宇與烏龜對門，不與學生隔鄰‧

[yonglan]

My boss (of 山珠 fame, http://www.chinese-forums.com/viewtopic.php?t=3878 ) has given me a saying to describe my current (detestable) living situation -- which he will hopefully soon be fixing.

宇與烏龜對門，不與學生隔鄰‧

Or under them in my case

Anyway, I mentioned this to a friend from Taiwan, someone who's language advice I generally trust, and he figures it should be 寧與烏龜對門，不與學生隔鄰‧

Anyone?

[Jose]

I can't make much sense of an initial 宇 in the first sentence, so I would say your Taiwanese friend is right. 寧 ("would rather") makes more sense, but I'm no expert.

Actually, the two versions you give look extremely similar in simplified characters ( 宇 vs. 宁 ) , so the first one may be a typo. Did your boss really pronounce it yu3 rather than níng?

[yonglan]

Yeah, he pronounced it yu3. He's been wrong before. My friend in Taiwan is always right. So, I've already changed it in my signature. I had a language exchange partner in Taiwan who was always writing stuff just a little bit wrong. I wonder if it's dyslexia?