jesus317

Chinese Mandarin :Chinese Mandarin Level
Registered on : 2010-06-18
Language : None
Posts : 2
Responses : 0
Comments : 0

From :   jesus317

Date : 2010-07-25 / 07:10AM

im confused with the word shi being put into a sentence the lesson says shi wo shi benny. i thought shi means (yes) why is there two shi’s in the sentence

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yongsatria

Chinese Mandarin :Chinese Mandarin Level
Registered on : 2010-07-16
Language : English, Indonesian
Posts : 3
Responses : 4
Comments : 0
 yongsatria yahoo.com 
2010-07-25 / 10:32PM

yup its have a same meaning…but the pronountiations and how u put it in the sentences whats makes its difference…hehehe at 1st im confiused also but in meantime u will get it..anyway i think benny have the solution.

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lulanke

Chinese Mandarin :Chinese Mandarin Level
Registered on : 2007-11-08
Language : English
Posts : 111
Responses : 156
Comments : 12
 Roland Parijs yahoo.com 
2010-07-29 / 02:26PM
To : yongsatria

Hello Jezus,

In Chinese yes and no is usually translated litteraly as “is”, “not is”.
是 不是 shì bú shì, in effect you just repeat or afirm what has been told to you
like: 你是本霓 --是(我是本霓 ) 不是(我是陆蓝克)nǐ shì běn ní -- shì( wǒ shì běn ní ) bú shì( wǒ shì lù lán kè). There is no direct translation of yes.
This reminds me of a Chinese joke I once saw. Someone came back from a long stay in Amerika. “How is our unkle, is he doing fine?” someone asked he said “yes” meaning to say their unkel is doing fine. “My god” one of the others said, “he died too?”. This is because yes in Chinese sounds like 也死 yě sǐ meaning died too.

万事如意

陆蓝克

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sara517

Chinese Mandarin :Chinese Mandarin Level
Registered on : 2010-08-10
Language : None
Posts : 0
Responses : 12
Comments : 0
 sara fan qq.com 
2010-08-17 / 05:24PM

shi,wo shi Benny. The first one means yep, it is used to give an affimative answer. However, the second one is used as a verb “am”. In Chinese, one word can also have several functions

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