Re: The pitfall of Chinese/Mandarin

In a message dated 11.12.2001 02:28:47 PM, dreamertwo@HOTMAIL.COM writes:

>Aiya!  I get so confused trying to remember ayi's and gugu's and waigu's
>and shenshen's and buomu's and yimu's and then all the numbering with dagu
>and ergu and sangu.  AIYA!!  It's enough to drive a sane person crazy!
Chinese
>family trees are terrifying!
>
    I possess an "abridged" copy of the Zhang/Chang Family scrolls. They
trace my Family back about 2,000 years back. Even tho' it's an abridged
version, it runs to about 100 pages of very detailed family lines. I tried to
get someone to translated this nightmare & the person - from Mainland China -
literally had a full-blown panic attack when he took one look at this mess.
(And it is a mess... cramped lil poorly photocopied pen-&-ink Chinese
characters - traditional ones, not the simplified  - all written tighter than
calligraphy on a rice grain. Afterall, this abridgement had to be smuggled
out of the Mainland...) I approached another person - from Taiwan, naturally
- who said quite frighteningly, "This is may cost you a lot." My turn at a
panic attack...

>Adam who must have been hanging around chaosmaster czHANgie too long
    AiYaH!! ::slaps arms a-top head::  now ya blame it on me, la? ;)
    Now try figuring out how to say "chaosmaster" in Mandarin, Adam :P
    (Thanx for the off-handed high praise BTW)

*gigglagoogolbyte*/*spassogoogolocteto*

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