Postcard Translation

[SHKL]

Hey there,

i would like to know if any of you are willing to translate this postcard i got.

If i am at the wrong forum please point me in the right direction

Help is welcome

 

Many thanks :-)

[889]

Dear XXX,

How've you been recently? I hope you and your family are fine.

Do you like studying Chinese?

I've just returned to Germany.

Living in Beijing was a lot of fun, but the air is not very good, so I'm very happy to have returned to Berlin.

[What are the hiragana doing in there?]

[skylee]

Those are emoticons, not hiragana, I think.

[SHKL]

Thank you all very much!

 

where are the emoticons you are talking about?

 

The weird thing is, that I've never studied Chinese, and I can't understand who could have sent it.

[Lu]

Is it addressed to you? Pity there's no name on it from the sender, unless it's 'Soral'?

[889]

We're talking about べ and び.

In any event, I don't believe your postcard was written by a native Chinese speaker. It's possible she means to ask, "Do you like studying Chinese?" in the sense of "Would you like to study Chinese?"

[skylee]

It is not べ. It is two dots above a downward bracket, a sad face. And it is not び, but two dots above an upward bracket, a smiling face.

[889]

I might have thought that as well, except she's so carefully written those "serifs" in び. That said, in context I do think she's using these characters as smileys/frownies.

[Lu]

The handwriting looks pretty native to me, but on the other hand the English at the bottom doesn't look like most Chinese people's English writing.

 

I agree with Skylee that the 'hiragana' are smileys.

[Kamille]

Those are definitely smileys. And if they aren't, it would mean that they are awfully badly written hiraganas in the midst of a full-Chinese text. Logic, asparagus.