User Comments - wildyaks
wildyaks
Posted on: Traveling and Chopsticks
September 22, 2007 at 11:39 AMAnd I don't know about French being a romantic language. The French may be romantic, at least the whole world makes them out to be. And yes, German poetry is great. The language may sound harsh, but it is a very rich language - like Chinese. It seems to me that the Chinese have much more of a tendency to express themselves poetically. I sometimes read stuff that has been translated quite literally from Chinese, and it very often makes me smile. In English it often sounds way too flowery
Posted on: Traveling and Chopsticks
September 22, 2007 at 1:55 AMI would be interested too to know if we can be recognized by our accents when speaking Chinese. It's easy when we speak english and it's actually quite fun to guess where somebody is from when you meet in a tourist location and everybody speaks English. having said that, I think only native speakers - or speakers of a different accent - find our accents "cute" or what not and don't want us to "change one bit". I don't usually take it as a compliment... Don't know.. henning, how do you feel about it?
Posted on: Arrival in Jizhou
September 21, 2007 at 5:26 AMTo comment and write in Chinese is part of the learning process. I can't speak for everybody, but I don't think it is meant to impress or embarrass. This, after all, is an upper-intermediate lesson. To comment in Chinese in a Newbie lesson, I agree, is a bit out of place.
Posted on: Yang Jie's Diary: Everyone Is Dating
September 20, 2007 at 11:42 AMOkay, Rash, I just went through the above sentences again... It seems to me, if you have 除了。。。以外 or just 除了ithe meaning is exclusive and if you have a structure 除了。。。 还 then the meaning becomes inclusive as in the example with the bananas. Don't know if that is enough of an explanation or a sufficient one. I did not look for more example sentences...
Posted on: Arrival in Jizhou
September 20, 2007 at 4:26 AMThank you, John, for saying what you said. I am well aware that you have no ill intentions towards ethnic minorities. It's a complex issue, that, and I just had to say something about it.. And as I said before, I do like the story...
Posted on: Drinking Ability
September 20, 2007 at 4:21 AMnot very convining those theories, are they? And how do they explain that some Asian cannot cope with diary products? Or how to explain that Han Chinese and Koreans seem to have proportionally more problems adapting to high altitude?
Posted on: Yang Jie's Diary: Everyone Is Dating
September 20, 2007 at 2:37 AMThere is a great Qing wen on some of the uses of 了. Somebody who is more computer literate, can probably insert a link here. And about the discussion on 除了, it seems to me that Rash is looking too much for a literal translation. Language never translates one to one. And a word used to express something as "except for" will probably not or not exclusively cover the same uses as in English. That's why it is good to have many different examples of how a word, an expression is used to explore the semantic field.
Posted on: Drinking Ability
September 19, 2007 at 5:48 AM"Unfortunately" this is an important part of culture in many parts of China. Because of what ccclim says I once considered "taking a vow" (that's the only way around here, to have religious reasons) to not have to join into this drinking. The lesson is very much in place, though. Because if you live and work in China, you have to find your answers how to deal with this social drinking... And to have some vocab helps.
Posted on: Drinking Ability
September 19, 2007 at 5:14 AMchinkerfly, 我也是女孩子， 但我和领导在一起吃饭没办法， 要喝酒，而且要喝很多。我和你同意，和领导喝酒是为了关系。
Posted on: Arrival in Jizhou
September 23, 2007 at 3:12 AMIf they have no access to higher education, then whose fault is it? I would contend that mostly there is not enough political will among the ruling majority to facilitate access. "to change ones culture to make it marketable" - Very often these people do not have much of a choice... For example, almost all trekking in Northern Thai happens in minority areas. And those ethnic groups have become part of the package. "Visit the tribal village of the long-neck people" etc. etc. Sure they profit financially. Sure they need to eat. And they need cash to pay for education and for medical treatment. However, if they had access to higher education, then they would surly not be selling souvenirs to passing tourists? The problematic issue is that they have not much say in these matters, one way or the other.