User Comments - jen_not_jenny
jen_not_jenny
Posted on: World Cup and Diamonds
June 14, 2010 at 8:14 AMIt appeals to me! I'm officially a member now, and have posted the R&J link there. Your translated quote...."the outrageous slings and arrows of misfortune"? Hamlet?
Posted on: World Cup and Diamonds
June 14, 2010 at 7:55 AMI found this Chinese e-book, (http://www.tianyabook.com/waiguo2005/s/shashibiya/lmoy/index.html) located the quotation in English (Act 3, Scene 1, line 106) only to be disappointed by the fact that all lines were lost in translation. So I figured out each character's transliterated name and combed through 'til I found what I was looking for: 你们这两家倒霉的人家!
I'm deeply disappointed that "plague" or "pox" is merely translated as "bad luck" here. Ah well.
Posted on: Fun at the Beach
June 14, 2010 at 7:26 AMIn my experience, southern Chinese (in Guangdong at least) are even more sensitive to keeping their skin as light as possible. A male co-worker of mine once went on vacation to England and came back visibly tanner. I was completely mystified until he explained that he was too embarrassed to use his umbrella there like he would back home!
On Hong Kong Island, on the other hand, I've seen plenty of the younger generation out tanning on beach towels.
Posted on: World Cup and Diamonds
June 14, 2010 at 7:11 AMI'm so disappointed to have missed said corn cob!
Re: Germany vs. Oz match...I'm disappointed in Germany for winning by such a large margin. That's just not nice. I am herewith withdrawing whatever nominal support and/or goodwill I may heretofore have born for the team. They are added to bad guys Argentina (who WOULD have beat Nigeria by a greater margin if not for the quick hands of Vincent Enyeama) and Holland (who I am actively not supporting because of the beating they handed Hungary in a friendly last week). A pox on all their right feet. 他们所有的右腿倒霉的腿！Tāmen suǒyǒude yòutuǐ dǎoméide tuǐ! (Painstakingly adapted from a Chinese translation of Romeo and Juliet, Act 3, Scene 1)
Posted on: World Cup and Diamonds
June 14, 2010 at 6:24 AMYep! CCTV5 (the competition channel...I refuse to call it the sports channel because they regularly broadcast events such as ping pong, badminton, and snooker) has shown all the games thus far. Great for reinforcing one's Chinese sports vocabulary!
传球 chuánqiú to pass the ball
头球 tóuqiú header
手球 shǒuqiú handball
带球 dàiqiú to dribble the ball
好球 hǎoqiú it's good! (as in, he scores!)
And, the most important word for watching ANY sport with Mandarin play-by-play:
漂亮 piàoliang nice one!
Posted on: Football and Dragon Boats
June 14, 2010 at 1:05 AMI include myself in the "be more like Baba" group as well! It's so easy to get upset with what someone writes when that person is a faceless being we may never meet in person. I'm certainly guilty of that!
Please don't think that my comments were directed at you because they appear below yours! We were writing at the same time, I just decided to edit my words, and they appeared later. Thank you for agreeing though!
Posted on: Football and Dragon Boats
June 14, 2010 at 12:25 AMI'd just like to draw attention to the extremely civilized (sorry, civilised) manner in which Baba responded to a what could have been a provoking comment.
If we could ALL take a page from his book, we could spend more time using these comment boards to promote language learning.
Posted on: Insecticide
June 9, 2010 at 4:56 PMThanks for sharing, changye. So the three singular personal pronouns in Chinese are 他，她，and 它. That is, person+also, woman+also, and snake. I'm not sure how I feel about snakes representing all gender-less nouns!
Nciku gives this alternate to 它：牠, which would be cow+also. I'm not sure which is worse.
Posted on: World Cup and Diamonds
June 9, 2010 at 4:22 PM哈哈，对啊！我不该忘记告诉我们办公室的阿姨下周一会要我自己的一壶咖啡！
Hāhā, duì a! Wǒ bù gǎi wàngjì gàosu wǒmen bàngōngshìde āyí xià zhōuyī huì yāo wǒ zìjǐde yī hú kāfēi!
Haha, that's right! I shouldn't forget to tell our office ayi that next Monday I'll need my own pot of coffee!
Posted on: World Cup and Diamonds
June 14, 2010 at 8:29 AMI suspect the barracking/rooting for the underdog thing is somewhat cultural. Most Chinese people I know like the teams they like because they are the most successful (LA Lakers, Manchester United). A Canadian friend of mine once referred to rooting for the underdog as an "inherently North American thing." Sorry about her exclusion of Australia there. My husband, who is neither North American nor Australian, also has a tendency to be what I call fickle in his affiliations when it comes to sporting teams. The one person he is unwavering in his support of is Roger Federer.
Re: my bit of Shakespeare there...Yeah, sometimes translations are purely for my own pleasure, and not for the purpose of actually communicating. Just like I know I enjoy English T-shirts in China way more than the locals do. (My all-time favorite, you ask? "I lady but I gong-fu. Happy Freaking")