User Comments - daolin

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daolin

Posted on: Antiperspirant in China
July 02, 2008, 04:45 PM

 

A delicate subject, as most Chinese (consider themself to, and really) sweat and stink less!

Question:

Is there another word for armpit than 胳肢窝 gézhiwō

which sounds like guajiho(r) ? (perhaps as a joke or pun?)

I heard this, but cannot find something like this in dictionaries.

Posted on: Moscow
July 02, 2008, 04:15 PM

 

听说来 他喝/注入啤酒,

不喝伏特加

(你们说啊! - 我听气)

Tīngshuōlái tā hē/zhùrù píjiǔ, bù hē fútèjiā.

(Nǐmen shuō ā ! - Wǒ tīng qì )

 

It sounds as if he's pouring beer, not vodka!

(be honest :-) - It's too much, and I can hear the bubbles)

Question: How to express 'gas bubbles in a beverage'?

Posted on: Ending your sentence with 嘛 (ma)
April 21, 2008, 03:47 PM

Question to Clay's comment from April 15, 2008 @ 10:08 am: "In regards to 嘛 (ma) as a pause or delay, it should be noted that 那个(nàge) would be closer to the equivalent of "umm..." when you are searching for a word while talking. You will hear “那个,那个, 那个。。。” all the time when you come to china。" While it's the same character, I remember to hear it as 那个 nèigè ('that ...'). Could s.o. from the team comment please?

Posted on: 无论 (wúlùn) No matter...
March 26, 2008, 05:03 PM

I experienced 无所谓 (wúsuǒwèi) = 'it doesn't matter' more as a stopword in discussions, say a bit less neutral than 好了 ('OK' e.g. = let's move on with another subject)(?) or 那, 就这样吧! Nà jiù zhèyàng ba ! (= 'OK, then' ?, at the end of a telephone conversation). Could I say that 无所谓 is more an interjection, but not at all a conjunction? (only through my question it still has s.th. to do with this podcast?)

Posted on: All You Can Eat and Drink
February 05, 2008, 10:05 AM

Youtube, of course! 发展 fāzhǎn -> I hear fázhàn, sometimes fázhan

Posted on: All You Can Eat and Drink
February 05, 2008, 09:12 AM

Thanks to both of you, changye and clayroup. Changye: My Chinese is way too low to listen to Hu a.o. party speaches, as I wouldn't know what the correct, standard pronunciation was, anyway (besides that it may be a boring speach(?), notwithstanding the importance & impact, I guess there will be no 'Clinton'-type speakers really fighting for the attention of the public? Do you have an online-link to one of his speaches?) Clayroup: the man is originally from Shanghai, the wife from Shandong, already living since about > 50 years in Beijing. It is fully possible, that I just heard the tone wrongly - as, at present, I do not belong to the Intermediate Chinese level. Yet the funny thing is, that I clearly heard the 4th tone, easiest to distinguish and certainly from the third! And I made them repeat the word several times, so, I'm really confused.

Posted on: All You Can Eat and Drink
February 04, 2008, 04:07 PM

Question: 鳗鱼 mányú - eel is actually pronounced mànyú? I had a similar experience with the word 满意 mǎnyì - satisfied. I asked some different Chinese to pronounce it 10 times, and it always sounded like 'money' mànyì, hence totally different. Did I hear correctly 满意 mànyì? When asked about the difference (Pinyin 3rd tone vs. their pronunciation) they were a bit ignorant to the difference. (They were both about 70 years old, hence might not have learnt pinyin). Is here also a tone shift present , which native-speakers do not realize? Guten Tag - 'Tach' Milch - 'Mülch' Was haben wir denn da? - 'Was ham' we denn da?' Kukuck (DE) - cuckoo (EN) - coucou (FR)

Posted on: All You Can Eat and Drink
February 04, 2008, 03:23 PM

中国人浪费食物 Zhōngguórén làngfèi shíwù Chinese people waste food (In Beijing, in Shanghai) That's my own experience, which of course doesn't hold in those Sushi-bars where you pay what you ate (Sushi on conveyor belt). It's really nice, that - if being with a group of say 8 people - a lot of food variety is ordered, but sometimes the relation between moderation vs. showing off (?) went astray.

Posted on: Scams and Bus Culture
February 04, 2008, 01:41 PM

roscovanbasten (said January 31, 2008 @ 06:08 pm 'Daolin, To respond to your comment regarding the bike incident ...' Rosco, thank you for your reply, perhaps the episode didn't make that clear enough. Speaking for myself, I wonder whether I had bought the bike, 25 years ago, if the junkie had reappeared with one before I left (and say charged me 20 NLG or 10 USD in those times). Your other remark holds very much for IPR (Intellectual Property Rights, e.g. infringement of patents, copyright, trademarks ... software, hardware etc.) you name it and it's copied and it wouldn't if there were not hypocritical buyers like us. Another scum (or was it just robbery?): in 1990 I was with a group of 9 under the lead of one Chinese from Hongkong travelling though China as 'cultural group'. Visiting some village on the way from Chongqing to Wuhan, our tourist guide was blackmailed for money when we were returning to the boat. While I got the situation and told her 'Let's simply slowly move on - don't stop walking!', somehow they managed to get money from her. My Chinese was too poor to understand 'which offer' they could make her 'which she couldn't refuse'. When the castles along the river Rhein (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhine, http://byrev.net/g-spot/?digg=photos&trends=rhine+river ) were built, those owners got money from the traders, otherwise ' A chain across the river forced ships to submit, ...' (What did the Chinese have in mind?)

Posted on: 一边...一边 ... (yībiān...yībiān...)
February 01, 2008, 04:19 PM

It might have slipped my attention, as - yiban gongzuo yiban ting ke - I've listened to this only once yet I think it would be good to have also contrasting examples with e.g. yi ... jiu 就 (once if ... then) as I see one English sentence here, where I - as non-native - English speaker would think, that it does not describe simultaneous actions, rather subsequent ones.