While the financial meltdown ravaged Squire and Huddington's continental operations, the transnational's activities in Hong Kong remained surprisingly resilient to slumping European demand. Western analysts attributed the growth to continued demand-pull in Asia and management's hands-off attitude to letting its Hong Kong subsidiary refocus on the Asian market, and there may even be some truth to that....Learning Chinese? Our show today is about lies, gossip and rumors. If you're a Chinese learner at the intermediate level or above and feel comfortable listening to a show that is half in Chinese and half in English, join us for a bilingual discussion of the Chinese rumor mill. We'll cover some practical vocabulary for spreading malicious gossip yourselves, and take a quick look at some of the more outlandish rumors that have circulated on the Chinese Internet in recent years.
crusty_138
said on June 29, 2012
As a wise friend of mine (& big Fleetwood Mac fan) often says "I only listen to Rumours on vinyl"
amber
said on June 29, 2012
@crusty_138,我的朋友们经常说：“小道消息（rumors）总是真的。”--Amberamber@popchinese.com
helen.wallimann
said on July 3, 2012
In the quiz look at questions 4 and 6. They are the same, the "correct" answers are different.
trevelyan
said on July 4, 2012
Thanks Helen. Fixed.
Bjarte 凌远
said on July 16, 2012
Hey guys, great website you have here! Could you enlighten me as to what 嗜烟如命means? (from the quiz)
richwarm
said on July 16, 2012
嗜烟 = to be a smoker, and 如命 is an intensifier, something like "as if one's life depended on it"嗜烟如命 is literally 嗜(addicted to)烟(cigarettes)如(like)命(life)You could say "to love tobacco as one loves life itself"Some other similar expressions ~ 爱赌如命 addicted to gambling ... 嗜酒如命 to have a penchant for the bottle ... 嗜血如命 bloodthirsty ... 嗜毒如命 drug-crazed ... 嗜錢如命 moneygrubbing ... 嗜書如命 loving books more than anything else
Bjarte 凌远
said on July 16, 2012
Thanks a lot richwarm! Really appreciate your thorough explanation!
amber
said on July 16, 2012
@bjarte@richwarm,Richwarm's explanation is great! Just one thing, in《说文》, the traditional Chinese dictionary, 嗜 is explained as ‘嗜，嗜欲，喜之也’. That is to say, the original meaning of 嗜 is ‘to like something’ in stead of 'addicted to' something. For example:余幼时即嗜学。——明· 宋濂《送东阳马生序》It is translated as 'I LIKED learning when I was still young'. You also can say 嗜好(hobby), that's more or less the same to 爱好, maybe the degree is deeper, but still not 'addicted to' yet. Only when it is used together with ***如命, the whole meaning is 'addicted to something', because as richwarm said, somebody like something 'as if one's life depended on it'. Then it is the entire phrase giving the meaning 'addicted to'. --Amberamber@popupchinese.com
Brendan
said on July 16, 2012
It will probably not help as a mnemonic for 嗜, but you could always try thinking of it as "嗜 as in 石室诗士施氏，嗜狮，誓食十狮."
amber
said on July 16, 2012
@Brendan,我一直觉得写这句话的哥们儿仗着自己有才，写这样句子欺负人，有点儿不厚道，哈哈。--Amberamber@popupchinese.com
Brendan
said on July 16, 2012
@Amber -- The first rule of being Y.R. Chao (赵元任) is that when you're Y.R. Chao, you get to do anything you want. Chao is a hero of mine: Chinese translator of Lewis Carroll, inventor of Guoyeu Romatzyh, voice model for the first ever 国语 pronunciation recordings, developer of General Chinese, author of A Grammar of Spoken Chinese, coiner of the English terms "stir fry" and "potsticker," and more or less unassailable badass. They don't make them like that anymore.
Echo
said on July 16, 2012
@Brendan,I totally agree! 赵元任 is my idol. Apart from what you said, people have enough reasons to admire him only because so many languages he can speak.--Echoecho@popupchinese.com
richwarm
said on July 16, 2012
@Brendan ~ Agree about YR Chao. The lessons in his 1948 text "Mandarin Primer" are full of humour and character, acted engagingly by Chao himself, along with his daughters (the audio is available for purchase, and anyone can listen to the try-before-you-buy samples online). The Wikipedia article on Gwoyeu Romatzyh you link to, "identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community", was written largely by my good (online) friend Nigel Greenwood, who died tragically in a glider accident a few years ago. (It's "Gwoyeu", not "Guoyeu", by the way). If anyone wants to see a small sample of Chao's translation of Lewis Carroll, including hanzi (unlike the pinyin.info reference) there's a snippet at my page ~ http://home.iprimus.com.au/richwarm/gr/tweedle.htm
Brendan
said on July 17, 2012
@richwarm - Gah! Yes, sorry -- Gwoyeu, not Guoyeu. I'm going to go ahead and blame that on the heat, mental interference from Hanyu Pinyin, sunspots and the Mayan calendar. Thanks for the link to Tweedledum -- I've got a (print) copy of Chao's translation of "Jabberwocky" lying around somewhere, and will have to scan it at some point. I've been tempted for a while to inflict it upon students in my translation class as a way of breaking them of their dictionary habit...
richwarm
said on July 18, 2012
@Brendan ~ More than 60 years ago, Chao pioneered the sort of sort of material you produce at PopupChinese -- dialogues spoken naturally, at normal speed, with content that engages the emotions. He sometimes uses bizarre scenarios (cf Popup's slave in the modern household, trains that never make it to their destination, eunuch armies etc). In Lesson 6 of Mandarin Primer, for example, Chao flops into a chair, exhausted, to have a smoke, then walks into a smoke ring (just as Alice follows a rabbit down its hole) and finds himself flying over the sea! His voice acting performance is brilliant!Ah yes, "Hanyu Pinyin interference"! Tell me about it! I went to heroic lengths to immerse myself in GR, writing scripts to convert pinyin material to GR, and so forth, but in the end, I had to resign myself to becoming "bilingual" in GR and pinyin, instead of living in a purely GR cocoon, and a certain level of interference is the inevitable result. YR Chao came up with an ingenious system of Romanization. However, nearly a century later, for better or worse, we find ourselves living in a pinyin world. GR lost out.Take care with those sunspots, Brendan! And consider switching to the Gregorian calendar -- like pinyin over GR, it dominates the Mayan system, I can assure you. ;-)I hope your students have fun with Jabberwocky!
