While Bruce may simply have been standing in the right place at the right time, the mood in the newsroom was nonetheless elated, with even the interns well-aware that this unexpected scoop would catapult their local paper to national attention, and perhaps even net them a National Newspaper Award for excellence in photojournalism.

Learning Chinese? At the intermediate level one of the things we try to highlight is entirely natural and improvisational Chinese as opposed to the sorts of heavily scripted and largely unnatural speech featured on other learning programs and textbooks. And this dialogue is a case in point: the difficulty is not so much in understanding the vocabulary here as simply following what is happening as our native Chinese speakers communicate casually the way you'll hear everywhere in mainland China.
 said on
January 7, 2013
Nice lesson, left my mind wondering about what was that disgusting thing on the background!

I think I got the difference between 不了 and 不着 with this lesson, but how about 不到 and 不着?For example 找不到 vs. 找不着? And which one (if any) I should use if I'm selling something, but don't succeed in getting the sales? 卖不着?And more metaphysical question: why does my laptop and cellphone input method not recognize 'bu zhao' as 不着?

光线 as lighting:can this be used outside of photography, for example "Casanova's bedroom lighting was dim and romantic"? (yes, I'm looking forward to hear more about Casanova's adventures!)
 said on
January 9, 2013
Really liked this one. Think there's a tiny wee typo in the transcript. The pinyin for 右下角 might be a letter off.
 said on
January 9, 2013
Also, is there any story behind 背景? Is the 北京 bit just phonetic? Any reason the sun and moon are there?
 said on
January 11, 2013
@maminglei,

This is a very good question. When it means to be able to get a result, 不着 and 不到 is the same, like 找不到 vs 找不着 or 买不到 vs 买不着. However, 不着 has another meaning: to get into a certain status. For example: 点不着(not to be able to get sth alight), 睡不着(not to be able to fall asleep), 烧不着(not to be able to burn).

I have no idea why don't your laptop and cellphone recognize 不着, what input method do you use?

About 光线, yes, you can. Casanova卧室里的光线很暗很浪漫。

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com
 said on
January 16, 2013
照片里有什么? 可能是这个: http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/featured/incredible-shadow-art-created-from-junk/12265?image=3

是两个英国艺术家做的一个节目。