User Comments - zhong_bide
zhong_bide
Posted on: Custom-Made Shoes
November 15, 2012 at 1:48 PMIf you don't mind saying, can you tell us how much they charged you? Did you have many hassles negotiating the price?
Posted on: Children's Train Ticket
October 30, 2012 at 2:33 PMAs I understand it, both 如果 and 的话 can be used together.
如果你同意的话我就会去中国。
Posted on: Traveling on the Cheap
October 13, 2012 at 4:40 AMso, a hornet is either an "ant bee" 蚂蜂 or a "horse bee" 马蜂。
Weill you get stung if you deal with Mafengwo.com?
in the second last part of the dialogue, part of the translation is missing. 你跟我一起去吧。
Some good vocab. I hoped they might have discussed Dali or Lijiang etc.
Posted on: A Trip to Shanxi
October 5, 2012 at 6:48 AMPingyao is indeed an ineresting place. You can get there from Taiyuan 太原 the provincial capital by train or bus. I took the bus. On the way you can get off at Qiao's compound. This is the place where the "Raise the Red Lanterns" was filmed. From there it is possible to catch the bus again, if there are spare places! Otherwise there is a driver waiting to take people to Pinyao. I think it cost me 70 yuan. A most interesting character, he talked to me all the way, used a police scanner, and phoned my hotel to come and get me on arrival in Pingyao!
Taiyuan - I don't know how anybody lives there. The air is full of drying, cough inducing, coal dust. Taxi drivers near the station refused to use the meter, or refused to take me when they saw I was a foreigner. A 黑车 was easier.
Inside the old wallled city of Pingyao you can get around quickly by hiring a bicycle. Lots of things to look at.
I didn't go to Wutai Mountain, but I did visit Wang's courtyard, which is much bigger than Qiao's, and "Zhangbi Ancient Castle" 张壁古堡 which is not really a castle at all, but a system of underground tunnels under the Zhangbi village. The village, with its cobbled streets, is interesting in itself. It lies with Jiexiu's administration.
From the top wall of Wang's courtyard 王家大院 you can see buildings with a facade built into the yellow soil.
Posted on: The Typhoon
September 9, 2012 at 8:40 AMWhat about "cyclone"? Similar to hurricanes and typhoons, but we have these in northern Australia. They are not the same as tornados. But when I look up the dictionary I get so many different answers. Which one is best for "cyclone"? 旋风？
Posted on: I Haven't Seen You in Ages!
August 11, 2012 at 6:04 AMSorry, just realized I had made a reply to bababardwan instead of a new comment.
Posted on: I Haven't Seen You in Ages!
August 11, 2012 at 6:02 AMJohn's comments about "wooden" rice bowl versus iron or gold prompted me to think that maybe it would be good to have some lessons about materials eg wood, plastic, glass, concrete, ceramic, etc and perhaps about different kinds of fabrics eg cotton, wool, pashmina, linen, silk, nylon etc
Posted on: The London Olympics
August 7, 2012 at 1:57 PMSome of the Chinese swimmers have been training on the Sunshine Coast north of Brisbane - their trainers are Australian. Now the Australian swimming officials want the Australian swimmers to train with these Chinese swimmers!
Posted on: I'm gonna be Late
August 4, 2012 at 6:02 AMSorry. I shouldn't have said that.
Posted on: Misunderstood Taxi Destination
November 30, 2012 at 1:22 PMWe don't say "an u-turn" nor "an one ..." because the first sound of "u" is a y sound not a vowel sound - ie sounds like "you". Similarly, the first sound in "one" is a "w" sound, as in "won", not a vowel sound.
Hence for both we use "a" not "an". It's the same with "university" etc. "a university", not "an university"