User Comments - pietervansloten

Posted on: Is China Scary?

ah the china threat. it's an interesting topic that i'm sure will continue to feature prominently in public discourse over the next few years if not decades. 

i was wondering by the way, whether it will be possible to have a greater variety of host speakers in the future. don't get me wrong, jenny and connie, you are both doing a fantastic job, but i'd love to hear podcasts with a 3rd speaker, preferably one of those people with badly slurred and fast pronunciation. you know, those people that always destroy the confidence you've slowly built up after listening to the perfectly articulated chinese coming from jenny and connie ;) i suggest you hire the first random construction worker from dongbei, or one of those taiwanese binlang-chewing cab drivers!

Posted on: Buying Jade

thanks miantiao. i asked a chinese friend as well and she explained it to me as follows:

no matter (不管) if it concerns the jade itself or (還是) the craftsmanship, it's all absolutely top class.

she argues you can break down the sentence as follows: 不管是 A 或者 B, 都 X.  (no matter A or B, all SOMETHING).hope this helps shed light on that sentence.

cheers

Posted on: Buying Jade

dear jenny, john or fellow podcast listeners,

i have a question regarding the use of 不管 in the following sentence that appears in this lesson's dialogue:

这个挂件不管是玉石本身,还是雕工都绝对一流。

simple question actually: shouldn't 不管 be 不光 (not only) instead? if not, then does it have a usage besides "no matter what" that i don't know of? thanks in advance.

best regards,

pieter

Posted on: What is a Chengyu?

i suppose many of these chengyu are written in classical chinese (文言) which explains why in most cases the syntax doesn't make sense. also, many characters you see in these chengyu have different meanings than when used in modern chinese language. so the best thing to do is not to analyze chengyu, but just study their translations.