouting, threading one's way, and disregarding any and all painted lines, signs or rules) he was very skillful.

Posted on: New Clothes

realqueen: I reported similar problems with the flashcards (disappearing data) in December and received the following reply from customer service the 17th of that month: "Thank you for contacting us. We did receive one other similar issue report.Thank you very much for bringing it to our notice. We have already escalated it to our technical staff to resolve it. We hope it will be fixed soon. " I hope so too :-)

Posted on: Terrorized at the Airport

This actually happened to me last year. They had seen a half-full bottle on the x-ray of my luggage, and asked me to open it and show them. It was homemade camphor medicine you're supposed to drip in your nose – with no label on it – and I said it was "yao". They seemed suspicious till I drank a sip. Then they laughed and said okay. So I guess I got off easy compared to the guy in the dialogue.

Posted on: Hungry Traveler: Hangzhou

Thanks changye! :-)

Posted on: Hungry Traveler: Hangzhou

Just a quick question in case someone knows: Can you say 拍 pai1 for filming something with a hand-held video camera as well? Thanks for any help!