User Comments - garethbridges
garethbridges
Posted on: Restaurants with Entertainment
December 09, 2013, 11:45 PMIn fairness, he wasn't eating anything though...but that probably because he's already been well briefed on what's 'suitable' for 外國朋友 to eat. Aggressive hospitality is commonly encountered when meeting people for the first time.
Posted on: iPhone vs Android
June 15, 2011, 02:23 PMI recently downloaded an iPhone app called "Chinese Writer". It's not bad as a supplement for Skritter, but certainly no substitute. It's a fun Tetris-like game where you have to trace the outline of characters before they drop off the bottom of the screen; the characters start to fall progressively faster. It's good for re-enforcing stroke order (although I've reported a few errors), no spaced repetition, but better than nothing when you're in transit and want to practice some writing.
Posted on: Hard Drive Storage
May 21, 2011, 02:18 PMI don't think it's a matter of not understanding her, it's just an extremely annoying voice. Annoying to the extent that I skipped the dialogue section at the end of the podcast.
Some girls have these affected accents. I don't understand why, but it's something we have to live with/avoid where possible...so probably better if it isn't in these podcasts.
In my experience only wannabe 靚模 speak this way.
Posted on: Hard Drive Storage
May 21, 2011, 07:38 AMI can feel vindicated by my perseverance with traditional Chinese. 內存 vs. 閃存 is much better!
Posted on: 外商的中国之路
April 06, 2011, 12:56 PM中國的郵政、電信、鐵路等行業還是由國家壟斷著。
(In China, industries including the postal service, telecommunications, and railroads are all government monopolies.)
How should I be treating the 還是 in the above sentence? I first read it as 'or', but maybe it's more like 'still'. E.g...are *still* all government monopolies
Posted on: Second-hand Bicycle
November 24, 2010, 03:06 PM我以為是"二百五"的簡稱.
Posted on: An Executive Plan Report from Hong Kong
November 24, 2008, 03:44 PMI was having dim sum with my customer in Guangzhou; once we'd overcome the confusion of me speaking to the waitress in Mandarin, but using Cantonese names for the dishes, he summarised my ability quite well. He said, "you can speak Cantonese words, but not sentences". Actually, I was quite happy with that.
Posted on: Rating Restaurants on Dianping
October 10, 2008, 05:58 AMIn Hong Kong we use http://www.openrice.com; also very good. These websites provide a legitimate reason for taking photos of your food before you eat it... I'm not sure if people in China also do that?
Posted on: Restaurants with Entertainment
December 09, 2013, 11:48 PMI hadn't eaten anything from 麥當勞 in over 15 years, but found myself guilt tripped into it whilst in a backwater in Guangdong. Never again!