We had a great class last week. We started with a list of proverbs containing numbers. Shortly after the sheet was passed out we realized we had seen it before. It was originally given to us in our first session many months ago. Try as we may we did not understand some of them though. Coming to grips with the numbers losing their meanings and the logic behind the sayings was taking every ounce of brain power I had. Here are a few of the “number proverbs” in the list
一五一十 (yi wu yi shi) = in detail
三天两头 (san tian liang tou) = every other day
五光十色 (wu guang shi se) = colorful
八九不离十 (ba jiu bu li shi) = almost
九牛二虎 (jiu niu er hu) = the combined strength of nine oxen and two tigers
十全十美 (shi quan shi mei) = perfect
The real fun started when we got to 的，地, and 得. I’m afraid that at this point my grasp on the three is so tenuous that I’m just going to post my notes and make no comments on them.
“All modifiers must come before the noun.”
“的, besides indicating possession, must come before two syllable adjectives modifying a noun.”
The example I have written here is:
她是一个好妈妈， 好朋友。
她是一个很好的妈妈， 好朋友。
In the first sentence only 好 is modifying 妈妈, hence no 的.
In the second sentence 很好 is modifying 妈妈, necessitating the inclusion of 的.
Oh, and someone sneezed. Instead of “bless you” we can say 一百岁 “yi bai sui”, or “longevity”.
2 comments:
Jeremy,
The numbers are essential and Chinese proverbs surely interest many people. I can see the wisdom of your instructor here!
Hey thanks for that, some nice little phrases there. I plugged a couple into Wenlin and it added one or two nice examples. For example:
Tiānxià méiyǒu shíquánshíměi de shì
(there is nothing perfect in this world) or I guess more literally (under the heavens nothing is perfect).
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