User Comments - tage
tage
Posted on: Yang Jie's Fury
February 29, 2008 at 1:23 PMIn exercise 3, 3 I put in guan1 ni3 shen2me shi4, but it is not acceptet - whats wrong? Something to do with the neutral tone?
Posted on: The Dice Game
January 2, 2008 at 10:38 AMFrom one of the links in the discussion it appears that this game is called "chuiniu" in Taiwan. Is this also the specific name in the mainland, or is it just called "wan shaizi"? It is a very popular bar game in Denmark too - but played with only 4 dice each, and it is played over several rounds. After each round everybody but the loser takes out on die. I've seen games with up to 20 people - it takes some time, but since the loser pays the round in our "bar culture" you can lose a lot of money.
Posted on: Most Frequently Asked Question in China
December 12, 2007 at 10:28 AMWhat about a QW the other way round. I've often found it difficult to phrase questions to Chinese people I meet about their background. There is - and has been - massive internal migration in China. When you ask "Where do you come from?" you might be told Sichuan even though the person was born in Harbin, but the parents moved there from Chengdu and most of the family still lives there. What is your ancestral home? Where were you born? Where did you grow up? Where are you living now? How do Chinese ask each other this kind of questions?
Posted on: So Tall!
November 28, 2007 at 8:48 AMJandoug Probably because the sentence is a question - the overall pitch goes up at the end
Posted on: How do you take your coffee?
September 13, 2007 at 12:25 PMJohn, Sorry, its really a small thing - but if one looks closely at your answer it still seems to me that he1 ends with a hook and a dot (to strokes), whereas he2 ends with a "ren" and a an 'angle' - 3 strokes
Posted on: How do you take your coffee?
September 7, 2007 at 10:25 AMA small question concerning the character for "drink" - he1. The one used in the text comes with radical + 8 strokes, but normally you would meet radical+9 strokes. In fact it is not possible to locate the character used in your font i e.g. the Xinhua Zidian (2005). I noticed that in one of the earler 'drinking lessons' the normal character was used in the picture coming with the lesson. A maybe very small thing - but might be confusing for people struggling with the written language. (same goes for ke3 - thirsty). By the way - thank you for a fantastic and addictive learning center.
Posted on: The Door
June 19, 2007 at 8:41 AMSimplification was made when people still wrote characters - some still do :-)
Posted on: April Fool's
April 1, 2008 at 12:07 PMGreat. This morning my 10 year old son took me aside and suggested that we put chili in the diner tonight - wondering if he has started to learn Chinese without me knowing. I lectured him that April Fool's jokes are about getting people to believe something absurd, like when a local newspaper some years ago ran a frontpage story with photos about a big lake being drained overnight through an underground collapse - people came driving from far away to see it. But now I know that he is just following Chinese traditions for yurenjie.