批下来

[Pedroski]

召开业主大会

 

业主王：我想再补充一点，健身设备应该老少皆宜，不禁要有年轻人喜欢的，也要有适合中老年人的。

女的：周经理，业主的提议批下来了吗？

周经理：批下来了，费用也已经到账。我们会尽力满足各位业主的要求。

 

Here '批下来' = 'act on (this matter)' or 'pass on (to superiors)'？？

 

 

[MPhillips]

This sounds like a franchise operation or perhaps a multiple-level marketing scam, so 王业主 isn't such a big-shot, he's probably just one of a whole group of franchisees, thus he needed the approval of 周经理 for his proposal to be acted upon. I think I'd say "it's been approved" for 批下来了。

[MPhillips]

What gave me the feeling this might be a pyramid scam they're talking about is the fact they're selling 健身设备 。

[fanglu]

批 is short for 批准.

[skylee]

Some additional information. In HK, a multistory residential building/estate is usually owned by different home owners. For effective management of such a building, owners usually form an owners corporation, and the meetings of such a corporation are called 業主大會. Such a building usually appoints a management company to look after the day to day management of the building, therefore there is a manager 經理 who runs the building. The management company is paid by the management fees collected from the owners. The use of the money is decided by the owners but the money is perhaps managed by the company under specific rules so as to prevent corruption.

I don't understand why the conversation appears to be a scam.

[MPhillips]

I'm not sure about China but in the US there are a lot of companies selling fitness equipment, weight loss formulas, nutritional supplements, and other health-related products which are dishonest--one of my relatives was involved with a notorious one. I assumed 业主 meant the owner of a franchise (i e. a McDonald's), so I thought a franchisee was proposing a new product line to company management. Thank you, now I realize it's a condominium owner asking for a broader range of fitness equipment in the building he lives in.

[MPhillips]

I'm truly sorry I misconstrued your paragraph Pedroski同志， but wouldn't you rather work on the fine points of Chinese grammar by reading enjoyable novels instead?

[陳德聰]

Agree with #4.

[Pedroski]

Thanks for the comments. This was just an excerpt from my 听力课文。If I could read a Chinese novel, I would! At the moment, I struggle with short texts.

 

I put the title of the text: 召开业主大会 = convene owners general meeting The purpose is just as skylee said. Owners discuss maintenance problems with the maintenance company.

 

周经理，业主的提议批下来了吗？ = Director Zhou, have you already approved(批准了） the owners proposals? 这样的吗？

[MPhillips]

Of course it stands to reason that you were obliged to read the above paragraph for a class, I just wasn't thinking straight yesterday. Where I'm living now has just about the same climate as central Africa (Kinshasa, DR of Congo, avg. annual temp. 77°F; my locale 76°F--sorry too lazy to do the conversion)--my previous employer who is from the Congo corroborates this fact. Not everybody of European descent has what it takes to be a Henry Stanley or a Dr. Livingstone.

[陳德聰]

I'm not super clear on the way the meetings are carried out, but to me it seems it could be "have the owners' proposals been approved?" or "have you approved the owners' proposals?" and in my first reading I assumed the former rather than the latter.

[imron]

I think the former too.