User Comments - tvan

Posted on: I'm pregnant!

bababardwan, I've heard 孕妇病/pregnant woman illness used for morning sickness.  As wjeffreys says above, that's probably a lot more accurate than morning sickness.

Posted on: Measure Words for Counting People

 Another example of the use of 名 as a measure word for people was in the Newsgroup story on a fire in a nuclear power plant.  It mentioned that, "一名核电站消防员受伤" or one (一名) nuclear power plant (核电站) firefighter (消防员) was injured.  

To quote changye, "The measure word "名" is used for specialists and workers, like 十名科学家，一百名警察，and 一千人农民工."

Posted on: Transliteration into Chinese and the Long Pinky Fingernail

Personally, I've always preferred the names that have some meaning.  For example, 美国/美國/MěoGúo.  It conveys the impression that the Chinese had/have of the country.  It beat some meaningless mishmash like 阿妈立刻 (made up).  Also, names with meaning workacross dialects since, obviously, a Mandarin transliteration in a different dialect seldom sounds like the original.

Of course, some transliterations seem to convey both sound and meaning.  可口可樂/Coca Cola is an excellent example.

Posted on: Language Power Struggle

casiocool, what was humiliating about your experience?

Posted on: Reading Faces and Shanghai Architecture

user20941, I believe that Capitalism has more of an influence on present day Chinese architecture than Communism.  Based on what I saw of China in thee early 1980's, Communist-based architecture consisted of tearing down traditional structures and replacing them with ugly concrete blocks that still fell down during earthquakes.

Posted on: F1 in China

pretzellogic, money is called many different things in different contexts.  My understanding is as follows:

块/塊/Kùai seems to be used like we would use bucks/dollars.  In your example above, the taxi driver was saying, "44 bucks."  The Qían/钱/錢 at the end was assumed.

As bababardwan pointed out, 元/Yuan is often used in business and/or foreign exchange reports when describing the PRC's currency.  It is also commonly seen on price tags in both the PRC and Taiwan as well as being the symbol of both the Won (Korea) and the Yen (Japan).

Bì/币/幣 seems to be more formal.  We discussed the PRC's currency above, but you could also say 台币/TáiBì for Taiwan's currency or 香币/XiàngBì for Hong Kong's currency.  The latter two aren't the official currency names; rather they are examples of 币's use in the general sense.

That's my understanding of the above.  If anyone else has other ideas/corrections, please chime in.  Probably would make a good Qing Wen.

Posted on: F1 in China

pretzellogic, 人民币 is the formal name for China's currency, the rénmínbì or people's money.  The character Bi/币  means money and looks similar to Shi/市, but lacks the top stroke.  The traditional version, 幣, is a lot less confusing, but also a lot more work.

Often the PRC's currency is referred to by its older, simpler, and more elegant name, the yuan/元。

Posted on: F1 in China

pretzellogic, a space program would be interesting.  We could learn to say really big numbers for both distance and 人民币.

user34695, I don't follow many topics in CPod lessons; however, I always find value.  In particular additional vocabulary is always useful (Though I admit to skipping the transliterated names) as is recognizing unfamiliar topics is in conversation.  (Helps reduce those "duhhh" moments.)

Posted on: Don't Never Say Never

On bababardwan's comment re: durian mooncake, "我从来没吃过 榴莲月饼！ 我永远不吃!"

Posted on: Cosmetic Surgery and Mooncakes

For those interested in mooncakes and financial markets, this article in The Economist discusses mooncake derivatives as well as the tradition of passing them around that Amber mentioned.