User Comments - mark

Posted on: 中外脱口秀

没关系，不按时比没有好多了。

Posted on: Chinese Gamer Culture

I think， here， 真灵/很灵， just means "very perceptive/current with events". Any subtle jabs, are derived from context, just as if I was making a date, and someone butted in to invite themselves, in English, I might reply, "your hearing is very perceptive". The meaning isn't literally what I said, it is that I didn't intend that this someone hear what I said.

Posted on: Chinese Rock Music

I think that the natural rhythm of Mandarin goes very well with rock music, but most Chinese that I know don't really like rock.  So, searching out good Chinese rock has been a bit of a struggle.  Anyway, great topic!

Posted on: 鸿富锦诉讼

This is an interesting story, dripping with appearant social relevance, but the article it is based on seems incomplete to me.  A couple of muckraking reporters write an article uncovering poor working conditions, and exploitation, in a factory.  The factory owner sued them for all they were worth and more, and asked that their assets be siezed and frozen.  In the end it turns out their story exhagerated some points, and the owner is satisfied that the court helped him investigate his side of the story, and reduces his claim to 1 rmb. 

I'm not entirely clear what was wrong with the reporter's story.  It seems one anonomous wronged worker turned out to work for a related company and not actually the accused factory.  I don't know if the entire story was based on this one worker's tales, the factory in question is filled with happy, well paid workers, or the owner was just mullified by a few face saving facts.

I kind of suspect the latter.  If so, this is a very Chinese style problem resolution, and it would be interesting to delve further into that aspect.  Unfortunately, Jenny and Aggie's discussion is also very superficial.  They focussed as they should on explaining some of the terms in the article, and so on.

I'm curious if anyone knows any more about the background of this story and is willing to comment?  Yes, I know it is an old lesson.

Posted on: Taking Transportation

我喜欢驾帆船。

Posted on: Dropping Marriage Hints

不好意思，“警告”，我常常拼翻过来的词。

Posted on: Dropping Marriage Hints

我已经被抓住了，结婚三十一年。你们的告警太晚了吧。不过老伴儿还是我最好的朋友。

Posted on: Hiring an Intern

I agree with Bababardwan that the word you missed was 都. It is usually required when referring to a collection of things. (Chinese requires something like "All men 都 are created equal." or more like the sentence in question, "Sam and Harry 都 are created equal.) Mostly, it seems to be grammatically rather than semantically required. I always get corrected when I revert to English thinking and leave it out, though.

My personal feeling is that John, the speaker here, in general, doesn't speak particularly fast. It is not uncommon to encounter native speakers who habitually speak two or three times as fast as he does. However, given that the particle in question is just a bit of grammatical glue, and his Chinese is near native quality, he naturally doesn't spend a lot of time on it.

I'm sure that when you speak English, there are many such particles that you give short shrift to without thinking about it.

Anyway, I don't have any short cut to suggest. Just roll up your sleeves and listen to lots more Chinese.

Posted on: 太阳系只剩8大行星

It seemed like the comments were mixed up to me, because the initial several don't seem to match the lesson content. These seems to be true of all of the old media lessons. I will probably get to a point where the comments match up sooner-or-later, because I'm going through the old ones in chronological order until I get to the point that I started studying media lessons as they were published. I will let you know when I transition from the alternate universe where comments are all mixed up, to our earthly plain.

Posted on: Annoying Popups

病毒 are computer viruses. So, the Chinese love of two syllable words makes getting a computer virus: 中毒。