Chinese Character - 太。。。了 -

> Learning Chinese > Grammar and Vocabulary
太。。。了
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SeekerOfPeace -

太 is always used with 了.

他太快了。He is extremely fast. (Or is it: 他太快了)

As I understand it, 太 and 了 are used together to meet extremely.

But do they also mean too much?

For example:

他说太快了。She speaks too quickly.

What if I want to say that someone is talking very fast but not too fast?



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Lu -

You can say hen3 kuai4, te4bie2 kuai4, fei1chang2 kuai4... and many more options.










SeekerOfPeace -

Thank you. Thanks for your answer in the other post as well.










mamba9 -

could it be: 他说得太快了 because your saying how the action is being done (too fast) so you
add the 得. Could this also be valid: 他说話说得太快了?










Quest -

Use 很，非常，十分，超 for very
Use 太 for too












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Chinese Studies - shipping material translation -

> Learning Chinese > Grammar and Vocabulary
shipping material translation
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Czech Cara -

Hi all,

03版排单中午12：00发出，在此期间可以hold订单，坚决不可追加,同时截止额��
�
处理,凡是额度未过部分全部拉下排单。

I come to bother You once more. The above sentence is giving me pain. It concerns shipping spare
parts procedure or policy. Any hint would help.
Thanks!



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Chinese Mandarin - korean students - Page 3 -

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korean students
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venture160 -

Anyone know the percentage of Koreans at BLCU in the intermediate classes?



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jdintl -

my class in dalian is 50/50 japanese and korean and yes, the koreans are young, and don't act very
mature. some can learn characters really fast but their phonetics are like, what language are you
speaking??? otherwise i feel for you because when my teacher tries to get any kind of interactive
dialogue going they they all k/j just clam up. me, the only american is thus left being chatty and
afterawhile i just don't want to be the barking seal.

cheers










Jamoldo -

jd that's not necessarily a bad thing since you get to practice speaking. Take advantage of it. It
may be awkward at first but it will kind of be like a 1 v 1 class for you if everyone else is
clammed up...










rezaf -

Ｉｎ　ｍｙ　ｃｌａｓｓ　ｔｈｅｙ　ｈａｖｅ　ｔｈｅ　ｒｉｇｈｔ　ｔ�
��　ｓｐｅａｋ　ａｓ　ｍｕｃｈ　ｋｏｒｅａｎ　ａｎｄ　ｍｉｘｅｄ　��
�ｎｇｌｉｓｈ－ｋｏｒｅａｎ－ｃｈｉｎｅｓｅ　ａｓ　ｔｈｅｙ　ｗａｎ
ｔ　ｂｕｔ　ｗｈｅｎ　ｉ　ｓｔａｒｔ　ｓｐｅａｋｉｎｇ　ｃｈｉｎｅ�
��ｅ　ｔｈｅｙ　ｔｅｌｌ　ｍｅ：Ｉｔ＇ｓｎｏｔ　ａ　ｐｒｉｖａｔｅ��
�ｃｌａｓｓ！！！！！










rezaf -

ｔｈｅ　ｇｏｏｄ　ｎｅｗｓ　ｉｓ　ｔｈａｔ　ｔｈｅｓｅ　ｄａｙｓ　�
��ｏｎｅ　ｏｆ　ｔｈｅｍ　comes and it is really a 1 v 1 class for me










jackie tang -

hi,friend,
i konw your problem.i am director of a chinese school which only offord chinese training in
kunming,i charge the foreign things in this school include to arrange the student visa and study
program and so on.also i konw the problems of overseas students and the problems of this
market.some chinese schools are not very strict to manage foreign students,they just konw how to
get the tutions,to earn money.and also for the foreign students,some of them just want to get the
student visa,and don't want to stay in the classroom,but try to learn chinese speaking by chinese
girls.but for the chinese schools will face to very big competition in the future,because the
goverment of china want to make chinese be the second world language,they will make the new laws
about this market.so the chinese school will not let the bad students destroy the reputation of
school.










mrtoga -

To me, Koreans remain a most baffling bunch In Harbin all my classmates were Korean, nearly all
girls (they tend to be more serious than the guys).

Anyway the class kind of naturally divided into two. There were the party girls who smoked, went
to the discos and got drunk most nights, basically tried to do their best impression of the
Russian girls. Then there were the hard-working, quiet, religious (every night they went to
church, and at the weekends), chaste girls. And no-one in the middle.

I think the guys don't tend to get into the higher classes because they spend too much time at the
dodgy massage parlours!

It's a huge generalization I know, but although I find the Koreans very nice to deal with on a
personal level I have found their culture most unpenetrable and unsettling, for instance how they
can't get more than two minutes into a conversation without knowing if you are married or not, and
whether you are younger or older than they are. Certainly bamboozles me.










gato -



Quote:


Originally Posted by mrtoga

In Harbin all my classmates were Korean, nearly all girls
they can't get more than two minutes into a conversation without knowing if you are married or
not, and whether you are younger or older than they are.
Certainly bamboozles me.


Probably checking how available you are, you lucky guy.










Lu -

They need to know how old you are because they need to know if you are older or younger than they
are. Apparently in Korean culture, even more than in Chinese, you respect and obey older people
and are in turn respected and obeyed by younger people, and this includes friends of about the
same age. Koreans usually don't even call each other by name, it seems, always elder/younger
brother/sister. (So my roommate called her boyfriend 'oppa', older brother, which I thought was a
bit weird for of addressing a boyfriend.)
Don't know about the marriage thing, but I also get it from taxi drivers and other random people
here.










rezaf -

I agree with Lu. It took me sometime to understand that. I respect people for their ideas and
thoughts not for their age. I think the Koreans are born to become traditional authoriterian
managers.












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Learn Mandarin online - Help with Lettering for Tattoo :) -

> Learning Chinese > Chinese Tattoos, Chinese Names and Quick Translations
Help with Lettering for Tattoo :)
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FerretyBeast -

Hey, I want a tattoo done 2moro but I want to make sure that the lettering is right so can someone
tell me what this actually says in english please.

Thanks





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necroflux -

That would be a common translation for the name "Victoria".










FerretyBeast -

Thankyou! Thats what it was supposed to say but I wanted to make sure its right b4 I get it
permantly on me arm lol.










Songyi -

Sure is. Also used in the translation of Lake Victoria.










muirm -

You are aware that it doesn't have any meaning, right? When spoken aloud it sounds sort of like
Victoria, but a Chinese person who didn't know the name would just think it's nonsense (although
they might guess it's a foreign name). I'm guessing Victoria isn't Chinese herself, otherwise she
would have a Chinese name you could tattoo. It just seems like a waste since every Chinese
character has a meaning/story to go along with it, but in transliterations they lose all their
meaning and are only used for their pronunciations.










kdavid -

I heard a story back in the day about a guy who got his named transliterated into characters and
tatooed on his arm.

The literal meaning turned out to be "man who beats his wife".

打妻子的男人

I'm trying to think what name this would be in English....










Prodigal Son -

It's tough to imagine how getting 打妻子的男人 tattood on you isn't the direct result of
someone getting fooled.










flameproof -

Here a few hints why you should be specially careful with Chinese (or Japanese) tattoos:

http://www.hanzismatter.com/










trien27 -

Get your facts straight: there's no letters or alphabet in Chinese!
If you still don't understand, check out the following websites before posting again, and calling
Chinese an alphabetic or lettering system!

http://www.zhongwen.com, click on "Does Chinese have an alphabet?" link
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/chinese.htm
http://ancientscripts.com/chinese.html
http://www.logoi.com/notes/chinese_alphabet.html

Thank you.










cintiaghimel -

Ok, some transliterated names might mean nonsense, but you can always ask someone to give you a
name which sounds like yours and also means something (good). My chinese teacher gave me this name
新吉雅。 My name is Cintia, so I think it was quite similar to the original sound and xin1
means new, ji2 means luck and ya3 means elegant.












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Chinese Class - Deciding where to study for the fall semester 2007 -

> Studying, Working and Living in China > Universities and Schools > Studying
Chinese in Beijing
Deciding where to study for the fall semester 2007
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ray313 -

Hi guys

Im having real difficulties deciding between where to study in Beijing this fall.
I guess what primarily makes it so difficult, is that I cant physically go there and check the
schools/universities out for myself. Also, theres so many contrasting views and opinions about
each university circulating the internet forums these days.

Anyway I just wanted to run some things by you guys. From what I understand, Beida, BLCU, and BNU
all seem to be the most popular choices for foreigners wishing to learn mandarin. The impression
which I get from reading other people's posts are;

1) Beida - A very well respected university in China. However the name and reputation seems to
outweigh the quality of the mandarin course itself.

2) BLCU - Ranked by many as the best place for a foreigner to learn mandarin. However since so
many foreigners enroll here, you may be speaking far too much english for the good of your
learning.

3) BNU - Far less foreigners than BLCU. Im not sure how people rank the teaching quality here
though.

Please help me decide!!

Thanks



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FyKnight -

From my trawling through various forums I think you've got that pretty much right.

However I'd elevate BNU a little. It seems to have even a better rep than BLCU.

Note however that there aren't nearly so many course options at BNU (or probably BeiDa) as at BLCU.

Other popular choices are non-university schools like DiQiuCun (Global Village) which are chepaer
and more flexible.












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Chinese Character - The Second and Third Tone - Page 2 -

> Learning Chinese > Speaking and Listening
The Second and Third Tone
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Pravit -

I agree with the problem of exaggerated 3rd tone pronunciation. I have noticed it leads to some
foreign learners pronouncing words such as 喜欢 or 改变 as xi2huan1 or gai2bian4 because they
try to compress the entire "dipping" noise instead of pronouncing it simply as a flat low tone.
The 3rd tone, if you're going to pronounce it in the "dipping" way, at its lowest point, should
reach to the very bottom of your vocal register(so it sounds almost like you're croaking).
However, in normal speech, you should just pronounce it as a flat tone that is lower relative to
the syllables in front of and after it.

I also think you should try making a recording of the wordlist againstwind provided, as syllables
in isolation are a bit unnatural.



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simonlaing -

Hey Hero Doug,

Et al. I think getting a good teacher and training your ear to hear the difference in the tones so
that you can correct your self when you say it wrong is the best way.
And there is a neat free website.
I agree though it is the combination where the tones can be tricky.
http://www.shufawest.us/language/tonedrill.html

http://www.shufawest.us/language/tonedrill.html

yeah try it. It's pretty nifty.

have fun,
Simon Laing
www.chinesetutor.net










Hero Doug -

Pravit >> I like the suggestion of pronouncing the third tone a flat low tone. It seem's to work
well since you can sort of hear the voice dropping as well. I think this idea will come in handy.

And I know that I won't be saying the tones by themselves very much, but I rushed the book the
first time so I'm going to do it right this time around. The first lesson is really the only one
that has solo tones.

When I get to the lessons with words (each lesson focuses on a sound of pinyin) I'll make
againstwinds word list it's own lesson.

simonlaing >> Thanks for the links, I'll be sure to make use of them.










roddy -



Quote:

Pravit >> I like the suggestion of pronouncing the third tone a flat low tone. It seem's to work
well since you can sort of hear the voice dropping as well. I think this idea will come in handy.

The most valuable thing you are ever likely to read about the third tone comes from
汉语语音教程, by 曹文, BLCU (ISBN: 7-5619-1057-6), which was recommended originally by
Carlo way back when the Earth was young.

I seem to have temporarily mislaid my copy, so let me recall, translate and paraphrase all in one.
I'm sure I don't have it exactly right, so blame me not 曹文.


Quote:

The characteristics of the third tone are long, low and flat. In certain cases, the speaker may
raise their voice at the end, but this sounds exaggerated and is used for emphasis.












anonymoose -

I don't have any references, but as far as I understand it, the 3rd tone is only pronounced in its
entirety when it is the last syllable in a sentence. Otherwise, in mid sentence, the rising part
is cut-off, leaving just the low falling part, which can very nearly be approximated to a low
level tone.










HashiriKata -

It's useful to remember that the changes necessary for, and problems associated with, the 3rd tone
are due to the fact that at full value, this tone is twice as long as other tones.










duaaagiii -

I myself generally pronounce the third tone as a low falling tone, even at the end of a sentence
(except, for instance, when imitating people from China). It's typically okay to use a low falling
tone when a full third tone is called for, but it is not okay to do the opposite.










<<恒心>> -

Hero Doug:

The point about the half-third tone being a tone that drops and stays low has already been made,
and it's a critical one. But would a good visual help cement it further (or would that be
画蛇添足?) Anyway, for what it's worth, this open source chart via Wikipedia might set it in
your mind in another way:










Hero Doug -

Thanks all for the confirmations.

Roddy, I'll take a look into that book you posted when I'm done the set I'm working on now.

Now I've seen the length of time a tone should be said mentioned a few times. As far as I
understand the tones are to be said differently with regards to duration.

Third, first, second, fourth - from longest to quickest.

I also assume the time difference from one to another is just enough to notice there is a time
difference.

How accurate is this?












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Free Chinese Lesson - What this means -

> Learning Chinese > Reading and Writing
What this means
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oly2006 -

i've atached 2 photos with chinese writing..i'm interested to know what they means...thanks a lot



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HashiriKata -

盆栽 (pen2zai1): bonsai, miniature trees & plants










Koneko -

That's actually a Japanese phrase.
It's commonly known as 盆景 (pén jǐng) in Chinese.

K.










skylee -

盆栽 is a Chinese term (it is also used in Japanese). The meaning and pronunciation are as what
HashiriKata said.










HashiriKata -

I've had a look in the dictionary and I think Koneko and skylee are both right. The word "bonsai"
in Japanese includes the 2 disctinct senses of "pén zāi" and "pén jǐng" in Chinese; and this
can be expected, as there are usually no exact matches cross languages.










Koneko -



Quote:


Originally Posted by skylee

盆栽 is a Chinese term (it is also used in Japanese).


Hmm... Not originally though. This term was actually created by the Japanese first, and then
borrowed by the Chinese.

It's known as 和製漢語 (Wasei Kango) in Japanese.

More examples include:-

電話 denwa (telephone)
漫画 manga (comics)
哲學 testugaku (philosophy)
社会 shakai (society)
經濟 keizai (economy)

etc

經濟 is quite interesting. The original meaning in Chinese was "the workings of the state", when
the phrase was exported to Japan from China, it became "economy". Its new meaning was later
re-introduced back to China as "economy"

Hence, 盆栽 is a Made-in-Japan Chinese term; whereas 盆景 is a Made-in-China Chinese term.

K.










HashiriKata -

I know about 和製漢語, but where did you find out that 盆栽 is one of them? It should be a
useful source to know.










Koneko -

Behold, the naked truth of bonsai...

Fact 1:-



Quote:


Originally Posted by Wikipedia

While mostly associated with the Japanese form, "bonsai" originated in China and was originally
developed from Chinese penjing.


Fact 2:-



Quote:


Originally Posted by Wikipedia

Penjing is very similar to and the precursor of the Japanese art of bonsai


K.










HashiriKata -

Hehe!

Fact 1: I've looked at your facts but couldn't find anywhere that states that the word "盆栽"
originated from Japan.

Fact 2: I did say in post #5 that in Japanese, 盆栽 includes the meaning of "penjing". So we're
in agreement in the first place, aren't we?










Koneko -

So you see, it's first invented by Chinese as penjing, then introduced by the Japanese to the West
as bonsai.

It's a bit like 經濟 example but with two seperate terms.

K.












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Chinese Pinyin - Who can hear me ? -

> Learning Chinese > Speaking and Listening
Who can hear me ?
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oly2006 -

I'm at beggining of learning chinese and i still don't know if i'm using good the 4 tones. i've
learned some greetings words , the numbers and the (woo,ni,ta are pronouns,right?) and i'd be
interested to speak with somebody oin messenger(skype) tyo hear me saying the words and to find
out if i'm using well the 4 tones because you know if you're starting to learn something wrong
you'll always use in the wrong way. i'd prefer a native chinese.
i'd be thankfu
thanks



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roddy -

Why not record yourself speaking and attach it to a message here, then everyone can listen

You can use Audacity to record yourself, then click the button when making a new post to attach
the file.










kudra -

The Chinese course at www.fsi-language-courses.com has a careful and no-nonsense introduction to
the tones. It's at the beginning, the section on pronunciation and romanization in the resource
module. That site has mp3's and text. There are other sites on the web that drill the tones. But
actually as roddy said, easiest is to load an mp3 of your own speach and let us comment.










nipponman -



Quote:


Originally Posted by Roddy

You can use Audacity to record yourself, then click the button when making a new post to attach
the file.


I've been looking for a good recording device ever since "Sound Recorder" mysteriously disappeared
from my computer... Thanks for the link










oly2006 -

yes..i'll record myself and i'll put it here atached..










oly2006 -

hi... i've uploded 2 audio files(atached) , the first one "4 tones" are the 4 tones and the second
one "woo" it's woo3 shi3huan1 nii3.. i know i suck but i wait sugestions ...i didn't repeted the 4
tones to pronounce them in the way are in my mind ...
thanks










imron -



Quote:

but i wait sugestions

Learn hanyu pinyin. It's much easier to communicate with other language learners if you use a
common system, rather than your own phonetic approximation of Chinese sounds.
e.g. wǒ xǐhuan nǐ, rather than woo3 shi3huan1 nii3

Regarding the sound file containing the 4 tones, your 1st and 4th tones both sound like 1st tones
to me, although I also think your 1st tone could be a bit higher in pitch (it's not just enough
for the 1st tone to be flat, it also has to be high). This will give you much more "room" to
differentiate between tones. Also your 2nd and 3rd tones both sound like 3rd tones to me.

In the other file when you are saying wǒ xǐhuan nǐ, your 3rd tones seem to come out as mix
between 1st and 3rd tones i.e. you start high and then fall and then rise again. Although the 3rd
tone is a falling/rising tone, it needs to start from a lower pitch.

On a scale of 1-5, with 1 being low and 5 being high, the 3rd tone starts at 2, falls to 1 and
then rises to 4. Also to differentiate between this and a second tone, a second tone would start
at 3 and rise to 5 i.e. your 2nd tone should start at a slightly higher pitch than your 3rd tone.

A good way to improve your tones would be to go to a page like this one and then choose a syllable
(ma is a good one for starters). Download the sounds for the 4 tones, and load them up in Audacity
(or some other sound program). Listen to the sound and then record your voice saying the same
sound. Listen to your recording and see if you can spot the difference between it and the native
speakers pronunciation. If there is a difference, repeat the process until you are happy with the
results.










HashiriKata -

I'm with Imron and I strongly advise:

- using pinyin instead of a convenient but non-standard transcription system. It's a good
investment.
- listening to your own recording against a known standard (some downloaded recording as Imron
suggested), be thoroughly comfortable with pronouncing ma1 ma2 ma3 ma4.
- Even if you work hard, don't expect miracle and don't be discouraged if someone tells you that
you're still not there yet.

Good luck!










oly2006 -

thanks all for your replys..
i have just one week of learning chinese that's why i posted here to found out what is wrong , to
don't start learning in a wrong way.... i've listened again the way i've reproduced the 4 tones
and you're right, no big diference betwn first and third ....in few words it's all a mess.. what i
can say..i'll try to repeat more and more the 4 tones until i'll succed.. but it's very hard to me
, a 16 years old boy with a non tonal language(i never knowned that chinese is tonal, until now of
course) to elarn chinese. the only thing that makes me to keep continuing is that i'm dooing it as
a kind of hobby, i don't know if we'll have any use in future but i try to enjoy learning it..
i ll practice more and i'll put here my "improved" tones....

other P.S i founded lot of on line lessons on the internet but i really don t with what to start
... until now i know to write numbers, human, crowd,prisoner and i've learned chines nouns and a
verb "to like".....what should be my first lesson? the four tones ? to practice them a lot ? and
if so, after the tones what should I learn and if it's good to learn in paralel the writing
rules....
A LOT OF QUESTIONS are in my mind and i hope i'll find here the answers...
thanks again, you were helpful
hope i'll get the above answers
thanks












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Chinese School - Title of Chinese opera music -

> Chinese Culture > Music
Title of Chinese opera music
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ibliz -

Hi everyone,

For years, I have been looking for the name of this chinese opera music. It must be a very popular
traditional music since I have heard it many times when I was a kid.
The last time I heard that familiar music was in the Stephen Chow's movie "A Chinese Odyssey 2 -
Cinderella" when Sun Wu Kong came to save his master from Niu Muo Wang. I searched the internet
for the soundtrack of that movie but I cant find it.
I sincerely hope someone can provide me with the title of this music (In English and Pinyin if
possible).

Thank you.



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lxyinbfa -

http://lib.verycd.com/2005/06/08/0000053352.html,the link of the soundtrack of that movie~












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Chinese Studies - Can anyone help?? -

> Learning Chinese > Chinese Tattoos, Chinese Names and Quick Translations
Can anyone help??
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rutlandgirl -

I am need of the symbol/s for "Keeper Of Souls" asap. A friend of mine needs this sooner rather
than later and I was told this site is the best to find symbols.

Also, I was given the pinyin: gou4 yun2 shi4 zhe3.......where can I turn this into a picture of
the symbol?



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skylee -

I can't think of anything like "gou4 yun2 shi4 zhe3". One term of not too different pronunciation
is "勾魂使者" (gōu hún shǐzhě ), but it looks like this.

BTW, those are called Chinese characters, not symbols.










roddy -

The film of the same name was translated as 灵魂守护者. That's more guard, protect, than
keep, although it's obviously fairly close. Is it a 'Here, keep my soul for a minute while I pop
to the toilet' kind of situation, or a grander 'While I am the Keeper of the Souls none shall harm
them' kind of idea?










HashiriKata -

I think this may be intended as a tattoo. If so, "勾魂使者" as suggested by skylee may be what
is wanted, meaning perhaps something like: "soul catching devil/ messenger".










Koneko -



Quote:

meaning perhaps something like: "soul catching devil/ messenger".

More like a "jinx" to me.

K.










young man -

If what you need is really 勾魂使者,maybe this will help--a simble on a
lighter.http://image.baidu.com/i?ct=50331648...m=-1&pn=1&rn=1










young man -

More pictiures of 勾魂使者
http://images.yunnan.cn/mmsource/ima...w_06428026.jpg
http://edu.zbsz.net/yuwen/blog/user1.../2004/194.html
http://bbs.51uc.com/bbsupload/200505...5081145596.jpg












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Learning Chinese - Who is up for some translating ??? -

> Learning Chinese > Reading and Writing
Who is up for some translating ???
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tombio5 -

I was wondering if anyone could translate this paragraph for me, i tried running it through online
translation websites like babel fish but it gave me a lot of sentences that i can't make sense of
(no surprise there).

Its rather long i feel so don't if anyone feels up to it, but hey its good practice, ha ha

I've actually got quite a few of these i want translated but don't know how to go about it so i
thought i would give it a go by posting on here. Can't blame a guy for trying

any help is much appreciated really !!!

題目還沒有想好啊``
好奇怪阿。。這兩天我變得豁然開朗了。。其實他也沒什麽嘛。。哈哈。。�
��去的就是過去的。。想太多沒有意思的。。
我的媽阿！！怎麽又是情人節阿。。又要做好被別人嘲笑的準備了。。去年�
��情人節我竟然自己一整天呆在家里。。
沒有情人節大餐只有泡面可以啃。。悲涼阿。。
今天他們又問我爲什麽不再找一個。。哎呀。。爲什麽又是這個問題阿。。�
��家我就是喜歡自己一個人阿。。
而且可能也是因爲心裏頭又一個該忘記可是又不想忘記的人吧。。哈哈。。�
��過現在這個原因佔的比例不大了。。
而是自己真的喜歡一個人。。典型的單身主義者就是我啦。。哈哈。。



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好吃的苹果 -

I think it makes no sense to translate it and it seems some writing from a person’s diary or
blog. ^_^

It reflects the feeling of contradiction. On one hand, the person wants to convince others that he
/ she would like to be single, but on the other hand, he / she was afraid to be single on the
Valentine’s Day. What’s more, the person experienced love sick.










rose~ -

Here is an attempt, anyone feel free to improve:



Quote:

I still haven't thought properly about the subject.

It's strange, for the last two days I've suddenly cheered up and realised that...actually he's not
that great...ha ha....the past is the past...there's no use thinking about it too much...

Damn! I can't believe it's Valentine's Day again...I'm about to be a laughing stock again...I
wound up spending Valentine's Day last year at home alone munching on ramen...how sad...

They were asking me again today why I don't find someone else...Aiya! Why are they asking me
again...I like being single...and perhaps it's becase I'm thinking about someone that I ought to
forget but don't want to...ha ha...but it's not really because of that anymore...and I honestly do
enjoy being single...I'm such a stereotypical singleton...haha...

I think...if I were someone in love with that woman...I'd need someone to translate not only
Chinese to English but then English to what she really means...










HashiriKata -



Quote:

It reflects the feeling of contradiction. On one hand, the person wants to convince others that he
/ she would like to be single, but on the other hand, he / she was afraid to be single on the
Valentine’s Day. What’s more, the person experienced love sick.

This is only human, nothing wrong with it, 好吃的苹果



Quote:

Its rather long i feel..., but hey its good practice, ha ha

Thank you, tombio5, for your consideration!










tombio5 -

I know, I'm just so considerate, always thinking of others :P

Certainly a much better job than the automatic translators online. I tend to get a lot of
sentences that make no sense at all when i take that approach. It always seems to translate some
part of the paragraphs to the words "Arab league". Every time i translate these i get that word at
least once.

It actually makes a lot of sense now. Ive got a few more if people feel up to the challenge ^_^










skylee -

the original is good. i think that is what many single women think. imho the writer is not
lovesick. she is only lonely.

rose~'s translation is also good, although "沒有情人節大餐" is missing (no big deal).










tombio5 -

Heres another one if anyone could help me out ^^

感慨一下。。
喜歡泡夜店不是頽廢。而是因爲躲在嘈雜的音樂，刺耳的燈光中，我可以讓�
��暫時忘記過去，暫時失憶。。










roddy -

Condensed: Loud music and bright lights helps her forget the past.

Roddy
PS Don't mean to be rude, but if you happen to be chatting to anyone with something interesting to
say, we'd probably be happier to help with that . . .










tombio5 -

Roddy

You speaking frankly so i can respect that, and i will also speak frankly to. I do find that a
little bit rude. If i could read it and know if it would be interesting i would not need to be
here now would I?

These extracts are form a friends blog, it seems lately shes been a bit down and upset and i
haven't seen her much and feeling worried, so im trying to get a better insight using her blog but
unfortunately i can't read Chinese. Its a public internet blog so I'm not breeching any privacy.
However i do feel very worried about her. So theres the story

If you don't find this interesting then don't read it or translate it, only if you feel up to it.
Everyone who has helped me out so far i really do appreciate it and thank you very much as to
anyone who helps me out in the future, you guys really do rock !!!










tombio5 -

What is the meaning of this

可恶的家伙阿

it keeps translating to "but fellow Arab league" which im sure is not quite correct, i seem to get
the phrase Arab league show up all the time in my translations and wish to know what part exactly
is being translated to this and what it should mean?












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Free Chinese Lesson - Simple resturaunt phrases.... - Page 2 -

> Learning Chinese > Speaking and Listening
Simple resturaunt phrases....
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Page 2 of 3 < 1 2 3 >






ziyi star -

yes i also heard that in the north xiaojie is related to whore... if you want you can check out
the link that will help you out with some basic phrases (chinesepod video at youtube.com). enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxNUHO6vf7Y



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calibre2001 -



Quote:


Originally Posted by Koneko

You may certainly call her 老板娘


Curious: Is 板 a traditional or simplified character?










trien27 -

lao ban niang; ban: the form used here is simplified Chinese. So, don't use this form in Hong Kong
or Taiwan, but rather use the following. Traditional Chinese is "3 mouths under the door"










liuzhou -



Quote:

Curious: Is 板 a traditional or simplified character?

Both










Czech Cara -

as for addressing the waiter/waitress I witnessed 你好！ or, to avoid 小姐， 姑娘， more
or less informally. Generelly I am getting the feeling Chinese staff is treated with less respect.
So what might sound 'a bit too much' to Westerners is still acceptable, right?










Ardison -

I think 老闆(láo bǎn) or 老闆娘(láo bǎn niánɡ) is appropriate only when you see someone
serving not in uniform. Generally call 服务员(fú wù yuán) is always right under various
situations.










Koneko -



Quote:

calibre2001

Yes, 板 is same in both traditional and simplified forms.
Try this converter link, in the future
http://www.chinese-tools.com/tools/c...-simptrad.html



Quote:

as for addressing the waiter/waitress I witnessed 你好！ or, to avoid 小姐， 姑娘， more
or less informally

It's alright to use 你好 for the first time, but if you use it to address the same person
subsequently - I think it sounds a bit odd.

K.










gougou -



Quote:

It's alright to use 你好 for the first time, but if you use it to address the same person
subsequently - I think it sounds a bit odd.

That's what I would have expected, too, but I have seen people use it repeatedly. In fact, the
first time I came across it was when a waitress (the same one that had already taken my order)
brought my food and tried to catch my attention by saying 你好。

Maybe Chinese have doubts about the right form of address too? Should I say 先生，or can I just
stick with 洋鬼子?










Koneko -

Ha ha... Great mind think alike!

I think, these days most waiters simply address their customers by 你.
您 is hardly heard anymore.

K.










skylee -



Quote:

I think, these days most waiters simply address their customers by 你.
您 is hardly heard anymore.

Not sure if this is true. Somehow I think I hear it used frequently, like in Taiwan and in more
unscale restaurants / hotels in Chengdu and Shanghai etc ...












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Chinese Studies - Favorite American/English songs -

> Extras > Other cultures and language
Favorite American/English songs
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bhchao -

I know this is a very broad topic. But what are your favorite American/English songs?

I tend to be a little old-fashioned. My favorites are:

1. Tony Bennett's I Left My Heart in San Francisco

2. Anything by Barry Manilow. Mandy, Somewhere down the Road, and Can't Smile Without You are a
few of my Manilow favorites.

3. Billy Joel, especially Uptown Girl and She's Always a Woman

4. Mike and the Mechanics's In the Living Years I get emotionally moved when I hear this song. The
lyrics can get pretty personal for many people.

5. Bohemian Rhapsody by Queens.



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skylee -

The first song I can think of is Paul Young's "Wherever I lay my hat" ...

Another one is Sting's "Moon over bourbon street" ...










Koneko -

Don't Stop Me Now by Queen!










bhchao -

I think this would qualify as an "English" song : The Last Time

Makes me want to propose to my girlfriend right now.










elina -

Just came across this thread, although not completely understand the lyrics, but really love the
song of In the Living Years, which I heard the first time, and also will listen to it repeatedly
today during work...










HashiriKata -

One of my favourites: With or Without You, by U2.
(By the way, this is neither American nor English. It's Irish! )










skylee -

I also like Destiny's Child's Emotions lately.

Listen -> 1 / 2

View










Koneko -

My favourite at the moment is "My Affair" from Kirsty MacColl!
It's quite an old song though. Hope it's not chronologically inappropriate!










bhchao -

One last cry by Brian McKnight and Kim Jo Han.

Kim is very talented, but Brian totally massacred him.


Whitney Houston's One Moment in Time. This was a tribute song to the 1988 Summer Olympics.










redmini -

gotta agree with hashiri, i love With or Without You by U2

and im never sick of listening to these songs on repeat hehe:

1. Blink 182 - I miss you

2. Chicane - No ordinary morning

3. The Killers - Mr Brightside (remixed trance version)

4. Snow Patrol - Chasing cars












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Chinese Character - Is it possible to be perfect with your tones? - Page 3 -

> Learning Chinese > Speaking and Listening
Is it possible to be perfect with your tones?
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bomaci -



Quote:

if you ask the question "is it possible to be as good as a native speaker" I'd say yes, it's
possible. But there's a diminishing returns issue here - the extra time it would take you would
probably be better spent on learning more vocabulary, listening skills, gardening, etc. And I
think its dubious as an aim - imagine how nervous you'd be every time you opened your mouth,
terrified you might ruin your so-far perfect record . . .

Actually with the right methodology learning a native accent doesn't have to take that long. See
the earlier posts about native accent which mention the chorus method developed by Swede Olle
Kjellin. I recently read a book written by him. In it he claims that pronunciation is really a
rather small part of a language and thus fairly easy to learn to perfection. According to him you
should spend some time on learning perfectly a rather small amount of material. Corrsesponding to
about a page of written text. He claims that if you learn to pronounce a limited amount of text
absolutely perfectly you will be able to pronounce everything you could possibly want to say in
the language.
The reasoning being that the pronounciation rules in a language are limited. So if you concentrate
on a small amount of text but enough to give examples of all the pronounciation rules in the
language, you will only have to learn that text perfectly.



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roddy -

That's an interesting idea. I'd query though that you can draw an equivalence between accent in
other languages and tones in Chinese. I also suspect that carrying the good habits learned in
memorization of one text over to general speech might be easier said than done.

That said, it's worth a try - certainly won't do you any harm.










bomaci -



Quote:

I'd query though that you can draw an equivalence between accent in other languages and tones in
Chinese.

I think you can actually. I think people get to hung up on tones in chinese and forget about
another very important aspect of it, rhythm. According to the book I read, rhythm is the most
important aspect to get right in order to get an understandable pronounciation. He also claims
that if you focus on the rhythm when chorusing a sentence, the intonation will come by itself.
I have recently focused alot on rhythm in my chinese studies and I have found that it helps a lot.
It becomes much easier to hear word boundaries when you have gotten the rhythm of the language
"down".










Long Zhiren -

Yes. To coin Thomas Jefferson, more perfect to be precise.

I know of well-educated native Chinese speakers who are now regularly mentioning that many of
these expatriate westerners wandering the streets in China speak Chinese even better than the
native Chinese themselves! That is impressive.

A lot of Americans are impressed that I speak English better than they do. However, this is not
impressive, because (1) I am American and (2) I am a native English speaker.

As long as you can understand and be understood, I'm not sure what the extra effort merits though.










flameproof -



Quote:

I know of well-educated native Chinese speakers who are now regularly mentioning that many of
these expatriate westerners wandering the streets in China speak Chinese even better than the
native Chinese themselves! That is impressive.

I am sure there are such foreigners, but it also depends on what a native speaker considers

Quote:

good Chinese

.

Good means what? Vocab? Pronunciation? Speed? Choice of words?

And doesn't perfect depends also on the vocab? You can handle after one mandarin lesson your vocab
perfectly, even if it's just 10 words. That is perfect too. But I believe even a well educated
native speaker may struggle if he gets to very elaborate vocab. And then it's not only how you
talk, it's also what you talk. Take Bush as an example of a native speaker I would not call
"perfect".










HashiriKata -



Quote:


Originally Posted by bomaci

another very important aspect of it, rhythm. According to the book I read, rhythm is the most
important aspect to get right in order to get an understandable pronounciation.


This sounds useful so please forgive my ignorance: what is rhythm? how is it different from
intonation? what is the Chinese rhythm like? how do you extract / isolate it from the flow of
speech?

Thanks,










studentyoung -



Quote:

what is rhythm?



Quote:

how is it different from intonation?

They are different things. Although some people have no intonation or pronunciation problems in
Chinese, their rhythms are quite odd, because they are not so familiar with some phrases or
sentence structures. For example, I once heard some foreigners said, “你好——吗？” or
“中国共——产-党中央——委员——会”. But the normal rhythms are
“你-好-吗？” and “中国共产党-中央委员会”. I am quite sure that this rhythm
problem will happen on students who learn Japanese. If you ask a Japanese native speaker and a
foreign student to read a long Japanese article, they will probably give you two different rhythms.



Quote:

what is the Chinese rhythm like?



Quote:

how do you extract / isolate it from the flow of speech?

Yes, it is really so hard to explain the Chinese rhythm. But you will understand more on it, if
you listen to more Chinese listening materials.

Thanks!










bomaci -



Quote:

This sounds useful so please forgive my ignorance: what is rhythm? how is it different from
intonation? what is the Chinese rhythm like? how do you extract / isolate it from the flow of
speech?

Rhythm in language is simply a result of the differences in length between syllables when put
together in a sentence. As far as I know there are two different rhythm types for languages.
Stress-timed and syllable timed. In a stress timed language some syllables will be more prominent
than others in the flow of speech.
In this kind of language a syllable will be pronounced differently depending on if it is stressed
or not. In the other type syllable timed, syllables are pronounced the same regardless if they are
stressed or not.
As far as I know mandarin (especially the beijing variant) is a stress timed language. For example
look at how 是 is pronounced in
他就是我的朋友 and in 是啊. In the first sentence most beijing dialect speakers will
pronounce 是 as "ri" transforming "jiushi" into "jiur". However in the second expression where
是 is in a stressed position, it will be pronounced "shi".
To hear the rhythm of chinese I suggest that you listen to recordings of individual sentences over
and over. Then you will start to hear a rhythmic pattern.










HashiriKata -

Thank studentyoung and bomaci for replying. I'll be paying more attention to rhythm in Mandarin
and see (I did have some vague notion of rhythm but I think it comes with fluency in the language,
and not the other way round).
Bomaci mentioning of the concepts of stress-timed and syllable-timed is particular interesting, as
it never occurred to me that Mandarin is a stressed-time language (I know that English is one).

Best,












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Learn mandarin - Chinese poem? -

> Learning Chinese > Reading and Writing
Chinese poem?
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alenehan -

Hi, this is a small tea bowl that i own, I was hoping that someone could help me translate the
text.. I think it may be a poem.
Thanks
Alex




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skylee -

would it be japanese?










alenehan -

It may be Janese, thanks Skylee. The bowl is Chinese in style but it may be a Japanese copy.
Many Thanks
Alex










cookie_monster -

nice looking calligraphy where'd u get it?










alenehan -

Thanks Cookie Monster, it is from an old collection of Chinese Porcelain. I only bought this piece
as it was something different and I loved the flowing style of caligraphy. It is much smaller than
it looks like in the pictures with the whole thing being about the size of an egg cup!










wendyicy -

no, it isn't japanese, it is kind of chinese writing, i couldn't tell you what it says, cos i
couldn't read it according this picture.










alenehan -

Thanks Wendyicy, hopefully this picture should make it easier to read.....










Quest -

I think it's some made up gibberish. The only recognizable Japanese characters are そ, and maybe
け and ち. Run it by some educated Japanese people and see if you'll have any luck. It could be
some 三字经，三言诗。










shibo77 -

Difficult to see, but I think it is Japanese (hiragana and kanji), I can recognise these, but I am
not sure if they are correct: 凋 and を

-Shibo










Koneko -

Honestly, I think it's just some random stuff written down on the bowl...
Purely for aesthetic enhancement?!












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Learning Mandarin - Upgrade -

> Announcements > Bug Reports / Help
Upgrade
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roddy -

Just upgraded to the latest version of Vbulletin. As far as I'm aware everything should be back to
normal - if you spot any bugs or anything acting oddly, let me know.

Roddy



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roddy -

I've also installed a low-bandwidth style for the forums, suitable for use on PDAs / Smartphones.
At the moment I've just installed it to see how well it works and I wouldn't regard it as an
actual feature of the site yet, but I'm curious about how much demand there would be for it.

If you want to try it out, click here. And to turn it off again (remember where this link is or
you'll get stuck) click there.

Please note it is not fully functional - it's not designed to be used to make posts / private
messages, etc, just to read the forums.












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Chinese Studies - Is CM GPRS down? -

> Learning Chinese > Chinese Computing and Technology
Is CM GPRS down?
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babygodzilla -

i havent been able to access WAP/GPRS for 2 days now. anyone else?



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FSO -

It's been working fine for me in Beijing, though I have a dedicated GPRS SIM card (i.e. does not
support voice.)










roddy -

I'm still sending MMS to email with no problem, that's on Shenzhouxing. Not sure if that's classed
as WAP, GPRS, or neither.










babygodzilla -

i am also in Beijing. im using M-Zone, does that make a difference. i just tried it 5 seconds ago,
still not working. it just wont get a GPRS signal, and i get the error "Service Not Available."


what's your MMS settings roddy? which APN are you using?

btw ive tried both CMWAP and CMNET access points.










龙文山 Vincent V. -

If you have M-zone, initially, you won't be able to use gprs.

It is however possible to go to a China Mobile office and ask for it. They will suggest you to
take a monthly fee arrangement with "limitless" use of gprs. You need to bring your passport to
upgrade it as such.

I still have to go and ask for it, because when I sought for help on the subject they reminded me
to bring passport and go to a bigger office of their company. They can arrange this.

Their office (size of our Chinese bathroom) next to "Aijia" supermarket was understandably not
equipped to do it.










ipsi() -

I can use GPRS for browsing the web, downloading email, etc without a problem. No idea what I'm on
(China Mobile appears at the top of my cellphone).

What I did find is that I get told a similar message when I've run out of money and try to access
the internet. Do you have enough money left to make calls? If so, then I've got no idea. If you
can't make calls, then you probably can't use GPRS.










龙文山 Vincent V. -

If you use gprs with China Mobile without a monthly fee arrangement, but with a phone account you
have to load by a prepay system, the price is subtracted from your current account. The call and
gprs sessions are subtracted together (gprs: 0.03 rmb/kb).

But if you take separate gprs contract, call expenses are calculated separately.

0元........5元........20元........100元........200元........price/month
0mb......10mb.......50mb......800mb......2gb............amount/month
0.03元......0.01元.....0.01元......0.01元.....0.01元......extra per month per mb exceeded










ipsi() -

Hmm... I'm sure it seems more expensive than that. I also wish New Zealand had something that nice.

For comparison:

61 RMB / month gives you 3MB. That's right. Three Megabytes. 12.2 RMB / additional MB
116 RMB / month gives you 15MB, with 9.16 RMB / additional megabyte.
217 RMB / month for 200MB, 2.7 RMB / additional MB
325 RMB / month for 1 GB, 2.7 RMB / additional MB
433 RMB / month for 3 GB, 2.7 RMB / additional MB

That's post-paid plans only, not pre-paid. I'm not sure if the China Mobile ones are pre- or
post-paid plans?

Also, the last three are also what you would pay for Wireless access using the network and a modem
("Vodem") supplied by the Telecom company.










龙文山 Vincent V. -

Ok, I got a gprs contract with China Mobile, added to my M-Zone prepay phonenumber.

I got the 100RMB/month one for a unlimited use until 800mb, my girlfriend also wanted one and she
got the 20RMB/month for 50mb.

What happens is that the amount you got for M-Zone calls, will simply decrease monthly by the
amount of your contract.

Settings are:
-access point name: cmnet
-user name: cmnet
-password: cmnet

To get this done; go to a big China Mobile office, bring your passport and a card with your
Chinese name on it (e.g. student card or work card). No additional fee is needed. If you have
still plenty of money on your M-Zone or other CM account, like say: 250RMB. Or just add money to
your phone account as usual, but than a bit more.
After you applied for the gprs contract, you need to wait one day before you are able to use it.












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Pnyin - Basic Python module for adso -

> Learning Chinese > Chinese Computing and Technology > Adsotrans.com Forum
Basic Python module for adso
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imron -

Stemming from the discussion in this thread, here is a basic python module that will perform
web-based queries against the adsotrans website and return the results as a list of tuples.

There are 3 files:

adso.py - the main module
adsotatepage.py - class that handles processing of the adsotrans webpage
test.py - simple test harness

if anyone was interested, it probably wouldn't be too hard to have a translatepage or a pinyinpage
that would process and return the results from a translate or pinyin query.

To use the module, import it, and create an object of the Adso class.

I decided to write an Adso class rather than just having functions in the module, so that all the
different adso options (conjugation, grammar, encoding, encoding_out, numeric_pinyin and quality)
can easily be preserved across multiple calls. These values are set in the constructor, and are
simply strings that correspond to the values passed to the adso url.

Default values are:

conjugation='on'
grammar='on'
encoding='UTF-8S'
encoding_out='UTF-8S'
numeric_pinyin='off'
quality='high'

To use, simply import the module, create an Adso object, and call the adsotate member function
with the text that you want.

from adso import Adso

adso = Adso()
result = adso.adsotate( '你好世界‘ )

result will be a list of tuples containing the values (chinese, pinyin, translation), with one
tuple per segment of text, ordered by the same order the segments appear in the original text.
e.g. the above example produces the result:

[ ( '你好', 'nǐhǎo', 'hello' ), ( '世界', 'shìjiè', 'world' ) ]

Note: the encoding of the text you pass in should be what you provided as the encoding when
creating the Adso object (defaults to utf-8 ).

Anyway, it's all pretty basic at the moment, and doesn't really do anything more advanced than
generate a query to the main adsotrans webpage, and then parse the resulting html file. There's
also very little in the way of error checking, so you'll get exceptions if you can't connect to
the internet etc. It was done more as a proof-of-concept than anything else. Is this the sort of
thing you had in mind Kudra?

BTW speaking of errors, I don't know if this is of interest to you Trevelyan, but the python
HTMLParser says the output generated by Adso has malformed start tags at various places in the
html. The w3.org validator reports errors in the same lines/columns, but it seems to be because
it's treating the < operator in some of the javascript as a start tag.



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kudra -

Haven' t played with it yet, but from all appearances, in the words of Will Smith in Men in Black
I, "Now that's what I'm talking about!"

thanks.










bogleg -

Hi Imron,

Awesome work. Would you mind if I ported something like this over to Java? I'd love to be able use
it in the ZDT and I'm sure others would use it as well.

Chris










trevelyan -

Looks good. Let me know if any changes are necessary on this end to help out. It would be possible
to create a script that just spat out the information delimited in a more convenient way for
parsing/processing if that would help or be faster.










kudra -

@trevelyan -- that would be convenient. In my experience of parsing yahoo pages, it is always a
pain when they change the html format. By essentially providing an api you or we python(or other
lang) programmers wont have to worry if you change stuff around in the html.










imron -

@bogleg - go for it, it's not even 100 lines of code, so I can't imagine it'd take too long.
Though you might want to wait until trevelyan can produce a page with a more streamlined output.

@trevelyan - yeah, a more suitable format would be nice, and would certainly be more future-proof.
Maybe just a simple XML file along the lines of:

你好nǐhǎohello

(or less verbosely

)

You could of course add any extra other info that was relevant/useful (part of speech,
simplified/traditional conversion etc). All of which (including the 3 listed above) could be
toggled by parameters.

This format would also lend itself nicely to the other styles of queries (translation/pinyin),
which would simply just have one segment containing the entire body of text with the appropriate
pinyin/translation.










trevelyan -

Currently takes GB2312 as input, but it will make sense to switch to UTF8. I'm not sure which
server to put it on. Probably the new one. Ping me if anyone is clamouring to set anything up
using it and I'll jump on supporting UTF sooner rather than later.

http://www.adsotate.com/adso/api.pl?text=%CB%FB%C3%C7










bogleg -

I'm clamouring! Hook us up!

Chris










imron -

That's great! Thanks for that










trevelyan -

Ok. First file here takes in GB2312. The second takes in UTF8. Because of the need to support both
simplified and traditional, both files return content in UTF8.

http://www.adsotate.com/adso/api-gb2312.pl?text=TEXT
http://www.adsotate.com/adso/api-utf8.pl?text=TEXT

There's no guarantee these files will stay online here. So if you set up anything using
them send me an email so I can notify you if they move.












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