User Comments - trevorb

Posted on: Upcoming lessons, lots of Chinese and a "jia you!"

Monty Python, not the Knights that say 你

Or maybe you could go for the goons "hard sweets, hard sweets, hard sweets, hardsweets yiddle ai pou"!!

Alas my sense of humour is too rooted in late 70's British culture, that must mean 我也是中年！

Posted on: Upcoming lessons, lots of Chinese and a "jia you!"

Ah bababardwan if we both dig we could meet in the middle :-)

Posted on: Personal Questions and Bargaining

I'm so with you on this, but then I'm English too..... reminds me of the advert for a particular web comparison site :-)

I may someday understand how to use 了 correctly, but I'm never going to get haggling. Not even for a beard or a packet of gravel....

Posted on: Why is everyone looking at me?

加油，别人懂了吗

Posted on: Beards Are for Old Men

You are quite right she doesn't :-)

Mind you she probably likes me having a beard 'cos it covers at least some of my face ;-)

Alas mine too is turning grey, faster than my hair (which looks to be avoiding the whole grey thing by falling out instead!). Thing with shaving it off is it takes soooo much longer in the bathroom in the mornings....

Posted on: Beards Are for Old Men

So I'm not able to grow a beard would be

我不可能留胡子 对不对

Posted on: Beards Are for Old Men

I'm with you don't shave it grow it, I've had mine for 25 years!

我先见过我的老婆我有胡子。她真喜欢所以我没刮

I did shave it once and my wife complained she could not pick me out of the crowd anymore.  I should probably have run, but I grew it back to please her instead ：-）

Posted on: Office Policy: Internet

Published february 2006, that's some time ago when CPod was finding it's feet I would guess. I liked it just because it was a little different but its the only one like it that I have encountered to date...!

Posted on: Why are You Studying Chinese?

I've been interested in China and its culture for many years since spending a few years studying martial arts many years ago.  I always wanted to study but could not find time for language classes then one day I wondered if there was a way to study on the internet.........

I've never told my work colleagues that I study chinese as I am doing it for me alone not any other reason.  I don't want anyone thinking I am doing it to advance my career or to get preference on trips to China. 

I know nobody that speaks chinese and I started with the intention of just learning the spoken language however I soon fell in love with chinese characters.  

Until the advent of the activity stream I had never actualy communicated with anyone using chinese of any form (and some would probably say I still haven't ;-) ).

Trevor

Posted on: Funny Rice

The word play thing is common to all but does not translate.  This joke does not translate to anyone without a knowledge of english and english jokes that depend on wordplay don't work either.

It seems to me chinese may provide for many more puns on the words, but only when spoken.  When you start putting it into characters it becomes more specific and often though the sound is the same the character differs wildly (often even more so in traditional chars). 

I suspect only jokes that don't rely on wordplay will stand a chance of being funny to all of us.  Explaining the punchline never particularly helps make a joke funny.  Besides being english we like to groan at how aweful a joke is.....and in the spirit I offer this (in the original english):

1st person: My dog has no nose

2nd person: really? how does it smell?

1st person: terrible.....  

boom boom.......