General Thread For This and That!!....

[David E]

Most of the time if I am telling of an amount of travel in miles or temperature I will put the conversion in there too. Just wasn't sure if they would understand fractions as westerners do.

Sorry Vince...your post should read "as Americans do"  ...the rest of the World ditched fractions and went metric ages ago !!!!

[David E]

Yep Vince...point taken

With Ming, as I said, the simple fractions (half, quarter, three quarters) are OK, they are more like words than mathematical expressions, so they become another English word in her vocabulary, but not with the same mathematical understanding that a Westerner would have. So she well knows that "gas tank half full" means exactly that, but would stumble over "gas tank five eigths full" !!!!

[Philip]

Yes, David, there is a difference between there, they're and their, and also between you're and your. If we can't get it right, how can we expect our loved ones to.

[Neil]

and...the wrong there, their and they're sure translates differently.

[Paul Todd]

I come across this all the time being an English teacher  . Yesterday I spent 2 hours putting together a powerpoint lesson on the difference usage of "say" and "tell" talk about tying myself in knots!  As I teach university level students they can ask some awkward questions sometime and they soon know if your trying to bluff your way through points of grammar. I was going to say how difficult English is but then when you put it next to mandarin!

[Bee964]

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America,
and to the republic of Richard Stands,
one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. 

I had forgotten all about this Mike! HAHAHAHAHAHA

Dave C

[Bee964]

I have had numerous times when I have tried to explain things to my lady...... "Call to me on my sell phone..."
and tried to explain the differences. I usually get it worked out for her to understand. I have not had to say to her yet that "my fathers patients all ran out of patience today."

And for Imperial measures,..... one eighth, 1/8, 0.125,..... all the same measurement but can be confusing as hell to someone trying to understand it for the first time. One must show patience when trying to explain this to their lady. Just be patient with her.

.....and for converting from Imperial to metric I am still waiting for them to do this to my pay check, bank account.......double it and add 32!! haha

Dave C

[David E]

Dave C

Yep....I got the "sell" phone syndrome with Ming...and it is not easy to "unlearn" such things for her.

We had a great laugh the other day....I gave her a tongue-twister to practice with.......

"What annoys an oyster, a noise annoys an oyster, but a noisy noise annoys an oyster more"...try it...it is horrible to pronounce properly. ...but she got it in the end...thats my girl !!!

[Paul Todd]

Well, I got my bonus from the University where I work on Friday for completing a full year of teaching and rushed out and bought a new 22 inch i-mac with it.  It's the first time I've dipped my toes into the world of mac computers and so far the transition has been pretty painless and enjoyable. Any of you guy's use mac's? and have you got any tips to get me started in the right direction?

David have your wife say this in Mandarin:-

A poet named Shi lived in a stone room,fond of lions, he swore that he would eat ten lions.
He constantly went to the market to look for ten lions.
At ten o'clock, ten lions came to the market and Shi went to the market.
Looking at the ten lions, he relied on his arrows to cause the ten lions to pass away.
Shi picked up the corpses of the ten lions and took them to his stone room.
The stone room was damp. Shi ordered a servant to wipe the stone room.
As the stone den was being wiped, Shi began to try to eat the meat of the ten lions,    
At the time of the meal, he began to realize that the ten lion corpses were in fact were ten stone lions.

[Irishman]

I always wondered why Americans called mobiles "cell phones" , do they think of them as living things? (yes i know the real reason but that's how my mind works!). The Germans call them "handy" which kind of makes most sense!

[Willy The Londoner]

British humor ....


http://www.wimp.com/animalvoiceovers/


 

Hi Mike if you are going to use this term then make it British Humor please. 

I often wonder why the U is taken out of American use of English that we gave to the World. 

We honor our parents. we color our profiles.   

Willy
 

[maxx]

Hey Willy I just read your last post.And it had allot of spelling mistakes.You had the letter u all over the place.No worries mate I fixed the words for you.Wouldn't want the world to know that the Brits can't spell

[David E]

YYUR...YYIC...ICUR,YY4Me 

[David E]

Paul

I got Ming to translate the story and tell it back to me in Chinese....WOW !!!...it sounded a bit like a truckload of hissing snakes...far to complex for me to even try to copy !!!

We both had a real laugh with it and she asked me to pass on another Chinese "tongue twister" to you.

She told me that any Westerner who could say this properly would have no trouble becoming fluent in Chinese !!

here it is....

14 is 14, 40 is 40, and 9 is 9 ........!!!!

BTW, Ming said that it may not work so well for Guangzhou and Shanghai dialects, but works for both Chengdu and Beijing. Needless to say, my tongue couldn't even begin to get it right !!!

Cheers...David

[Arnold]

Now that I had obsolute no trouble with this David , I can actually think I will speak Chinese in the Future . That was too easy and I don't think I will ever .... !