User Comments - liujunziyue
liujunziyue
Posted on: No Wonder!
October 07, 2008, 12:21 AMthis isnot my job here, anyway, you raise the interesting problem, i now give further explantion of the "前""后"。
we know, the concept of "Time" is hard to comprehend of anyone, for its non-visible, without any entity, especially for the forefathers who creat the language, they realized the existance of time, and need to express it in some form,
here, a common rule of human allover the world is express time concept by spacial concept, actually, some psychologists believe that it's spacial concept help human develop their thinking ability and system, in which time concept is only an example.
these other examples, 从前means beforetime or once upon a time, 往后means in the future, and "ahead of time" we traslated into “提前",
like that, bill's put on, put off ,put down of things is similar, we just nominate and think of complex concept by virty of simple things, you know, put on /down/ off is just physical world acts, Chinese has similar examples, like,
我们应该把问题摆到桌面上来，whose literal meaning is that, we should put the problems onto the table, but the figurative meaning is that, we should discusss the problem frankly,
当地经济正在一步一个脚印得健康发展。literal meaning is that, the local economy is healtily developing with every step left its footprint, while the figurative meaning is the economy is healtily developing gradually.
Posted on: No Wonder!
October 06, 2008, 03:02 AMWhat about now?Time, duration... more difficult concepts than we realize--until we try to learn an entirely different language.--------------------
：The time-space system is mostly the samy among mankind, so we know, language isnot self-dependent, and is the map of reality world, so language referring the time-space system are similar, and also with characteristics.
for example, "前front"，"后 back behind " is spacial words, and can express time concepts, for example, 三天前 means three days ago,十年后 means ten years later. And mention it, why we use "前" to represent the former time? u can imagine a picture, a person X facing the past, and then his front side is “前”， and his back is "后"。Every language has this person X, what about of your lanuage?
Posted on: No Wonder!
October 06, 2008, 02:53 AMChinese ways to say always. When do you use what? What about now? ------------------ 总是 总 老是 老 一直
总是and 总 refer to event frequency, such as: 他总是说“不是我的错”。He always say that, that's not my fault. (that is, each time he would say like this)
老 and 老是 are similar with the upper two, while contains some subject mood, such as, 他老迟到（he is always late）, this sentence not only tell the event that his being late occur frequently, but also means the sentence talker dislike his deeds.
Posted on: Using 'Almost'
September 28, 2008, 05:48 AMAbout "几乎" and "差点儿"
几乎：in it, the "几"means tittle, "乎" is a meaningless mood to help to constitute a adv. "几" is similar with "点儿". The differences list below:
1, "差点儿" often brings with negative mood, that is, "差点儿" itself is equivalent with "not, didnot",,while "几乎" takes the affirmative meanings.
2, in some cases, "几乎" means "差不多"，which just means "existing a slight margin", and "几乎"cannot be substituted with "差点儿", such as
今年的MBA学费 几乎 比去年涨了近一倍. The MBA tuition this year is nearly two times than last year.
3, something also can be found from point 2, that is, "差点儿" often used to describe a actual event, which has its own process, its result. and "几乎" can also used to usual things, for example,
| 在水星上看太阳，太阳 | 几乎 | 是不动的。 |
Sun seemingly is static when it's observed from Mercury. In this sentence, it's not a actual event but a natural phenomenon.
Posted on: Using 'Almost'
September 28, 2008, 05:15 AMXuchen's considering of "差点儿"as a set phase with "儿" can be correct view i think.
the reason, ”点“ as a monosyllable may hardly stand by itself as a Noun to express some "thing", in mandarin, the common and also the basic syllable unit is doublesyllable, and here, "儿" as the complementary unit can help to compose a whole and acceptable word syllable combination, which would be easier accepted.
Posted on: Using 'Almost'
September 28, 2008, 05:05 AM我每天中午差一点儿总是去吃米线。 "I almost always go eat mi xian for lunch"
this kind of expression is forbidden, ur mistaken of it may be from this point: people are used to translate "差点儿" into "almost", but as for more details, they're different.
If in some weeks, there are 5 days per week i go to 吃米线，i can say"I almost always go eat mi xian for lunch". but "差点儿“ has nothing to do with this event frequency, it just refers to one actual event, such as a exam, a unfulfilled snow, a party attendance,etc.
Posted on: Using 'Almost'
September 28, 2008, 03:54 AM"Cha dian'er" is a typical chinese grammer topic,
interestingly, "我差点儿通过考试" can share the same meaning of “我差点儿没通过考试”, which is "I failed the exam", meanwhile, “我差点没通过考试” can also be thought as "I passed the exam".
the secret is like this, if we use signal ' to represent phonetic pause, when
我差点儿没通过考试 is like 我差点儿 ' 没通过考试
it means, i didnot pass the exam, and my score is just a little under the qualification line.
and, when
我差点儿没通过考试 is like 我差点儿没 ' 通过考试
it means, i passed the exam, and just by a narrow margin.
Posted on: 古埃及
October 07, 2008, 12:32 AMrecently i saw a short tv play of your mentioned 商伯良，he maybe discoverd some Egyption charaters secret, some figures can be read out, exciting,
that's normal then, character history is always later than language history, although some forepart characters take shapes of figure, most of them isnot directed linking with the reality world, but the lanuage, so, most characters can be read out,
Actually,Oracales, nearly 90% of it takes with the sound components.