Comments for Laowai Chinese 老外中文

Comment on Linguistic Complaining by Gary Vail

Gary Vail — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 20:57:50 +0000

Albert.

I really enjoyed your post about linguistic complaining. Very insightful and well written.

I find with my international group of students that a great discussion topic is, “why is English so hard to learn?”. I don’t have to do much more for 45 minutes; I just sit back and listen to the animated ranting.

I also find myself apologizing for the inconsistencies in English spelling/phonetics.

Comment on Wanted: Chinese-Learning Blog List by Steven Daniels

Steven Daniels — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 03:53:45 +0000

I’ve been working on a blog about learning languages and Chinese specifically.

it’s at http://blog.lingomi.com

(Carl’s blog, two up from my comment, is pretty good.)

Comment on The Curse of the Convergent Concepts by Joel

Joel — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 14:02:27 +0000

Sure, no doubt there’s plenty of ways to specify the meaning if someone wants to. Problem is, when people are talking they usually don’t bother and just use 让, expecting you to understand from the context.

I routinely get this problem in reverse from my students when they talk about things like “My boss let me work late yesterday.”

Know of anywhere to read a really good explanation of when and how people actually say that difference (other than just by using 让 and relying on the context)?

Comment on Stump the Chinese: Hard Hanzi by Eternuer

Eternuer — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 09:42:23 +0000

@Randy:

嚏 (with 疋 at the corner) is indeed the more common, and nowadays the standard form taught at most schools.

嚔 (with ⼛ instead of the right-hooked stroke on top of 疋) is the more ancient form but now variant character.

Comment on Organize your Vocab: Hanzi Web by Vernus Liu

Vernus Liu — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 08:40:13 +0000

Mmm….I just contradicted myself.

“cannot” → “doesn’t usually mean”

Comment on Organize your Vocab: Hanzi Web by Vernus Liu

Vernus Liu — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 08:36:12 +0000

I agree. “寒期” cannot be used to mean “winter break/vacation”. It is usually an adjective that’d be translated simply as “winter” or more formally as “hivernal”. To mean the holiday period, one has to add a noun afterwards, eg., 寒期季節[节] or 寒期假節(->寒假).

Ex.
寒期營 Winter camp (which would technically take place during the break, yeah…but, it doesn’t always involve vacationing:
寒期訓練營 Winter boot camp
寒期校/寒期班 Winter classes
寒期課程 Winter curriculum

It sometimes could be a noun, literally “winter break,” as in the sentence 寒期打工 (working during the winter break).

Comment on Northern vs. Southern Vocab by Useful Chinese Links – 22 August 2010 | Sinomatter

Useful Chinese Links – 22 August 2010 | Sinomatter — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 08:17:51 +0000

[...] 6) Northern vs Southern Vocab [...]

Comment on Northern vs. Southern Vocab by Carl

Carl — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 04:52:27 +0000

@Helen I wouldn’t say that northern people use “挺” INSTEAD of “很”; “很” is used by everyone. What you could say is that northerners are more likely to use “挺” than southerners, but this is more in contrast to “蛮” than “很”. (They are, after all, different expressions, both structurally and semantically.)

Comment on Proverb Assistance: Enemy’s Enemy by Nick

Nick — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 08:15:57 +0000

This is disappointing but apparently the proverb is 20th century American. Or so says the Little Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs. If it makes you feel any better, I searched baidu and lots of Chinese people think it is Chinese; a few even attributed it to Mao. Apparently it is more often claimed to be Arabic. Orientalism in action! (also, the second quote could be Kannada but Oxford says it is English)

Comment on Northern vs. Southern Vocab by Helen

Helen — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 19:47:21 +0000

northern people use “挺” instead of “很”.

挺好, 挺好, 挺棒, 挺行, 挺健康, 挺好玩, 挺傻, 挺聪明….