比茶壶还热 -- hotter than a teapot!

昨天晚上上中文课，一段话里，妈妈说：比茶壶还热！所以我们的老师教我们：茶壶里煮饺子倒不出。意思是：知道很多东西但是不会表达的人。 昨天晚上学生只是我和马克。一老师说了这个，我们就说：数学家！

In one of the dialogues we studied in class last night, the mother used the expression 比茶壶还热 (bǐ chá hú hái rè) -- hotter than a teapot! So our teacher taught us another phrase:

茶壶里煮饺子倒不出
chá hú lǐ zhǔ jiǎo zi dào bù chū

Literal translation of words:
茶壶 -- teapot
里 -- inside
煮 -- cook, boil
饺子 -- dumplings
倒 -- pour
不 -- not
出 -- go out

So the phrase literally means "dumplings cooking in the teapot, they don't pour out". The phrase is used to describe someone who has a lot of knowledge inside, but can't express it well. Last night a lot of people weren't there; it was just me and 马克 (mǎ kè) -- Mark, a computer science professor. When we heard this, we immediately exclaimed, "数学家！" (shù xué jiā!) -- "Mathematicians!"

加油！

在中文课，我们刚结束了第二本书。 一结束那本书了，就开始了第三本书。上课，我们学了"加油"。那课，我们的老师对我们告诉星期四晚上在国王学校我们可以看中国电影"大红灯笼高高挂"。所以昨天晚上我看了这个电影。以前我没看过这个电影。这个电影又好又很漂亮，可是房间太冷了。

前天我对我的围棋老师说：我正在写汉字呢。她说：我帮你学汉语。今天她给我发邮件。她写：这么好的天气, 不出去走走吗? 她住在 Amsterdam。 我写：在伦敦今天天气一点儿冷。我应该写：在伦敦今天天气有点儿冷。

In Chinese class, we just finished the second book. As soon as we finished that book, we started the third book. (With this transition we move from "beginner" to "lower intermediate" -- learning Chinese is a slow process.) Last class, we learned "加油". (This is pronounced jiā yóu. It's a Chinese chant to cheer on your team, so where we might yell "Go! Go!" or "Come on!" they would yell "加油！加油！" The first character 加 means "add" and the second character 油 means "oil" so the phrase, translated literally, means "add oil"; perhaps a better translation is "Give it the gas!") That class, our teacher told us that on Thursday at King's College, we could watch the Chinese film "Raise the Red Lantern". So last night I watched this film. I had never seen this film before. This film was good, and beautiful, but the room was too cold.

The day before yesterday, I told my Weiqi teacher, "I'm writing Chinese characters right now." She said she would help me learn Chinese. Today she sent me an email. She wrote, "The weather is so nice, are you not going out?" She lives in Amsterdam. I wrote, "In London, the weather today is a bit cold." I should have written, "In London, the weather today is somewhat cold." (She corrected me.)

New Audio Lessons Site!

Guo Juan has just launched the new and improved version of her website!

Mind Without Fear

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;

Where knowledge is free;

Where the world has not been broken up
into fragments by narrow domestic walls;

Where words come out from the depth of truth;

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;

Where the clear stream of reason
has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;

Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action---

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

-- Rabindranath Tagore