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| 11 |
Olympic Torch Arrives in Shanghai Earthquake recourse is the most important thing recently. |
| 10 |
Why I Keep Losing Stuff My most painful experience of losing things was air tickets. I could not fly back until I purchased a new one. At least, that was what happened to me with China Eastern in LA, US. Till today, they have not reimbursed my money, or, company money, to be exact. Ever since then, I decided to be the most organized man in the world, or in the company, or in my family. What I did was I found a vinyl pouch with a zipper type of seal on top. So every time I travel, I would store my ticket, already inside the jacket with personal info and everything, inside the pouch and...zipped. Plus, I would use the frequent flier booklet from China Eastern as a booklet to store all my receipts during the trip. In business world, there is a concept called 5S. Sort, Straighten, Sweep, Standardize and Sustain. Originated from Japanese company. You will not understand how organized Japanese are until you travel to Japan! Unless you are a genious like Jianshuo, you should learn 5S and get your shxt organized! |
| 9 |
Is the Real Estate Cooling Down? - Part III who does it mean, "i like to eat my own poop in my mouth?" as far as i know, you are the only person who came up with this sentence. |
| 8 |
Different Views on Typhoon Here in America, a lot of people watch Weather Channel very faithfully (or you can say a pastime) whenever there is something big happening, like hurricane or tornado, even though they are still hundreds of miles away from being affected. One of my former roommates could indeed sit there studying the satellite map for like an hour. I don't necessarily think they should be criticized just for not showing any anguish. This world has become overly obsessed with political correctness. Looks that the word "livejournal" is blocked. Hmm... |
| 7 |
Language Exchange Partners Wanted Hello All, I am a Canadian living in Japan ... just arrived last night and will stay for about two weeks. Please send me an email if you would like a language exchange in the Shanghai area. I am doing some academic research nights and business negotiations in the day. I REALLY NEED TO LEARN CHINESE!!! look forward to hearing from you, Will leizero@bpesoft.com |
| 6 |
Aerial Picture of Anyplace in US Sorry my email is will_mole@hotmail.com from the query on the top. Thankyou |
| 5 |
Aerial Picture of Anyplace in US Hello my name is Will and I was interested to see the photography from a satallite but I cant see any houses from Australia (Where I live) I f anyone could help me out on this problem, Please email me. Thankyou |
| 4 |
Xiang Yang Market Again hellow, I read your blog and felt interested in what your mentioned about tennis. I am starting my tennis training now and really looking for help on finding a good trainner and playmates in metro-chicago area. Would you like to give a hand? My email is : duckheadbbs@yahoo.com Thanks Will |
| 3 |
Mandarin or Shanghaiese? There is no -ng ending in Shanghainese. the -n ending is nasalized like in French, but not vocalized into -ng as in Mandarin or Cantonese. It's wrong to spell Shanghai as Zanghei; not a throat produced -ng sound (it's a nasal n instead). Zanhei is much more accurate. Shanghainese has no pinyin ch/sh/zh sounds (as in the zh in Zhongguo) either. So when spelled chi below, the Shanghainese pronounciation is close to pinyin qi and not to pinyin chi (likewise pinyin x-> sh). And no pinyin -an, -ao, -uan, -ian, -iao sounds (again, no -ng either). However, Shanghainese has v and z (English z, as in zebra); Mandarin does not have the English z. because of this pinyin z is spelled as tz below; and pinyin c is spelled ts. two "to be" verbs: zi (to be) and lei / lahei (to be, existence). lahei used always at the end of sentence. leira = was/were. negation is va (for to be verbs) or mach (for to have verbs), similar to Mandarin. Subject-Object-Verb examples: We are eating the chocolate. [We-SUBJ][Chocolate-OBJECT][To Eat-VERB1][Am being-VERB2] ala chokalei chie lahei. He is writing the letter. [He-SUBJ][Letter-OBJECT][To write-VERB1][Am being-VERB2] yi shin sha lahei. We were really tired from work yesterday. [We-SUBJ][Yesterday-TIME][Work-OBJECT][Did-VERB(past)][Exhausted-MODIFIER(past, flavored)] ala zachnich sanwoch tzura chierissattara. zachnich = yesterday sanwoch = work tzura = did (to do: simple past) chierissattara = so exhausted (flavored, past). We had SO much fun playing soccer over the weekend. ala tzoumach tzochjou bisshandarei keishinsattara. tzoumach = weekend tzochjou = soccer bisshandarei = playing (-darei form must be followed by modifier), bisshanra (played) would have also been acceptable. although -darei form further flavors the verb (but must be followed by a modifier to the verb). keishinsattara = happy/fun/excited (past, flavored form) We played soccer over the weekend. ala tzoumach tzochjou bisshanra. (bisshangura = we had played also acceptable). -ra / -gura form do not need modifier, -darei form must need modifier (-darei form is also tense-neutral, so tense is obtained either from modifier or other parts of sentence). You ate my food. [You-SUBJECT]nei[My Food-OBJ][Ate-VERB] non nei u-a vei chittara. I haven't been there. [I][There][have not][Gone] u emida mach chigu. (-ch ending, such as mach, or double consonant indicates syllable before is a short vowel. Don't pronounce -ch endings as "ch", it's silent indicating abrupt halt and expiration of air). l = has not twirl. r = has slight twirl (like in Japanese and Korean); both r/l sound close to l for English and Mandarin speakers. So as you can see. It's quite different from Mandarin and Cantonese. Also, urban Shanghainese is spoken very quickly and clear. |
| 2 |
Mandarin or Shanghaiese? Shanghainese is NOT a derivative of Cantonese. The two are not even close. Mandarin, Cantonese, Hakka, and Min all belong to one end of the Chinese language spectrum. Shanghainese is by itself as part of the Wu Chinese subset. Characteristics of Wu Chinese is that it retains ancient Chinese's set of initials; it has high occurence of tone sandhi (hence tones are hardly important and its existence is treated in a manner similar to modern Japanese); it has lost all of the Chinese finals (except -n); and it has short/long vowel distinction (something Mandarin speakers would not be able to comprehend). Also Shanghainese can be spoken using the following syntax: Subject-Object-Verb. This is practically impossible in Mandarin and Cantonese. Jian Shuo Wang is wrong to say that Suzhou people speak a different dialect from Shanghai. Both are Wu Chinese with VERY MINOR variations (something like British English vs. American English). There are 85 million speakers of Wu Chinese, making it the second largest Chinese dialect after Mandarin (Cantonese has 60 million speakers). Any Shanghainese speaker can easily understand and speak to a person from Suzhou, Ningbo, Wuxi, Wenzhou, etc without resorting to Mandarin. A lot of Japanese words loaned from the Chinese were from the Wu/Go (Shanghai, Suzhou) area, and hence in many cases Wu Chinese sounds very similar to Japanese. Wu Chinese is definitely the most unique dialect within the Sinitic language group. It is also much easier to pronounce than any other Chinese dialect (again tones are also irrelevant). |