Re: time distinctions

On Sat, Aug 26, 2000 at 01:09:16AM -0700, DOUGLAS KOLLER wrote:
[snip]
> > zai4 in this context very rarely means "again". I'd say something like
> >         Wo3 you4 zai4 tan2 qin2.
> >         "I'll play / I'm playing the piano *yet* again!"
>
> Yup. The "you4" for me implies a sense of boredom, ennui, and general
> not-being-into-it-ness: "God, I'm playing this *again*!"
From the other point of view, "you4" can also convey the sense of "what,
you're playing the piano AGAIN?!?!"
        Ni1 you4 zai4 tan2 qin2 ??

[snip]
> Your point about adding an "yi1bian4" or "yi1ci4" is well taken. Maybe I
> just haven't noticed them always being there. One gets the impression that
> if we were having this conversation in person, these points would converge
> quite quickly. Alas, we're stuck with writing essays :)
True enough... spoken Chinese (Mandarin) has quite a few differences from
written Chinese. I've almost completely forgotten Chinese writing now (not
like it's the easiest thing to remember when I haven't touched it for the
past 12 years!), but from what I can recall, many colloquailisms(sp?) are
considered as bad style and the written form would usually be done in a
more "professional" or "formal" style. But of course, this could just be
totally a phenomenon with my particular flavor of Mandarin...


T