User Comments - tvan
tvan
Posted on: 麻烦你 (Máfan Nǐ) to Say Please
October 27, 2008 at 6:28 PMFurong, I'm obviously a bit too wary of the character due to my own bad habit of taking an English grammar structure and plugging in Chinese words. Putting 请 in front of everything (I blame my mother) is one of my cardinal Chinese sins.
Anyway, I second your thanks to Amber. Also, thx for the Dutch equivalent; Dutch is my ethnic heritage (Van Luven), but I think I'll pass on 'alstublieft'.
Posted on: Triumph of the Rat
October 26, 2008 at 3:58 PMFor all you cat-haters, here's a cheesy video with sebire's version of the story with the cat drowning.
Posted on: Triumph of the Rat
October 26, 2008 at 3:38 PMIt's a clever story; but, what about the other animals? What about the dragon? I think a clever rat would let the dragon win.
Posted on: Chinatomy: Iconic Tunes and Hairy Crabs
October 26, 2008 at 3:33 PMThere was a band at my father-in-law's funeral as well, but we couldn't afford the street-blocking parade shown above. The only song I can clearly remember was the Nationalist China anthem.
The trains in 1980's China used to play marching music over the loudspeaker at 6 a.m. It only seemed to wake up the foreigners.
Posted on: Lessons to Look Forward to and New Intern
October 26, 2008 at 2:14 PMnativespeaker, in the U.S. we just call them classmates. I think this is difference linguistically between Chinese and English, as well as a difference culturally between China and the U.S.
Posted on: 麻烦你 (Máfan Nǐ) to Say Please
October 26, 2008 at 2:01 PMfurong, I don't think 请 and 麻烦你 are interchangeable. For example, if I said, "请帮我," everyone would understand, but I think it would sound awkward. On the other hand, “麻烦你帮我” sounds more natural.
Based upon numerous corrections, I don't believe Chinese use 请 to the extent that English-speakers use please. (Don't know about Dutch.)
Posted on: Rome
October 25, 2008 at 12:57 AMI guess I took your comment too literally. Oh well, good practice. Also, thank you for introducing me to the word sandhi, especially tonal sandhi.
Posted on: Google vs. Baidu
October 24, 2008 at 11:54 PMI know this is bringing Jerry Quarry into the Ali/Foreman metaphor, but does anyone use Yahoo in China? After their disastrous business decision in China, they seem to have dropped off the map. On the other hand, when Google's Youtube was blocked in retaliation for opening a Taiwan portal, they didn't budge.
Posted on: No Walking on the Grass
October 24, 2008 at 11:33 PMgrettir,
In response to question #1, "Yes." I don't know Cantonese phonetics, but they say something that sounds like sea-fu and the subtitles correspond to 师傅.
Posted on: 麻烦你 (Máfan Nǐ) to Say Please
October 28, 2008 at 12:35 PMbababardwan, yeah, I think I'll pass. Besides, that's an ultramarathon plus; a marathon is only 26+ miles. Still, I'll bet it has a cool t-shirt.