User Comments - mclarty

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mclarty

Posted on: Rude Waitress Part 2/2
July 14, 2017, 12:29 PM

Both 份 and 个 are classifiers. Here 份 would mean "portion" and might be more precise than 个. It might be better to use if you are getting steamer baskets of baozi as shown around 1 minute, rather than a couple of(usually bigger) individual baozi.

But nearly anything can be called 个 if you want to keep it simple. You can basically ask for 一个 of anything in a restaurant and get one serving of it.

I would suggest that for a beer, say 一瓶 or 一杯, if you want one bottle or one glass.  I have never heard of 一个啤酒 but I'll bet you could even say that and they would get your meaning.

Posted on: Classroom Chinese
July 12, 2017, 04:34 AM

Putting 吧 at the end of a suggestion is correct, not redundant. Putting 吗 at the end of this sentence would actually be wrong, since it would mean the speaker is asking for information, while she really is not. Compare in English if someone says "What time is it" you can tell from the words this is a question. But you still put a question mark after it in writing, and write "What time is it?" And in speech you still use a questioning tone.These are just correct, not redundant.

Posted on: Classroom Chinese
July 12, 2017, 03:14 AM

吧 goes after a suggestion.  This sentence is a suggestion phrased in question form, like "So the test will no problem for you, right?" in English.

 

Posted on: How to Eat a Hairy Crab
June 24, 2017, 12:46 PM

If you are not a specialist, you recognize females by the roe.  For most of us the only reason to want to know is that you want the roe.

Posted on: To Know: 懂,了解,明白,知道
June 17, 2017, 06:13 PM

Great lesson. I would like to hear more comparing 知道 and 认识. One colleague talking with another might bring up some third person and ask "Do you know him/her?" That could mean have you heard about what that person does? or have you met that person at a conference? Or it could mean have you read that person's work? or have you spent time working with that person? Of course to be very clear about such things you would have to talk about the particulars.

I would like to know more of that vocabulary, and especially more about 知道 and 认识.

Posted on: Fussy Eater
June 07, 2017, 05:17 PM

One difference: a university will have some visiting 专家.  They will not have such a thing as visiting  在行.

Posted on: Fussy Eater
June 07, 2017, 03:32 PM

At least around 山西,河北,北京,people are quick to suppose that a westerner with any dietary preferences at all wants to avoid 辣 (and has never heard of 麻辣). And they are likely to believe you don't want 油。 If spice and oil are okay with you, then you must say so, and you may need to say so a few times. Indeed if you have any preferences at all then it is polite to say what you do want as well as what you do not.

And do not underestimate the force of hospitality. At one mom and pop place, where they were happy to talk about a special order (and I made sure to go when they were not busy), I was trying to get very low sodium and i did not understand what the problem was.  I suggested several things I had gotten at similar places. When the woman refused to give me 白豆腐, just plain tofu, I admit I felt irritated.  They obviously had tofu in the kitchen and I just wanted to buy a piece of it.

Then she suggested 红油豆腐呢?Tofu in pepper oil. I realized this was a 重庆 style shop and she felt that plain tofu was no good food. Their 红油豆腐 was very good. Problem solved.  smile

Posted on: Express Delivery
June 06, 2017, 02:01 PM

你太客气! I just got lucky on this. Thanks for a clear explanation of the possibilities. Chinesepod is really the best source for learning practical phonetics.  I do not remember seeing that point about emotional pronunciation ever before, and I have been looking at a lot of resources for several years. 

Posted on: Listen Up, Foreigners!
June 05, 2017, 03:48 PM

In many trips to China over 10 years I have never heard  "老外" and "外国人" as terms of endearment.  But they are generally not unfriendly either.  From strangers on the street they are usually not meant for me to hear.  They are used to tell others around me that "here is someone unusual" or maybe "here is someone who may have trouble talking (in Chinese) or counting (Chinese) money."  Even from people who plainly do not want a 外国人 around, I don't hear the term itself as an insult.  

Friends and colleagues (or, say staff in restaurants I frequent enough to have some special orders or such) never address me this way.  But they often use one or the other quite without thinking about it when talking about me to others, just to let the others know which person they are talking about.  Sometimes a friend will even catch themselves afterwards and ask me if I mind being called that--which really shows that they are sensitive to the issue when they think about it, and they do not mean any offense.  So I do not mind.  It is just normal Chinese for a person who is not Chinese.

Posted on: Any Free Garlic With That?
June 05, 2017, 01:00 PM

Yes.  If you buy one  斤 of walnuts, thinking it is one pound of walnuts, you will be happily surprised at how many walnuts you get.