User Comments - frances
frances
Posted on: Why Are You at Home?
August 5, 2009 at 3:11 PMIn my high school (in a rural part of New York State) every class was 44 minutes long, with 5 minutes in between classes. How weird is that? If a student's next class was not nearby they would need to hurry out of the room as soon as the bell rang and fight through the crowded halls to arrive on time. Students who were in less hurry might be able to speak briefly to the teachers. I like the idea of 15-minute breaks! Our five minute breaks were exhausting to both students and teachers.
Posted on: A Family of Teachers
July 18, 2009 at 3:05 AMThanks, Pete. I was pretty sure that "mommy" and "daddy" weren't correct translations, it's just that the cutesy language creates that impression for me. This is one of my ongoing challenges in understanding the emotional tone of a lot of Chinese language.
I think the "mater" and "pater" thing is more Germanic than "upper-class toff", but if we were really trying for the upper-class toff impression, maybe the answer would be 我的位母亲， 我的位父亲. I'm guessing that this would either sound insufferably obnoxious, or like the ramblings of someone who doesn't speak Chinese. One or the other.
<shrug>
Posted on: Bringing it All Back Home With 回去 and 回来
July 17, 2009 at 8:48 PMI have always thought that the use of "去" and "来" was essentially the same as the English "go" and "come". Some parts of the explanation in this podcasts were pretty confusing, but I don't think I heard anything that really contradicts that.
Does anyone have any examples of situations where the choice of word is really different in the two languages?
Posted on: A Family of Teachers
July 17, 2009 at 3:21 AMThanks Changye,
More odd than this lesson, the one I linked to in my initial question was one where an employee asking for vacation was telling her boss, "我爸爸妈妈要来上海" (Wǒ bàbamāma yào lái Shànghái). That sounded to me like, "My mommy and daddy are coming to Shanghai," which I'm certain is a cultural reaction to how cute the expression sounds. I would definitely have used "父母" (fùmǔ) in this circumstance. If this language really is appropriate, and not just a case of the CPod staff choosing higher frequency words over less common ones, it may highlight an interesting linguistical difference.
In English, an expression like "bàbamāma" would be too obscenely cute to be used by anyone over the age of eight. (Do adults really say this?) Similar to a lot of the reduplicated verb expressions, I have learned to understand what they mean and to use them myself, but I think I need to gain a better sense of what the reduplication sounds like, culturally, in Chinese. Our lesson hosts often talk about the impressions given by grammatical constructs (especially particals), but this is one that challenges me. What is the sense that is given by these expressions? I think only when I figure this out will I stop interpretting them through the more English-specific filter, where they are intensely childish.
Posted on: No TV Before Your Test!
July 16, 2009 at 7:23 PM"Mother Television" is not a standard or common English phrase. It's a joke. It suggests that the television can be like a mother.
Similar uses of this structure are "Mother Earth", "Mother Theresa", "Mother Ship", "Mother Russia". Each of these is a common phrase, and none of them are literally mothers.
（我不知道这在中文怎么说。）
Posted on: A Family of Teachers
July 16, 2009 at 3:47 PMCarlos,
Yes, 都 (dōu) can be either "all" or "both". "All" and "both" really mean almost exactly the same thing, except that we choose to make groups of two into a special case. Chinese doesn't do that.
If you want to make it clear in Chinese that you mean all of exactly two, you can say "两个都" (liǎnggè dōu), literally "all of these two". Usually this is just redundant, though.
Posted on: A Family of Teachers
July 16, 2009 at 12:17 PMI have a question about the use of 爸爸 (bàba) and 妈妈 (māma) in this dialogue and others. As an English speaker, I use the more informal words for father and mother (dad, mom, ma, etc...) only when I am directly addressing my parents, but as an adult talking about my parents they are always "my father" or "my mother".
It seems that this choice is made a little differently in Chinese. Are there common conventions for when these words are used rather than the more formal 父亲 (fùqin) and (母亲) mǔqin? I think I may be overusing the more formal words because of my English-language bias.
Posted on: Juiced!
June 9, 2009 at 8:21 PMIs 果汁 (gǔozhī) also the term for "smoothie"? I ask because bananas can be blended, but I don't think they can be juiced.
Posted on: Juiced!
June 9, 2009 at 8:11 PMWhat would you call vegetable juices? 果汁 (gǔozhī) seems to be a fruit-specific term. Would they be 蔬菜汁 (shūcàizhī)?
Posted on: Why Are You at Home?
August 5, 2009 at 3:16 PMI have a question about the measure word 节 jié with respect to television.
Jenny said that it could be used for segments of TV shows. Does that mean episodes, or viewing segments? (A one-hour TV show is usually shown as 4-6 segments with advertising in between.)