What is Business Chinese?
I have seen some Business Chinese books. They all talk about trading, buying, selling and bargaining. What happened to other businesses? My guess is that people in other businesses do not need to learn Chinese. Or, those Business Chinese books should be tossed to the nearest waste basket.There is no so called Business Chinese. There is Chinese and some business terms.
posted by april zhang @ 3/26/2008 07:04:00 PM
9 Comments:
我同意你的看法。
Business English is like that too. Just English where some of the words have domain-specific meanings.
By the way, many prepositions indicate the result of an action, so it is "tossed [b]in[/b][to] the nearest waste basket."
Hi thank you, Richard! I have BIG problems with prepositions. This alone makes learning English so difficult.
Hi thank you, Richard! I have BIG problems with prepositions. This alone makes learning English so difficult.
Well, we have problems with tones, and 了.
Do you know that song by SHE? I have forgotten its name now, but it has an old Chinese saying as the opening line and it points out that the shoe is on the other foot now.
This is the song I was thinking of:
中国话
One more comment.
There must be rules surrounding the use of prepositions, otherwise the burden of learning them would be too great and we would see them simplified or even eliminated from the language. However, as a native speaker I find it hard to state what those rules are.
All I can do is point out that the same preposition is used in a lot of different sentences when the circumstances are the same. Eg,
Put it in the bin/rubbish.
Throw it in ...
Drop it in ...
Pour it in ...
Put it on the table/floor
Throw it on ...
Drop it on ...
etc.
There is, however, another rule for to versus at.
"Throw it to him." and "Throw it at him." have too very different meanings, distinguished by "to" vs "at."
The first is used when you are helping someone or the intent is friendly, while the second is used when the intent is not friendly.
Hope this helps.
啊, 中国话, 很好听的歌,歌词也很有意思!
The opening lines
扁担宽板凳长
扁担想绑在板凳上
扁担宽板凳长
扁担想绑在板凳上
is an old Chinese tongue twister loved by lots of comedians and children. Besides this one, this song is full of old Chinese tongue twisters. It makes sense to Chinese people. It must be hard for you to fully understand.
Yes, indeed, it is hard to understand. However, I find it interesting listening to Chinese music and trying to understand the lyrics.
I also try to read other stuff and try to understand it, like this:
静夜思
作者: 李白
床前明月光，
疑是地上霜。
举头望明月，
低头思故乡。
I have never been satisfied with the translations of this I have seen as they try to translate it literally. In reading this poem I tried to understand what the poet was feeling that caused him to write that little piece, and came up with the following:
Beyond my bed the moon shines bright,
Perhaps a frost is out tonight.
Moon you are my sole companion,
thoughts of those I did abandon.
My aim here was to capture the sense of what he might have been thinking and feeling, while providing a rhyme and keep to 8 syllables per line.
Of course, if the poet provided any commentary on this piece perhaps I could get a better sense of what he meant.
Hey, I really love your translation! It is a poem itself and also kept the feeling of the original poem.
In general, the translations of old Chinese poems are really disappointing. Your translation indeed shed some light on how to translate those poems.
The more I read it, the more I love it. You really translate it well.
I recently finished the 7th Harry Potter, a translated version. The story was fantastic, but the translation was disappointing...
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