For most of the evening, Jay had hovered on the cusp of sleep, kept awake by the muted sounds of bossa nova pouring from his flatmate's stereo, its dim beats peppered with the occasional rattling of pipes and a series of strange falsetto screams. And on the few occasions he managed to drift off, his mind was flooded with strange images of his thesis committee at a Cuban beach party, reading his thesis and laughing at it in a series of oddly-familiar falsetto screams.

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 said on
November 30, 2012
The lesson kept stopping and starting all over again so was not able to complete it..
 said on
November 30, 2012
So are most Popup users at home writing their thesis, or in the next room with the twins? I know which one I am, alas...

1. 周末又在家呆着?

Is 呆着 pronounced dàizhe, like the transcript says? My dictionaries say dāizhe, and I hear that on the recording too.

2. 這論文不還沒寫完了呢。

Neat construction. Is 不 added for emphasis here? It seems the sentence would function the same without it.

3. Casanova,我已經給你買了飛機票了。

Is the second 了 added for emphasis? In English, something like: "But I already bought a plane ticket for you."

4. Is verb tense 动词时态 in Chinese? How do you say verb aspect?
 said on
November 30, 2012
What's your opinion on translating scripts verbatim?

Say, for this line:

你不是说你这周末肯定要出去吗?

Instead of translating it and studying it as, "Didn't you say you were definitely going out this weekend?"

do you think it would be more helpful in terms of learning the word placement if you translate it as,

"You (not) say you this weekend definitely going (out)?"

In my opinion, it saves time on studying grammar, but it could just be me.
 said on
November 30, 2012
hey itsanthonyhere,

We've heard people request it both ways. I don't know if it really matters, but the reason we try to translate colloquially is because in some cases that's the only way to really hit the right emotional note. Also, the sentences go into our dictionary so proper english is nice, and we figure that if people want the word-by-word translations they can reference the annotated popup version and hide the explicit translations, which gives pretty much the same thing.

 said on
December 4, 2012
Hi Echo,

Any thoughts on my questions above?
 said on
December 4, 2012
@murrayjames,

2. Rhetorical question.

3. Change of state.

4. 动词时态, yes. Verb aspect, we usually just say 助词.

Btw, I noticed you tried our speaking practice hotline, please try to speak sth longer next time, so that I can give you feedback :)

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com
 said on
December 5, 2012
Hi Echo,

Thank you! Just called again. I had microphone problems last time I called; this time everything seemed to work fine.
 said on
December 6, 2012
Just to weigh in on the literal translation of scripts, one of the reasons I come to Popup Chinese is that their scripts are not verbatim translated. It's really easy and common to find verbatim translations in textbooks, or even on other websites, but it often lacks the attitude and tone that you hear in the podcast. Also, often other sites translations are outdated at best, inaccurate at worst.

 said on
December 7, 2012
@murrayjames,

Hmm... looks like it only has "你好" in your recording.

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com
 said on
January 22, 2013
Hi Echo

Trying to understand your answer to murrayjames about this sentence:

"这论文不还没写完呢吗"

1. Does the 不 have any special use?

2. The 吗 at the end is confusing. I have copied it from the transcript, but I agree that the way murrayjames writes it sounds correct. Is this a 了 or a 吗?

If this is a rhetorical question by the swot, how would you translate it to English?... "Does it look like this thesis is finished?"

Thanks
 said on
January 22, 2013
Oh, more importantly, is that Brendan or David posing as Casanova in the photo?
 said on
January 23, 2013
It's a little-known fact that I do most of our lesson photos in costume, including our most recent one.
 said on
January 23, 2013
@mike_underhill,

"不...吗" is one of the most common rhetorical question patterns. Such as 这不是他吗?(Isn't it him), 他不是走了吗?(Didn't he have left)

Here what confuses people is the 呢. One of the usages of 呢 is the marker of progressive tense. It always uses together with 着 in the statements. For example, 他吃着饭呢 (He's eating). Sometimes in the questions, we don't use 着 but just 呢 to indicate the progressive tense, like 孩子哭呢?( Is the kid crying) This sentence doesn't work without 呢.

Here in our dialogue, the sentence 这论文不还没写完呢吗, there are actually two fixed patterns: 还...呢 and 不...吗. 还...呢 is usually used to indicate the progressive tense too, for example, 他还睡觉呢? (He's still sleeping). When we put 没 in the pattern, it means haven't done sth yet. Like in the dialogue 论文还没写完呢 (the thesis is still not finished yet). Then we add 不...吗 structure into this sentence and make it a rhetorical question.

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com
 said on
February 17, 2013
@mike_underhill

"Does it look like this thesis is finished?" sounds a bit aggressive to me, I'm wondering if it's more like "Well, have I finished writing this thesis?". I don't think there's a good way to capture the double negative in English...

@Echo

What's the difference between 这篇论文 and 这论文? I wasn't aware that the classifier could be left out in this case. Is the version without more colloquial? In what cases is that allowed? Sorry if this was covered somewhere else. If so, please point me to the place.