User Comments - goulnik
goulnik
Posted on: Studying Japanese
October 11, 2007 at 12:03 PMwere it not for all those characters, I for one would never have thoought of learning Chinese.
Posted on: Fighting over the Bill
October 11, 2007 at 12:58 AMoops, too quick - I meant, since it's not expected why tip? you get the service by just asking, insisting, just as the Chinese do. Why tip?
Posted on: Fighting over the Bill
October 11, 2007 at 12:56 AMI hate the tipping concept, pls don't help make it spread into China
Posted on: Studying Japanese
October 11, 2007 at 12:42 AMcompliment maxiewawa, compliment, not complement maxiewawa. As a native speaker, pls don't confuse us poor 老外 with English (mis)spellings :-)
Posted on: Treating and Foreigners on TV
October 10, 2007 at 11:19 PMAnother question for this show is, what happens to gifts (those 小意思）, particularly those offered in business situations. I have a feeling they can be recycled, i.e. reused by the recipient who wouldn't bother opening them. Is this just my imagination? Seems to me there's some cynicism about it, I gave some to business colleagues I was visiting yesterday, and one of them asked me if I was sure I had enough since I was meeting so many people? She was implying she didn't need it, which she didn't, and proceeded to give it to her admin assistant as soon as I left. It may just be because I'm a 老外 she deals with many of them.
Posted on: Accents and Subway Survival
October 10, 2007 at 1:40 PMI had a chance to take the subway from 南京东路 at 8.30 this morning to 湛江路 and return at 5-ish. It was pretty packed, but frankly I'm familiar with the London tube and the Paris metro, and thought this was a piece of cake - air conditioning and no smell! I checked the cars at front and in the back though, and there were just as packed. Applied the same technique as usual, trying to stick to the side of the doors. Was reasonably packed but it might not have been the busiest time of day.
Posted on: Studying Japanese
October 10, 2007 at 1:30 PMactually, I got carried away, didn't actually use French as an example but German, Russian and Japanese - French is so damn easy, spelling in particular ;-)
Posted on: Fighting over the Bill
October 10, 2007 at 12:41 PMIn France leaving money to thank s.o. for wonder hospitality would be offensive, so I would think all the more so in China. A gift would have been more appropriate me thinks....
Posted on: Studying Japanese
October 10, 2007 at 11:43 AMI was meeting two colleagues from our company office in Shanghai today and they did the usual routine, you speak Chinese, so difficult for foreigners, the usual... and also that in Chinese there's no word order ?! I had to tell them, I thought it was a very Chinese thing to say, have they ever tried to learn Japanese, German or French? Yes, Chinese has tones, no cognates with European languages, hanzi, lots of vocab and culture..., but as language learning goes, I didn't find it particularly difficult. They were shocked, first time they heard this!
Posted on: Editing a Document
October 13, 2007 at 12:50 AM出版社 (chūbǎnshè) publisher 最新版 (zuìxīnbǎn) latest edition 改编 (gǎibiān) to adapt e.g. into a movie