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- "Where is the transfer counte…
"Where is the transfer counter?"
Translation:转机柜台在哪里？
25 Comments
Usually, but not always. They end everything in 儿, it seems, but there are cases of 儿 being used by in a non-Beijing accent context too, 哪儿 being an example.
A transfer counter is for transfer passengers. http://www.ataturkairport.com/en-EN/preflight/Pages/Transfer.aspx
240
Link doesn't work. What does one do at a transfer counter? When I have a connecting flight I don't have to go to a special counter.
I think they're using some dialect of English other than American English. Where they say "transfer," I would say "connection" (as in: "The flight to Hong Kong is delayed, I hope I make my connection to Beijing.")
- 228
But I have never heard of a connection counter. A transfer counter (or desk) is where you get your boarding card for the next flight printed, whether it is an official connection or not. If you got all the necessary paperwork before you boarded your first plane, you would not be looking for a transfer desk.
This sentence in Chinese does not say anything about an airport. Could this be a train station? I think it should just say, "where is the transfer counter?"
For train stations or any such stations I'd say 转站, literally "change stops" so change stations.
转机 is a specific phrase for transit flights e.g. Singapore - Amsterdam - Dublin.
Actually, both of these are equivalent. The only difference is that speakers use one of them more frequently than another. People in mainland China often say 哪兒, whereas people in Taiwan say 哪裡.
- 1666
I read somewhere that 哪里 is generally more formal than 哪儿. In this case, should I use only 哪里 when writing something formal, or does it not matter?
哪里 is slightly more formal than 哪儿, so between these two, I'd prefer 哪里 in formal writing. For example, if I were to write "He asks me where I am from," I'd definitely go for
他问我是哪里人
instead of
他问我是哪儿人 or 他问我是哪儿的人
It has been my experience that the "li" is more often used with the "there" form of "na", and the "er" is used more often with the "where" form of "na". That's not a rule, just something I noticed in the spoken language.
轉賬 also means transfer, but it means a financial transfer.
轉 (转) means: 1 - turn; shift; change. 2 - pass on; transfer. (We're using the second meaning here.)
機 (机) has many meanings, but the meaning we're using here is an abbreviation of "aircraft"
賬 (账) means "account"
So, you can see that, because this question is in the "Travel" lesson, it makes sense that we're talking about transferring planes at an airport instead of making a bank transfer. Obviously, if you heard this sentence in English, you would interpret it differently if you were standing in a bank than you would if you were in an airport.
To make the question a bit trickier, we could include in the menu of characters the character for 'ma' (for yes/no question) (as an extra character that should not be used, that is). While doing this problem, i was tempted to added the 'ma' character; probably because English, like some other languages, treats what/where/when etc. questions similarly to yes/no questions.
