User Comments - mark

Posted on: Let Me Sleep a Little Longer

Maybe, it is a recipe for witches' brew: an eye of newt, dash of trouble, bowel of noodle, boil, boil, toil and trouble.

Posted on: Is Home Cooking Safer?

The current Chinesepod team is based in Taiwan. So, it is only natural that some of their word usage would reflect how Mandarin is spoken in Taiwan. The previous team had a similar Shanghai bias. Anyway, it is Mandarin that they are teaching you, not Taiwanese (闽南话), and what your learning will be understood by mainlanders, if occasionally sound a bit quaint.

Posted on: Who's Been Spending My Money?

I still think flock and school, etc. have a lot in common with 量词。 For example, flocks are collections of non-threatening animals that one encounters on land, or in the air. Schools are swimming things. Packs are groups of carnivores.

Posted on: Who's Been Spending My Money?

You will probably also dispute that English also has 成语, specifically, all of those Latin and French phrases that we sometimes use, even though we can't speak Latin or French.

If you allow somewhat loose definitions, I think there is no grammatical element that Chinese has and English lacks, or vise-versa. Rather, different grammatical elements are used with differing frequencies in each language. For example, inflection is very seldom used in Chinese, 们 to pluralize some nouns, 地 to turn adjectives into adverbs, and a handful of other examples. However, inflection still is used.

In comparison to Russian, English is a very lightly inflected language, but Chinese uses just a pinch.

I think English has a germ of the idea of 量词，义气子and other constructs that seem uniquely Chinese, at first. We're all people and are born with the same mental tools. We just put them to different uses.

Posted on: Pricey Parking

There is a lot of context to language. Whether one uses 公有 or 公共 to describe a parking lot that is controlled by a government agency may depend on how government ownership is framed, and which wording sounds more appropriate may depend on the local environment.

Another area where I have trouble with context is when I write in Chinese. I often get comments that my writing sounds too much like spoken Chinese.

Posted on: Who's Been Spending My Money?

English also has measure words, like a "flock" of sheep. Similarly, you usually can't use these kind of words as adjectives. For example, "a flock of fish" just sounds weird. It doesn't make one think that the fish are furry.

Posted on: Pricey Parking

I think 临停 could be both an abreviation, and mostly used in Taiwan and not elsewhere.

BTW, the person I asked about this said he understood the alleged Taiwan isms, but they sounded odd to him.

Posted on: Pricey Parking

I went over this lesson with a native speaker from northern China, today.  The two of us thought the following are Taiwanisms:

公有 》公共

开单 》罚款

临停 》 ？？

顺民 》 ？？

搭地铁 》坐地铁

Posted on: The Important Difference Between 需 (xū) and 须 (xū)

Chinesepod has always had chatter, and I think that is one of the things that makes it fun. Only this time, was the first time the chatter was a monologue.

Posted on: Pricey Parking

You should trust Taiwan people to tell you what things are called in Taiwan, and Beijing people to tell you tell you what things are called in Beijing, especially in regard to stuff that became prevalent after the forties.

BTW, my current 家教 didn't realize that classical Chinese characters were still in use until he came to the US and saw them in Chinatown, or so he told me.

I get different reactions from people living in different parts of China to using 老婆/太太 to refer to my wife. The Shanghai team was in the 老婆 is cool, 太太 is feudal camp, but people in other places think 太太 is more respectful.

Then there is the whole 小姐 versus 服务员 thing in regarding how to courteously address waitresses.

I'm afraid there is a bit of sorting out what should be said where to learning Chinese.