User Comments - tage

Posted on: The Brocade Zither -- 锦瑟

Hi Pete

Thank you for a very interesting and stimulating lesson. Your list of references seems to be very useful - but it took me a little while to realize how many references were hidden in just one line :-)

I'm sure this is a lesson I shall have to return to several times

Posted on: 未来世界大战

Very good lesson. I find it more challenging than many other advanced lessons - but that's fine. Maybe everything spoken is not standard putonghua, but I think it is very usefull to be exposed to this at higher levels of learning Chinese. Many students, who have only been studying standard putonghua in their home countries experience frustrations when they arrive in China - since very few Chinese speak the standard - especially in daily life conversations.

I also want to compliment the ChinesePod staff for easing up this "explosive" topic, that can so easily degenerate into heated debates with little relevance for language learning. (And I shall ignore Pete's attempt to start up this kind of debate anyway ;-)

Posted on: Are You Happy, Content, or Delighted?

@a1pi2: It is thrue that you will find both words/meanings listed under the character 快 in a dictionary, but this does not mean that it is one word (or morpheme), where you can transfer shades of meaning from one to the other. In this case I think one word is bound - if meaning 'happy' the word has to be connected to another word (kuaile, kuaihuo,yukuai), whereas when meaning 'fast' it is a free word - it can appear both alone and in combinations.

I do not think happiness is especially fast in Chinese or speed necessarily very happy - seen from a linguistic angel ;-)

Posted on: Are You Happy, Content, or Delighted?

Very good and usefull lesson.

One small thing - I am not sure that the 'kuai' in 'kuaile' has anything to do with the 'kuai' meaning 'fast'  - isn't it a case of two different words being written with the same character?

Posted on: Tomb Sweeping Festival -- 清明

Sorry - Du Mu of course

Posted on: Tomb Sweeping Festival -- 清明

Hi Pailinurus and others

I think the image of the "shepherd boy" had a strong connotation at the time when the poem was written. It was the high time of Chan buddhism in China and in this tradition "the boy riding the ox" is a symbol of a path to enlightenment. There is a famous series of ten pictures from the 12th century (as far as I remember). It might be a bit far-fetched, but I'm not sure that Du Fu would have substituted any casual person on the road.

Posted on: Reporting a Loss

What does a real shengfenzheng haomar look like? In the lesson it sounds to me like the girl gives a 5-digit number in a country of 1,3 billion?

Posted on: Munich

It seems that many Chinese transliterations of foreign names are based on the English names or pronunciations. Munihei - Munich/München or Gebenhagen - Copenhagen/København. Are there any examples of revisons in China the same way as Beijing has replaced Peking in English and many other languages

Posted on: Illegal taxis

In the supplementary vocabulary 摩的 is translated as "illegal motorcycle cab". If you were talking about a place where motorcycle cabs are legal (e.g. India), would you then use another word?

Posted on: Farewell, Son 游子吟

Hi Pete

Thank you for a great lesson. I'm looking forward to the coming shows (Alas - without the King ;-), and I also join in the chorus to make the lessons longer - some of the explanations given in the comments (e.g. about "the three springs") could easily be incorporated in the lesson itself. As can be seen from the comments, the lessons will be a very good eye-opener for students of modern Chinese to become aware of the fact that classical Chinese (wenyan) is still a living part of modern language and culture. The learned and much appreciated comments from especially Changye should alliviate the fears raised by Barto in the comments to the recent "News and features". I'm eagerly expecting Barto's evaluation.