User Comments - martyzcp
martyzcp
Posted on: Bad Luck with Buses
July 17, 2013, 12:54 AMMy experience with the subway in Suzhou - the one frustration is that on the platform the signs only indicate the final stop. The one existing line runs almost directly east - west so it would be a logical thing to do. In the Chicago subway system you would see a sign "North to Howard" or "South to 95th", be nice if they put the direction in there. Especially since the two terminal stations are well outside the main city and are places I have never heard of.
Posted on: Bad Luck with Buses
July 17, 2013, 12:45 AMI hear it too. My experience in China is that nearly everyone speaks with an accent. Part of this "accent" includes tacking on vowel or consonant sounds on a regular basis, particularly the last word in a phrase or sentence. Often times when you listen to a CP dialogue you will hear a clear "点儿" in the dialogue, but when the host repeats it (or you read the text) the 儿 has disappeared. Same for 啊， e.g.是啊，谢谢啊, the latter often sounds like "xie xia" rather than "xie xie a". Some of my female Chinese coworkers in Suzhou seem incapable of calling out someone's name without tacking on an obligatory 啊，so I heard the dialogue and assumed that the speaker was really saying "小丽啊".
Posted on: Bad Sandwich
June 02, 2013, 09:42 PMI'm in the midwestern US and "washroom" is pretty common here as well. Having worked in Canada and the northern US, my perspective is that Canadian pronunciation and word choice tends to mirror the nearby points in the US more than faraway parts of Canada. E.G. Someone from Toronto tends to speak similarly to someone from Buffalo or Chicago and someone from from BC sounds more like someone from California than someone from Toronto or Novia Scotia.
Posted on: Important Visitor
April 05, 2013, 01:00 AMQuestion: I actually have the title of director. My Chinese staff tell me that my title translates as 总监，not 总。What is the difference?
Posted on: Getting an Official Receipt
December 27, 2011, 05:20 PMAlways a fun topic - I eat out a lot in China and since I am a manager and company policy requires the highest-ranking person to pay, I get a lot of practice requesting the 发票。The irony is that while my Chinese-based employees must show a fa piao to get reimbursed, my travel receipts are processed back in the US where they not only don't require a 发票, they don't know what it is. Not that it matters, whether 买单还是发票 (maidan haishi fapiao - bill or receipt) no one can read it! :-)
Posted on: Choosing a Room
December 21, 2011, 08:30 PMCertainly the mainland hotels that I've stayed at (Western-brand and Chinese-brand) have not offended my nose (and I notice cigarette smoke smells pretty quickly). For the few Chinese-brand hotels I have stayed at demanding a non-smoking room has an added bonus - there seem to be relatively few of these rooms, so I've regularly gotten upgraded to a suite because that was the only non-smoking room available when I checked in :-).
Posted on: Making Plans for the Day
November 26, 2011, 05:48 PMI'm a bit confused by the placement of 上和下relative to the time of day indicator. Is it correct that you say 早上 (zao3 shang4) and 晚上 (wan shang) but 上午 (shang wu)and 下午 (xia wu)? Are there other parts of the day that use 上还是下？
Posted on: Plane Ticket Prices
October 11, 2011, 12:37 AMThanks Jenny,
Follow-up question relating to grammar. In these examples the "time" adverb comes between the helping verb and the primary verb (e.g. Ni da suan shenme shihou hui qu ...). Is it correct that the "time" element really goes before the modified verb? In other words, if the "time" element modifies the helping verb would it come before the helping verb? EG "I currently intend to go to China" = "wo xianzai dasuan qu Zhongguo"
Posted on: Plane Ticket Prices
October 02, 2011, 08:58 PMIs 回来（hui lai) also intransitive like 回去？
Posted on: B.O. in the Library
October 04, 2013, 12:01 AMI have. A Chinese friend recently commented that she felt Westerners had much worse B.O. due to their much higher consumption of meat. I did some surfing online and this seems to be a fairly widespread belief, also saw quoted at least one study backing up this statement. Some of it focuses on over-consumption of fat and protein in general rather than meat specifically. Based on my experiences in China and life in the US the average American consumes at least twice as much protein as a Chinese person of similar age and weight. I have to admit it (the difference in eating habits, not the potential link to BO) has made me reconsider my eating habits!
That said, I have a few horror stories from 5-10 years back involving Chinese coworkers coming to the US and demonstrating horrible personal hygiene habits, such as wearing the same set of clothes for 2 weeks straight. They may have been bathing regularly, but if you never change your clothes, it doesn't matter!