User Comments - mattwhyndham
mattwhyndham
Posted on: I'm pregnant!
September 29, 2008 at 1:47 PMdo you guys have a different idiom for expressing the same idea?
No not really. We are always wide awake, probably because of all the tea.
Posted on: Reading Faces and Shanghai Architecture
September 26, 2008 at 2:49 PMDoes communism have anything to do with the building up of chinas cities and country. In the US and Europe this does not seem too happen.
Not at all. In Europe and the US, this growth spurt happened in the 1850's, under mainly capitalist influences.
Posted on: Come on up!
September 22, 2008 at 9:52 PMTao of Pooh: one of my favourite books, speaking as a confirmed Poohist. All they have to do is publish it in Chinese as the Pooh of Tao, and they will surely have a winner.
Posted on: Editing a Photo
September 22, 2008 at 9:25 PM@haijing: what's the difference anyway? Perhaps these days font=computer file/resource and typeface=what it depicts, but it wasn't always so in English, and may well not be in all languages either.
Posted on: F1 in China
September 21, 2008 at 6:05 PMF=ma applies everywhere, except that in lots of places the F's aren't always that obvious.
Posted on: Don't Never Say Never
September 21, 2008 at 5:03 PM@greggs: It's a fact which some teachers are hesitant to mention (for fear of driving students away before they get started) that _many_ characters have more than one reading (i.e. pronunciation and meaning). Most of the multiple-reading characters are tone-variations (as well as carrying additional meaning), but some are substantially different to the ear. 了 = le or liao3 or 着 ＝ zhao1, zhao2, zhe or zhuo2 or even more adrift！ This is usually indicated in dictionaries as a "see also" as the end of the entry. This is easy to miss if you in a hurry.
I'm not confident about the statistics, but I'd say there are a few percent of these characters in the 2000-or so most common ones.
Posted on: Street Food Buffet
September 20, 2008 at 8:02 PMIt just arrives in my (subscriber) feed, and the ipod just handles it with no extra steps, so I'm spared any importing hassle. I have: a Cpod subscription (i.e. custom feed), Mac, and iPod classic 4th gen. First check whether you have the latest software on itunes and on the ipod - there might have been some video-handling updates. Then, verify that itunes on the computer plays the file.
Posted on: Los Angeles
September 11, 2008 at 9:37 PMThe uk group is probably not numerous enough yet to warrant a London split. To join any group hit the button marked "join this group".
Posted on: Don't Underestimate the Power of 呢 (ne)
September 10, 2008 at 7:12 AM
Not disappointing at all. I love the Qing Wen format: planned but not scripted. If they had to have transcripts ahead of time, then all sorts of editors would get involved, I'm guessing. That would a) slow them down b) kill the liveliness. Amber et al (Connie's alter ego is called Al) make great efforts to post vocab and key sentences after each show. 加油！
Time for a music change though but.
Posted on: Chinglish in Reverse and University Culture
September 29, 2008 at 1:59 PMSpeaking as an educator, I don't necessarily see it that way. In the west, there is a tradition of intellectual enquiry that's separate from the individual vs group axis. Some trace the roots of this to Greek (Socratic?) traditions of debate and dialogue (many philosophers in fact present their work in Dialogue form), but also perhaps Jewish religious debating traditions. Whereas, in Eastern cultures, reverence of the taught body of knowledge is more normal. This is not to say that there isn't re-interpretation of the classic thought in Eastern culture, but that it tends not to happen in the classroom.