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Blogs I like and why I like them:
Linda Skrocki, Because of "Why is this Necessary?"
Mountain Girl, Get a breath of fresh mountain air
Pam Kong's Non-Stick World, She sees significance and humor in everyday things
I18n G.A.L. Andrea Vine, Like a 3-minute vacation to England
Rob Sohigian, Good pictures of everyday life in China
Sin-Yaw Wang, He writes stuff about China that even most Chinese people don't know
Vasanth Vaidyanathan, Great links!
Eric Kozlowski, learn how we keep Solaris quality rock-solid
ThinGuy, he's hysterical AND he cooks!
Sue Weber, Nice blend of work and life
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
Linda Skrocki, Because of "Why is this Necessary?"
Mountain Girl, Get a breath of fresh mountain air
Pam Kong's Non-Stick World, She sees significance and humor in everyday things
I18n G.A.L. Andrea Vine, Like a 3-minute vacation to England
Rob Sohigian, Good pictures of everyday life in China
Sin-Yaw Wang, He writes stuff about China that even most Chinese people don't know
Vasanth Vaidyanathan, Great links!
Eric Kozlowski, learn how we keep Solaris quality rock-solid
ThinGuy, he's hysterical AND he cooks!
Sue Weber, Nice blend of work and life
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
so did you pick it up ?
where was this taken, did you check out the book, how is it ?
Posted by tabman on October 08, 2008 at 07:21 PM CST #
tabman, what mel is referring to is that the "A" totally changes the meaning of the title. Without the "A":
Pick Up Chinese
It is referring to the language.
But, with the "A":
Pick Up A Chinese
It is actually saying:
Pick Up A Chinese *Person*
As in, how to go on a date with one.
There are many subtleties to the English language which are not easily learned.
Posted by Robs on October 08, 2008 at 09:19 PM CST #
Nah Tabman, I didn't buy it. I thought if they can't use proper grammar on the advertising then the book couldn't be that good either. :)
Well summed up, Rob. And really, when people learn foreign languages, what is most often their goal? :)
Posted by Melanie Gao on October 08, 2008 at 09:53 PM CST #
Mel, I did not realize you took a picture when we saw this. :-) Actually as non-native English speaker I did not get it at first sight. But Melanie then told me.
Tabman, this was taken at a "kind of" apple-store near silk market.
Posted by Andreas on October 09, 2008 at 02:38 AM CST #
so any suggestions for a foreigner coming to Beijing, where to get hold of a book for learning chinese or translations or something like that ?
Posted by tabman on October 09, 2008 at 08:13 AM CST #
Tabman I recommend chinesepod.com for you, I find their lessons and their website very useful. If you just need to translate material I suggest babelfish.altavista.com. Once you get to China you might want to check out the BLCU language books, I like their style and structure.
Let me know if you have other questions as you prepare to come here!
Posted by melanie gao on October 09, 2008 at 08:23 AM CST #
Well, here in Old Blighty, "Pick up a Chinese" means "pick up a Chinese food take-away". But, in the context of having a choice of Cantonese or Mandarin, "Pick up a Chinese" is an acceptable shortening of "Pick up a Chinese language". If there were a similar display with French, Italian, and Spanish, the sign could say "Pick up a Romance".
Funny I should read this today, because my Finnish friend just came back from Berlin with a photo of a cardboard JFK saying "Ich bin ein Berliner" and me explaining to her that it means "I am a jelly doughnut".
Posted by I18n G.A.L. on October 23, 2008 at 06:30 AM CST #
Hmmm... I18n G.A.L., I think technically you're right about picking up a Chinese but it would be much more natural to say "Pick up Chinese - Cantonese or Mandarin". So perhaps not absolutely wrong from a grammatical point of view, but also not a natural or normal way to express the thought. Anyway, I'll let them keep the sign. :)
Posted by melanie gao on October 23, 2008 at 08:12 AM CST #