User Comments - tamutom
tamutom
Posted on: Protect Your Screen!
April 25, 2013 at 12:35 PMCheck out the Task I uploaded for this lesson! Download
Posted on: Kung Fu King Comparisons
April 25, 2013 at 3:44 AMCheck out the Task I uploaded for this lesson! Download
Posted on: Signs in China and Mistranslation
May 23, 2011 at 11:19 AMA sign in Xi'an directed me to the "Terracotta Worriers."
The lesson I took from all the funny translations was: Be prepared to make silly mistakes in Chinese.
Posted on: Rainbow
March 28, 2011 at 3:17 AMIt turns out that oranges do come from China. Today I just happened across a history of oranges in the book Paradise Under Glass by Ruth Kassinger. It begins, "The trees are native to subtropical regions of China, and in prehistoric times their seeds were carried, probably by both people and birds, thoughout Southeast Asia."
Britanica says that the common orange or sweet orange, the one most produced commercially, is also known as the China orange. Its scientific name turns out to be Citrus Sinensis. Sinensis means "native to China," as in Camellia sinensis, the tea bush.
That's all a surprise to me.
Posted on: Tortoise and the Hare
July 27, 2010 at 11:47 PMgo_manly, that comment was intended to be in what I thought was a private thread with my teacher, Helen Cao. It was my first post to that student-teacher thread. I checked the public conversation after I posted it, to make sure it had not accidentally shown up here, and it had not. It must have popped up here later and then been removed by kind staff. Oh, now I see this is the Discussions page, not the Conversations page. I will take a look at Conversations. That was only my second post. The first one came out in all bold font, like I was yelling, and I could not edit it away. Sorry for causing novice errors.
Posted on: Finding an Apartment
October 5, 2009 at 12:59 AMantony73 - According to _Chinese Characters: A Genealogy and Dictionary_ 臣 chén is a pictograph of a kneeling person. That makes sense to indicate the meanings servant, subject, minister, official, stateman as they all had to bow down to someone of higher rank. When the 人 , a regular person (?), is added we find the meaning becomes to lie prostrate - which was extreme bowing in the old days of China. This works as an interesting story for me.
卧 wò is also said to mean to crouch, according to my hanzibar translator. So I wondered if it would be in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. I got out the DVD and there it was. And 臣 showed up again in the character for hidden. What fun!
Posted on: Noisy Renovations
May 2, 2013 at 5:00 AMCheck out the Task I uploaded for this lesson! Download