User Comments - jianqing
jianqing
Posted on: New Year's Wishes
January 1, 2010 at 6:33 PM我有两个问题, 第一个是：＂恶作剧＂要用哪一个动词？(Which verb do you use with "恶作剧" èzuòjù, prank?) If you are joking with someone, you "开玩笑" -- do you also "开恶作剧" if you are playing a practical joke on them? Or do you "做一个恶作剧"?
My second question is, Jenny mentions people recognizing John on the street, and uses the verb "认出" rènchū ("别人会在路上认出你"). In the dialogue, "听出" is used to show that X recognized Y's voice. Would it be ungrammatical (or just weird) to say "我认出你的声音了"?
I really like the "(V)出" pattern, though it takes some practice to get in the habit of using it. Am I correct in thinking that it is short for "(V)出来", or is there a difference in meaning between "听出" and "听出来"? Oops that's 3 questions; 对不起!
Posted on: What have you done in 2009?
January 1, 2010 at 2:52 AM哈哈 -- nah, I can be classed as "mostly harmless".
I second maureen's question; what's with the two different tones for "零"?
Here in the midwest of the US we're about to get our own New Year's Eve excesses underway, so "明年见!"
Posted on: Addressing Family Members
January 1, 2010 at 2:40 AMbababardwan,
Right, I was thinking in terms of how many words it takes to express the relationship -- I actually have no idea how you would say "second cousin twice-removed" in Chinese! A better example (that I do know) might have simply been 堂妹 for "paternal younger female cousin". Of course you still don't know if that cousin's father is your father's older or younger brother -- but thankfully, I don't think Chinese goes that far! (or does it?)
Oddly enough, once upon a time when I was a linguistics student I think I actually did a paper on Warlpiri and another Aboriginal language I can't remember right now -- but I definitely remember the complexity of the family relationships (especially fun when dealing with the mother-in-law!) Kinship terms definitely bring you into the heart of a language like few other aspects can.
Posted on: Addressing Family Members
December 31, 2009 at 4:59 PMji_li: 对了，这么多称呼，我的头要爆炸了！ Thanks for the links, I think the first one hurts my head a bit less. Before this I used to go to this site to plug in the various relationships:
http://www.mandarintools.com/family.html
I have a complicated extended family, since my husband has a mother and a stepmother. (我的丈夫有母亲也有继母。) I would probably address them both directly (if they spoke Chinese) as 婆婆 (pópo) but I wonder what would I say if I was referring to each of them in a conversation?
As complicated as family terms are in Chinese, they're still a lot more economical than English with its "second cousin twice-removed", etc!
Posted on: What have you done in 2009?
December 31, 2009 at 4:12 PM大家好！
On the last day of 2009 I decided I'm not going to make much progress learning Chinese as a mere lurker on ChinesePod -- so hello everybody! 我决定不再潜水了！ wǒ juédìng bú zài qiánshuǐ le
(I heard 潜水 means "to lurk (online)" as well as "to swim underwater", if true that is very cool.)
One new-year-related thing I just discovered: you can just write "2010年" for this coming year (which I am happy to know is pronounced "èr líng yī līng nián", I had some wild guesses originally) but I just saw it handwritten 二o一o on a holiday card. Is that pretty common, or was the writer just showing her mad calligrapher side?
Posted on: Shanghai Expo: Haibao
April 22, 2010 at 1:36 PMDanwei just posted a translation of a blog post by "bad boy author and racing car driver" Han Han, where he is interviewing himself about the Expo and about Haibao. I think it's a great followup to this lesson!
They also have a link to the original post in Chinese, where I verified that the body part in question really does sound like Google (股沟=gǔgōu). 太好玩儿了!