沪江博客 - CaptainDaniel's blog

2010年2月9日

Love and Luck

Love is like floating of colourful clouds, no one knows when it stays overhead and whether it brings some raindrops to ease the thirst of a soul;

Luck is like passing of invisible winds, no one knows when it comes along and whether it brings clouds or takes them away.

Love needs luck to come and stay;

Luck needs love to rain and shade.

When love’s cloud finally meets luck’s wind, cloud floats lovably with wind, and wind blows luckily with cloud. Perhaps the song “Do you know it or not?” swells as cloud drifts wind.

When he and she living in the different city, have the luck to meet, either online or in reality, they may fall in love with each other, and love may have the luck to grow like the flower in the garden of heart;

When she and he living in the same city or even working in the same office, have the luck to meet each other every day, they may not fall in love with each other, and love has no luck to grow or luck has no love to plant in the dry soil of heart’s garden.

So real love comes into being when he has the luck to meet her and love to keep her, and she must have the luck to love him, too, a simultaneous occurrence for any “Jetlag” would miss luck or love.

A tragedy may be when love is still there, but luck has gone or luck is still there, but love has gone.

So many couples have loved each other and lived under the same roof, but later either love or luck may have run into trouble with love like a wrecked ship stranded in the shallow water or with luck like a hurt bird fleeing out of the once cozy nest.

So please cherish your love and luck for either may come only once in a lifetime.

(February 9, 2010)

posted @ 2010-02-09 08:32 CaptainDan 阅读(19) | 评论 (0) | 编辑收藏

2010年2月6日

Combination of Resources

“We can combine and make full use of our resources in every aspect to approach the goal, perhaps one goal at the beginning, and more as we gradually tap the potential of a new network or framework.” I said as I rose to bid goodbye to an old friend, a billionaire who used to be the secretary of the governor we accompanied to attend a national meeting in Beijing many years ago.

Yesterday morning in his office we discussed the possibility of co-operation with an English-speaking country whose counselor of embassy to China could be of a great help since they had been friends for years.

Co-run a college or department of a college, or even a school; cultural exchange; foreign trade, other forms of co-operations---the list of possibilities seemed long, but it would difficult to choose something to start with.

“You’d better strive forward with a cause, not simply a job,” he said, “a cause that is worth your thirty or forty years’ pursuit and devotion. After the Spring Festival we’d have a detailed discussion.” he proposed.

Well, though he is not millionaire, but a billionaire, whose perspective is wider, and ambition is greater, yet I can’t give up what I’ve been doing for what is expected since “A bird in hand is better than two in bush”.

Teaching, at present, is a comparatively good choice as I enjoy it with a steady accumulation of experience.

Last week, I also had a brief talk about a possible co-operation with a high school teacher who served as a judge to the English-speaking contest last summer, and whose English was very impressive as we handled the contestants one by one, a pleasant, harmonious co-operation there and then.

It is a common sense that one can never be content with something he is familiar and doing, what’s more, a new direction, a breakthrough must be searched or made or he will end up with stagnation and failure.

As one’s own resource is always limited, a smart, novel, creative combination of bilateral or multilateral resources may lead to a great, surprising achievement, just like various combinations or mixtures of flowers may produce a number of innovative brand new perfumes.

What is valuable may lie in what is combined and mixed with imagination and creation.

Now sitting before the computer, I felt as if a frog squatting at the bottom of a well, watching the sky as big as the opening of the well when a flock of swans happened to fly across.

(February 6, 2010)

posted @ 2010-02-06 10:39 CaptainDan 阅读(27) | 评论 (2) | 编辑收藏

2010年2月5日

No More Lovers

No More Lovers

“Oh, my most beloved lover in my whole life

I wake up to still remember your same appearance in dream”

Such a familiar and touching song echoed in the room while I was doing a spring-cleaning with the Spring Festival around the corner.

When and where did I first hear the song?

It was when I was taking a ride in the car driven by the wife of a close friend with an international friend sitting beside me on the back seat after a party, the car crossing the intersection.

What’s the title of the song? I asked, attracted by its emotional lyrics and beautiful melody.

No one knew it, my friend, his wife and I. Nor did that foreign friend.

Later I heard the song the second time when I was enjoying myself in a dancing hall, to its quick, pleasant tempo, and its lyrics seemed to touch every string of my heart.

Once I came back home, I searched the song with whatever lyrics I remembered and found the song was “To be your lover” by Xie Jun.

By the end of the last year, to my surprise, my friend got divorced with his wife. No more love, no more luck, and the moment I heard that song first time became a vague history and sad memory though the melody seemed to still echo in that car across the intersection in that winter evening.

(February 5, 2010)

posted @ 2010-02-05 07:36 CaptainDan 阅读(28) | 评论 (0) | 编辑收藏

2010年2月1日

For the Children and Better English

The verb “Fly” becomes “Flied” instead of its right past tense “Flew” as in the sentence “Jim flied to Japan to spend his holiday”, and “Flied” also appears in a multiple choice test.

In another exam paper, “Toothbrush” takes its plural form as “Teethbrush” instead of “Toothbrushes”.

Can you find anything with this sentence? “Everyone else in the class was invited to the party except me.”

Well, in my opinion, it can be corrected in two ways:

1) Everyone in the class was invited to the party except me; (Only I wasn’t invited.)

2) Everyone (else) in the class was invited to the party besides me. (We were all invited.)

It’s taken me four days to carefully go through a teacher’s book for the middle students and lots of mistakes---both grammatical and technical, have been found after someone checked it. With a sense of responsibility for the children and an aim for better English, I have done each exercises and confirmed the answers, as slowly as a snail.

Undergoing such a systematic teaching material and repeated tests, an idea hit up me: why not make a summary of English learning in a systematic way? For example:

1) Words:

A) Nouns: pay attention to some special nouns, their plural forms such as “toothbrushes”, “women cadres”, “photos”;

B) Verbs: irregular changes of some verbs in different tenses; verbs such as “mind”, “quit”, “stop”, “forget” and “remember”; some other verbs like “suggest”, “demand”, “insist” that have a clause with subjunctive mood; verbs that take different objects: a noun, an infinite form, a gerund or a clause (that, whether, how, where, when, why, etc);

C) Prepositions: there are some special usages such as “from behind (beneath)”; the different objects after prepositions;

D) Adverbials: hardly, barely, merely, scarcely; similarly, likewise, fortunately, etc.

E) Conjunctions: if, since, while, when, as soon as, although, even if---these words not only put the simple sentences together, but also reveal some logical links: causes and effects, means and ends;

2) Phrases:

A) Phrasal verbs: there are so many phrasal verbs to learn: call on (at, off), turn on (off, to, down, out, up), give up (in, out)

B) Adjective phrases: black and blue, young and old, rich and poor;

C) Prepositional phrases: by no means, out of date, at any rate, in (on) time, in a sense (way);

D) Conjunctional phrases: either…or….; neither…nor….; both…and…; as soon (much, quickly) as (possible)….; more than…..; not…until…;

3) Sentences:

English learning calls for a gradual and systematic collection of sentence patterns and “There is nothing more helpful than storing a number of beautiful sentence patterns” and “We can do nothing but work hard” towards our goal: for the children and better English

(February 1, 2010)

posted @ 2010-02-01 08:27 CaptainDan 阅读(20) | 评论 (0) | 编辑收藏

2010年1月28日

No More Boys

No More Boys

Though title is a bit frightening and ridiculous, yet it’s from an article I read online last week and a conclusion a discussion online a few days ago came to. It’s more a worry or warming than a fuss.

Look at those movie actors, star singers and TV hosts, most of whom appear femininely handsome, sound girlishly pleasant, and set a Nancy boy’s example.

Masculine appearances are disappearing, and virile manner is dying for the audience of both genders seems to prefer “handsome, gentle, polite, clean, easy-going boys” even without perfume and make-up.

Tom girl-typed singers like Li Yunchun or same typed girlfriends leave little for room for real boys or real men.

You must be obedient enough to get along with your girlfriend as she plays a naught boy’s role to leave you an elder sister’s role to play, a reverse pattern both on screen and in real life.

Is a henpecked boyfriend or husband the ideal choice?

Some experts have long pointed out that Confucianism has almost taken male hormone away from the traditional culture, and current, popular practice has, undoubtedly dealt a heavy blow.

Let’s mourn for real boys who have been vanishing.

(January 28, 2010)

posted @ 2010-01-28 08:23 CaptainDan 阅读(37) | 评论 (0) | 编辑收藏

2010年1月25日

Reading the Translation: a Headache

A famous artist’s biography written by a young lady is like an epic, a poetic prose, fluent in language, novel in style, but its English translation looks more a headache with its literal translation, dull sentence patterns and diction that fails to convey the grace of the book.

The prologue is so poor a beginning that the hero’s chronology-like activities look more like an account book boringly read by an accountant : “At 10, he…; at 15, at 20…etc.” without any change of the sentence order. ]

Tense is another problem as the translator often makes such simple mistakes as the past tense and present tense both appear in an adverbial clause or in the story-telling, tenses are often misused in such a way that you may doubt that the translator must have done it after a boozy party.

Something interesting about the translator is that he seems to have a special taste for non-restricted attributive clause with “Which” repeatedly taking the wrong tense, too.

One of my classmates working in a publishing house asks me to check the spelling mistakes in the material, yet I feel sorry for the artist as well as the writer, a 25-year-old young lady who is thought to be a “young man” by the translator at the beginning and a “young girl” at the end, an obvious error I have to correct.

Generally speaking, by checking the book, I have come to such a conclusion: the translator is too bold as he has the courage to take up such a job without real qualification.

(January 25, 2010)

posted @ 2010-01-25 08:01 CaptainDan 阅读(19) | 评论 (0) | 编辑收藏

2010年1月24日

Well-phrased Language is Power

“Knowledge is power” is oft-quoted sentence, power also comes out of language, well-phrased, smartly-selected language that may carry a power stronger than expected, constructive or destructive, pleasing or distressing.

A great leader was fond of and good at discovering such well-phrased language, repeating his invention to guide his comrades.

“Success depends on two ‘Jie”---Unity (tuan jie) and Summary (zong jie)”, a well-chosen phrase that contains wisdom and knowledge.

“If you don’t have a smiling face, you’d better not run any service business”, two “Face” here I paraphrase an English proverb out of.

The wedding ceremony I attended yesterday was a happy one, but some of our classmates were not included on the list at the very beginning for the hall the host prearranged was not big enough to hold so many guests---I learned this from a classmate who got to know it by a slip of tongue, but the host did inform me and some others, and now we faced two choices: a decision on gossip or on host’s information. Let’s forget the gossip and treat the friends with sincerity, to speak nothing of a possible embarrassment.

Later, I came up with a list of words: encounter, entertain, enlighten, enliven, enjoy, engage, endure, endorse, endear, encourage, enchant, enable.

To live a happy life, you have to encounter, entertain, enlighten, enliven, engage, endorse, endear, encourage and enchant someone, and enjoy, endure, enjoy something, which enable you to succeed.

Happiness or pleasure is what one always seeks after, and however kind or intelligent you are, all of your effort will be in vain if you can’t bring happiness or pleasure to the people around you, either as a son/daughter, a husband/wife, a father/mother or as a friend/colleague, a teacher/student, a lover/stranger.

No doubt, language is power when it is heart-sweetening, soul-consoling, thought-provoking and body-relaxing.

(January 24, 2010)

posted @ 2010-01-24 09:08 CaptainDan 阅读(12) | 评论 (0) | 编辑收藏

2010年1月18日

From an Artist's Introduction

From an Artist’s Introduction

“XXX, Born in x country of x province. In March 1964,began learning to paint from his uncle since childhood.”---This is the beginning of an English translation of an artist’s introduction, in which there is no link verb in the first sentence with a misused capital letter in “Born”, and no subject in the second with two time-adverbial phrases contradicting each other.

What would be on those foreigners’ mind when they got his “Resume” in his painting album booklet as he visited several countries and “His painting works participated in exhibitions both at home and abroad and won gole and silver prizes many times”?

The poor translation and printing errors remind me of the exposure online of some sign translations that literally take the word “Male” for “Public” and an interview when a university graduate simply refers “the hot autumn days” to “the autumn tiger”.

When the laughter fades away, our gaze turns from translation jokes and the students to the teachers as well as the ways English has been taught. Is anything wrong with the teachers and how they teach?

Don’t blame me for that, look at how the foreign teachers teach! Some Chinese teachers may protest.

Yes, there are so many foreign teachers---some are native-speakers, but not necessarily professional teachers or unwanted teachers who have been almost jobless at home; others are even from non-English-speaking countries who teach Chinese students English---just like “a Chinese teacher teaches Japanese in Korea”.

Don’t teach or learn grammar, just imitate the native speakers! Some so-called “reformers” advocate.

I wonder if a certain reformer’s student did the artist’s translation and some foreign teacher’s student happened to meet “the Autumn Tiger.”

(January 18, 2010)

posted @ 2010-01-18 08:31 CaptainDan 阅读(26) | 评论 (0) | 编辑收藏

2010年1月16日

The Soul of Wit

As an abstract summarizes a huge book, and a skeleton outlines an article, the smartest way to understand and remember something is to seize its core or root or framework with a few words, a number of figures, and even a couple of letters.

“Brevity is the soul of wit,” I thought on my way to meet an artist.

The front-page article in the latest “Readers” lists four different approaches to those who feel embarrassed, upset, helpless frustrated, and to one is supposed to say something suitable help them. “Heuf”, I coined a word myself to remember the four situations.

The mountains in the west looked distant, the goal of success seemed distant as well.

Many English learners often feel at a loss as to what to speak, how to speak, especially those students who have even passed various exams and armed with lots of licenses.

When you speak, you must know what can be the subject---pronouns, nouns, phrases, non-finite verbs and clauses. However, many like to begin a sentence with pronouns such as “I think, you like, he wants, etc” without the second thought of making a change.

“The hunt for the puma began in a small village where a woman picking up blackberry saw ‘a large cat’ only five yards away from her.”---the sentence is taken from the New Concept English, with “Hunt” as the subject instead of “They, the people”, changing the ordinary form of taking “People” for subject.

Now it is quite clear that we make a simple sentence normally with “Subject+predicate+object” form. To make it complicated, we add something to each of them; to make them complicated, we use clauses to follow each of them or some conjunctions (especially in compound sentences like “and, but, for” or adverbial clauses like “when, as, as soon as”) to put two or more sentences together.

If brevity is the soul of wit, beauty.must be lying in variety of sentences

(January 16, 2010)

posted @ 2010-01-16 07:56 CaptainDan 阅读(28) | 评论 (0) | 编辑收藏

2010年1月13日

Not For Forever

“Wish not for forever, but for once having loved each other.”

This seems to be a popular saying, a motto or guideline for many practical lovers, happiness-seeker, dream-explore since, as they as it, life is so short, love so uncertain and world so changeable.

No one can be so patient as to wait from black-haired to white-hair for a flower in the mirror, a moon in the water, something not even as predicable as the meeting once a year across the Milky Way---something though patience-wearing, yet sure and predestined.

Idealism, nowadays gives in to realism and romanticism, opportunism and, even hedonism.

When sincerity is often in doubt, honesty deemed to be folly while profiteering is regarded as wit, fraud as success, the last straw will, suddenly and undoubtedly, fall upon the hack of the poor, honest-working camel, a miserable creature that has been carrying a heavy load for too long, restraining itself too hard.

Those “Foundation-layers”---the oil workers who had slept in the wild, devoted their whole life to the great cause and enjoyed the pleasure out of faith, passion and heroism---makes a great hit on TV screen, but to the people nowadays, it is the history that seems unable to repeat itself.

“Money makes mare go” finds it more applicable to a world where everything seems to be capitalized and the relationship materialized, and meanwhile faith, wanders and roves, like a homeless, God-forsaken child.

However, I still wish for forever for it serves as a sail for my boat, a destination for my voyage, the sun that lights up my road forward.

(January 13, 2010)

posted @ 2010-01-13 08:25 CaptainDan 阅读(34) | 评论 (0) | 编辑收藏

仅列出标题下一页

最新随笔

留言簿

随笔分类

随笔档案

文章档案

最新评论

阅读排行榜

评论排行榜