“恩，一部有情节的三级片。”

我明白她说的三级片是什么意思，既然标题是以“色”字开头的，也没有什么奇怪的，只是新加坡这边还没开映，她这么说不是吊我胃口吗？

在网上扫了一些有关《色。戒》的资料，其中有一篇很有趣。

美媒体赞梁朝伟是最伟大演员 赞其英语完美无暇

搜了一下，原文应该是这一篇ComingSoon.net的采访，

Exclusive: Chinese Superstar Tony Leung

关于伟仔的英文水平，原文是这么说的，

“…he spoke perfect English, which isn’t always the case with Chinese filmmakers and actors we interview.”

知道伟仔演戏好，没想到他的英文能得到这么高的评价。很想知道鬼佬所说的Perfect English是怎么回事，就又到网搜了搜，找到了伟仔在2001年为电影《2046》接受的英语采访：

 在这次采访里，主持人对他英文口语的评价是”Fantasty!”–极好！

真想不到伟仔的英文口语这么好，比我们中国常驻联合国代表的英文口语都要溜。

据说，伟仔小时家境贫寒，没有留过洋。在新加坡那么多年，我知道要一个土生土长的中国人练到那样的口语水平有多困难。那么这样的真正的双语本事是怎么炼成的呢？

伟仔说他是在幼儿园学的。

也许是开玩笑，但并非没有道理。人在小时候能接触到不同的语言对以后掌握多种语言很有帮助，新加坡，瑞士，这些国家的人很小就接触多种语言，这些国家的人通常都能说多种语言。

看来我要抓紧时间努力教康康英语了。

Mixxer is a free matching system for language learners and teachers. It focuses on the skype users. It currently has near 3000 registered users.

The Mixxer’s UI is simple and intuitive, but it needs a rating system to help learners choose teachers. It is necessary to have a feedback and evaluation system too.

As some learners wrote in their profiles, they are willing to pay for a teaching service, but the Mixxer completely leaves the entire payment process to the users. It does not incorporate any on-line payment system to help the users in the money issue.

Mixxer is most probably setup for non-profit purpose. It is understandable that Mixxer does not have such commercial feature (nor does it have any annoying ads.)

However, should Mixxer be commercialized, how to cash in on the educational matching service would still be its biggest issue. Until now, we have not seen one successful business model for consumer e-learning in the market.

Internet is good for short-term tansaction; learning is a long-term process. These two things have a conflict in their natures.

The one who comes up with the first solution will rule the consumer e-learning market.

教育技术资讯介绍了Mixxer——寻找用Skype交流的外语学习伙伴。

Mixxer是一个免费的教育网站，为语言学习者和教师寻找语言交流的伙伴。“语言伙伴”被定义为：某人的母语是你要学习的外语，对方同时也在学习你的母语。寻找这样的伙伴交流就是本站要为语言学习者提供的服务。这样建立伙伴关系的双方可以通过在线互相帮助对方学习外语。除了个人伙伴外，网站也为教师提供发现班级伙伴的服务，这样不同语言的两个班级就可以互相帮助对方同学学习外语了。

的确，Mixxer提供了一个不错的学习语言的配对平台。

播客宝典在Mixxer—-用Skype和老外学外语还提出了一个有意思的构想：

如果能解决付费问题（Google checkout?），Skype还可以是个很好的网上私塾平台。

付费问题是困扰远程教育商业化的一大问题。我们已经有了比较成熟的付费工具，但缺乏可行的远程教育商业化模式。

就拿Mixxer来说吧。如果Mixxer商业化了，怎么赚钱呢？

最有可能的是把用户具体联络资料隐藏起来，要给钱才能看。但好的老师一旦有了点名气后就会离开，不再需要Mixxer了，因为一个人能教多少时间多少人基本上都是很有限的（在Private Tutoring的范畴），大量的广告或配对并没有好处。长期下去，留在Mixxer上的老师不会是高素质的，那么一旦收费Mixxer就很难有长期收益。

和better day讨论了很久了，但是大家都没有什么头绪。

Nuvvo是一个另一个很好的尝试。它允许教师上传课件，并帮助教师收费。但到目前为止还似乎不大成功。

Mar always smiles. But once in a while during the class, she gave us problems.

“Please tell me how to say 6875908 in Malay.” She put a random number on the white board, and smiled.
We were all stunned, for 5 seconds, staring at the number, and broke into big noise simultaneity.

“Brrrr, brrrr. kkzzzz, ssssaaa, rrriii,…” counting the figure, searching on the cross table, reading loud in Malay/English/Chinese. Noisy indeed, we were really concentrated on this big challenge.

After 1 hour (I felt), we started giving the result, “Enum Juta Lapan Tujuh…”

I was very happy when I got my answer correct.

A primary 1 student got an big arithmetic problem solved.

But life became more difficult as we came to time expression yesterday.

We learnt how to say a time in Malay yesterday. That’s not that difficult actually, except we have to know how to express “pm” and “am” in Malay.

But Mar gave no simple problem. She asked us to do the whole time and date together in Malay!

“1.56pm Wednesday, 10th May, 2006″

We fainted this time. That included number, time, day, month, year… all we learnt in previous classes!
I substantially, concretely felt I needed some lubricating oil for my brain. I could feel it was rusted at that moment.

Anyway, here are the class notes for yesterday. Going to Indonesia tomorrow, hope I can use something I learnt from the class.
Duduk – sit
Tutup – close

Hari ini hari Rabu
Today is Wednesday.

Bulan ini bulan Mei
This month is May.

Marhani

Tahun Year

Year 1963
Tahun Sembilan belas enam puluh tiga

2006
Tahun Dua ribu enam

Today is Thursday, 26th July 2046
Hari ini Hari Khamis, Dua Puluh enam, Julai Tahun Dua ribu Empant puluh Enam

Today is Saturday, 15 October 1802
Hari ini Sabtu Lima belas Oktober Tahun Seribu Lapan ratus dua

Pukul – beat, hit

Pukul satu – 1 o’clock

Jam – Hours/clock

24 Jam – 24 Hours

Suku – quarter(15 mins)

2.15pm – Pukul dua suku tenghari (petang)

Setengah – Half (30 mins)

1.45pm – pukul satu empat puluh lima tengahari

4.05pm – pukul empat lima minit petang

Minutes below(include) ten, we use minit

Hadapan – ahead

Lepas – over

Musim – Season

Hujan – Rain

Sejuk – cold

Gugur – something which is attached and fall, such fruits.

Bunga – flower

Panas – hot

Hari cudi – Holiday

As for now, I continue post my class notes here.

We learnt days of the week yesterday. Here is the cross table:

Don’t be surprised that you find a people named Selasa in Malasia. Most possibly, she was born on Tuesday.

We learnt the months also. They are very similar to those in English. But some of them, such as April and Januari, have different pronunciations in Malay.

Other things we learnt:

Sudah makan?
Have you eaten?

5112
Lima ribu satu ratus sebelas

312968
Tiga ratus dua belas ribu semilan ratus enum puluh lapan

9432801
Semilan juta  empt ratus tiga puluh dua ribu lapant ratus satu
 
Kuah lebih
More soup

Umur
Age

Datuk
Grandfather

Tepat
Exactly

Tahun
Year

Hari ini
Today

Anak
Child

Dalam
In

Kereta
Car

Ini
This / These

Hari ini
Today

Itu
That /Those

Ibu/ama
Mother

Membeli
Buy

Berat
Heavy

Berat badannya
Weight

Dia
He/She

Memandu
drive

Sejauh
Distance of

Rumah
House

Tingkak
Level/Floor

Terakhir
Last

Bapa
Father

Beri
Give

Hari
Day

Isnin
Monday

Hari ini hari apt?
What is the day today?

Hari ini hari Jumaat
Today is Friday.

Ialah
Is

Semalah
Yesterday

Semalah hari apa?
What is the day yesterday?

Esok
Tomorrow

Esok hari apa?
What is the day of tomorrow?

Nama
Name

Jili is a name; guru means teacher in Malay. Jili-guru means teacher Jili. Just one extra, small thing. Jili-guru is 叽里咕噜 in Chinese. We Chinese use this term to describe a language which is hard to understand. For example, “他在说啥呀？叽里咕噜的.” That is, “What the hell is he talking? I get no clue!” Well, I hope my notes can help people understand Malay better, not to take it as 叽里咕噜 when listening to Malay.

We continued on number yesterday. One step further, we learnt ordinal numbers/postions. The rules for ordinal numbers in Malay is simple. Just add a “Ke” before the number, except the number 1. 1st in Malay is Pertama.
For example, 2 in Malay is “Dua.” So 2nd in Malay is “Kedua.” 8 in Malay is “Lapan.” So 8th in Malay is “Kelapan.”

I will make the matching table when I have time.

Other things I have learnt in this class:

Malay: Lihat muka surat 2
English: Look at page 2 (muka – face; surat-letter; muka surat – page)

tempat pertama – 1st place
tempat kedua -2nd place

Soalan – Question
Jawapan – Answer

Malay: Sila baca ayat ketiga
English: please read sentence number3

Baca – read

Malay: Pilih pasangan
English: Choose a partner

Buah is always sit before fruit in Malay. It is kind of modifier for fruit. If you want to say Fruit in general, that is Buah-buahan

Buah durian – Durian

Buah epal – Apple

Buah tembikai – Watermelon

Buah mangga – Mango

Awak – You

Berapa – How many/much

Harga – price

Ialah – it/they

Gula – sugar

Gula-gula – sweet (Noun)

Manis – sweet (adjective)

Ada – have

Pasang – pair

Pasang – to fix

Tangan – hand

Duit/wang – money

Malay: Berapa biji buah epal awak ada?

English: How many apples do you have?

From Chinadaily.com Original Link
The sign just wants to tell people “Water Hazard!” But they made a word by word translation.

As the Olympics 2008 is approaching, China Daily launched the Clean up Beijing’s Enlish Sign. Its slogan is Use Accurate English to Welcome the Olympics. You can have a look at its official site here. You will find many funny signs in its Chinglish Signs session. Well, they are asking for picture of correct signs too. Just send the pictures to this address herewego@chinadaily.com.cn

I find some use for my cell phone camera now.

另：

”Carefully fall to the river “
鬼佬看到的感觉是你叫他
“请小心谨慎地掉水里。”
（千万不要大大咧咧地，心不在焉地，漫无目的地掉水里！）

咋一听起来有点玄。其实我们平时在网上用QQ，ICQ，MSN聊天的时候都有尝试做类似的事情。我们会用一些特殊的符号如 :p 等等去表答我们的情绪。这种新技术就是想通过记录人的神经信号去“翻译”人的情绪。

我想，如果这种技术能成功应用的话，那么人类日常交流就会有很大的变化。如今，逢场做戏都成了现代中国人必要的生存技能了。见人说人话，见鬼说鬼话，反正就不要说真话。但有了一个“情绪翻译机”情况就会不同。似想想，每个人随身都带着一个象“测谎仪”的东西来翻译别人的内心的想法，也许大家都会变得真诚一些吧。不过那样的话，世界又变得太单调，没那么有趣了。:-)

节目里有个教授还提到翻译的问题。他认为，翻译不仅仅是语言问题。语言和文化是不可分割的。如果要做到真正好的翻译，那么就必须对双方的文化都有很深的了解。换句话说来就是，要学好英语首先要对英语文化有所了解。

我的情况刚好相反。我是想要了解他们文化，所以我才花心思去学英语的。希望是殊道同归吧。

另外这个教授介绍了一种练习同步传译的方法。

1. 录下一段外语节目，比如说CNN的外语新闻。
2. 根据所录的节目录下自己做的同步传译。
3. 同朋友一起复习检查自己做的传译。

随着全球化的深入，同步传译的需求一定会极大的提高。希望这个方法对有志做同步传译的朋友有用吧。
对这期节目有兴趣的朋友可以在以下的链接下载mp3文件。
Download the mp3 file of this program here.