User Comments - majamaya
majamaya
Posted on: Celebration Plans and New Year’s Resolutions
April 5, 2008 at 1:51 PMThis lesson was 非常难, but I feel very elated nevertheless - this is the first time ever I understood most of the discussion and banter. Ah, and by the way, wouldn't it be prudent to actually put it into the Upper Intermediate section since this is NOT an Intermediate lesson? (You said it yourselves in the podcast.)
Posted on: Tomb Sweeping Day
April 5, 2008 at 1:09 PMThis festival reminds me "El Día de Muertos" celebrated in Mexico (with similar festivals found in a lot of other countries of Latin America) which is in fact a very light-hearted event, an occasion to get together with relatives, recite funny speeches about the deceased, get drunk, honour the dead and spirits with offerings and flowers on an altar. During the festival, you will encounter skulls and paintings/murals of skeletons virtually at every corner. I wonder how positive the Chinese attitude towards 清明节 is, is it a happy or a gloomy day? Jenny remarks "not particularly sad", but I'd like to know more about Chinese sentiments towards death.
Posted on: April Fool's
April 5, 2008 at 12:05 PMdadfun6, could you perhaps give me a clue what "真是耶!" means?
Posted on: April Fool's
April 1, 2008 at 10:22 PMOh dear, I hope you wouldn't have sued me, auntie68, if your keyboard had got stained. I couldn't afford it, you know... Ahh, coffee, don't remind me of that...I've been up all day ushering the kids around and trying to find suitable light bulbs. Right now I'm taking a break, studying a little chinese, but it looks like my brain is taking a break as well. (I originally wanted to write "is taking a vacation", but that would make me a zombie, no less odd than a 不明飞行物 or even the omnipotent 飞企鹅)
Posted on: April Fool's
April 1, 2008 at 9:52 PMThat would be 不明飞行物.
Posted on: April Fool's
April 1, 2008 at 8:37 PMThanks a lot for your reply. But I triple-checked "伯乐试马" with different dictionaries, >"bo2 le4 shi4 ma3". That's strange. Your proverb would read as "bo2 le4 xiang4 ma3", wouldn't it? Which meaning does it have? Perhaps we're straying from the point here, perhaps my dictionaries are kidding me.
Posted on: Future Plans
April 1, 2008 at 8:25 PM理工科 - engineering (as a subject) [lǐ gōng kē] 工程学 - engineering in general [gōng chéng xué] 工程师 - engineer [gōng chéng shī] 工业大学 - University of Technology [gōng yè dà xué] 土木工程 - civil engineering [tǔ mù gōng chéng] 电子工程 - electronic engineering [diàn zǐ gōng chéng] 化学工程 - chemical engineering [huà xué gōng chéng] I hope these are common expressions, if not, please correct me.
Posted on: Please Speak Chinese
April 1, 2008 at 8:05 PMmaxiewawa related to following anecdote: "Female CS: Hello, can I help you? You were pointing vaguely in the direction of some of our computers, and must have been speaking English, so my colleague came and got me. Me: 什么？？？ FCS: Can I help you? Me: (trying to make the situation even more absurd) 你说什么啊？" Quite frankly, I don't find that story very amusing. It's not exactly insulting either, but I'd feel pretty dumb - as if they didn't even realize I was speaking Chinese. I'd constantly worry whether my pronunciation is that abysmal. So is this absurd situation the result of either A. a discrepancy in the understand of the concept of politeness B. a Chinese attitude towards foreigners (especially those trying to speak putonghua) C.the Chinese being keen on speaking English D. the customer's pronunciation? Could you please clear this up for me, it makes me feel somewhat uncomfortable...
Posted on: April Fool's
April 1, 2008 at 6:38 PM所以"尝"的意思是"taste"; "尝试"及其"试" 的意思是"try (on/out)/attempt", 对不对? 我发现一个有趣的俗语: 卧薪尝胆. It roughly translates as "Sleep on firewood and taste gall." You've got to figure the philosophical meaning for yourselves ;-) (I doubt I got the prepositions and terms for saying and discover right, or the quantifier for saying. I apologize. I've have studied this amazing language (which is my fifth language) for only 4 months, on my own, unfortunately without ChinesePod. Please correct me if that is not to troublesome for you.) Speaking of proverbs, I came across "伯乐试马", and wondered how in colloquial Chinese one would call a talent scout.
Posted on: Tomb Sweeping Day
April 6, 2008 at 1:23 PMCould someone post the pinyin of this lovely poem - I could the characters look up myself, but sometimes there is more than one form. Is there anything notable about stressing and metre etc? Thanks!