User Comments - kait
kait
Posted on: Paris
April 29, 2008, 04:37 PManother help for reading hanzi: http://adsotrans.com/ (you have to mouse-over to see the pinyin and translation, so it's nice for taking a guess first without being as time-consuming as going word-by-word to the dictionary. i'm making my way through all the comments for the first time today.) 我也很喜欢巴黎。 (wo3 ye3 hen3 xi3huan ba1li.) jenny, i once nearly got left in a parisian cemetery! a friend and i had both seen the eiffel tower on a previous trip, so when the tour bus stopped there we dashed over to le cimetière de passy nearby to explore. i got turned around among the rows of graves and couldn't find the exit; i knew enough french to ask how to get back, but not enough to understand the reply. fortunately, a very kind frenchman got me headed the right way in time to catch the bus!
Posted on: Where are you going?
March 19, 2008, 10:02 PMyay, thanks so much for all the explanations! i had brought the nali vs nar question up to my ABC boyfriend after noticing discrepancies between the language-learning audiobook i picked up at the library and these podcasts... he gave me some explanation and said his family usually goes with "nali," but the conversation quickly devolved into "how to talk like a pirate... in chinese!" so reading more about the nuances is fascinating. i'm only a few weeks in, but i'm very much enjoying the newbie lessons... and trying to stick my toe in for the beginner lessons even though they're still a bit beyond my level.
Posted on: Finding a Taxi
July 14, 2008, 05:03 AMSupplemental vocabulary to the rescue! (I was familiar with 打的 - da3di1 - and was going to ask what the difference was, but i think i see.) Can one say “坐出租车去” as an alternative for “打的”, or does that just sound silly when there's a short verb version?
谢谢！