Is "投个好胎" a proper set phrase/idiom? What does it mean? I'm trying to understand it by finding the meaning behind each word but failed miserably.

What I got from MDBG:

投 (tóu): to cast / to send / to throw oneself (into the river etc) / to seek refuge / to place oneself into the hands of

个 (gè): individual / this / that / size / classifier for people or objects in general

好 (hǎo): good / well / proper / good to / easy to / very / so / (suffix indicating completion or readiness) / (of two people) close / on intimate terms / (after a personal pronoun) hello/ to be fond of / to have a tendency to / to be prone to

胎 (tāi): fetus / litter / tire / abbr. of 輪胎｜轮胎

"Casting/investing/putting in a good baby or perhaps tire" just doesn't make any sense...

Does 好胎 here perhaps mean good karma?

投 (v); plunge into

胎 (n); pregnancy

"投胎" (plunge into pregnancy) is a compound word. It means "to reincarnate"

Olden time Chinese believed after people died and became ghosts, some of them were allowed to reincarnate and reborn into the living world

"投个胎" break up the compound word "投胎" and treating 投 as a verb; 胎 as a noun. When 胎 is a noun, we can add classifier '个' (a)  before it to indicate indefinite

Similar phrase: 投幾次胎 (to reincarnate a few times)

different from "投个胎" (to randomly reborn), we can have “投个好胎", which mean "to reborn into a good family"


What does the "hào" mean in "àihào" for "hobby"? Newbie here. It makes sense that "ài" means "love" in the context of hobbies; you're doing what you love. What does "hào" mean here, though? Is it just a strange pronunciation of the standard "hǎo"? Or is it more like "hào" is used to mean "lovely"? Thanks!

好
[粵] hou2 | [國] hao3
(1) [adj] good; fine; nice | [ant] 壞
....

~

好
[粵] hou3 | [國] hao4
[v] like; love; be fond of
[v] be liable to; be likely to
Example:
好(hao4)酒= like to drink
好(hao4)賭= like to gamble

愛好= 'love and like' = interest/ hobby


Is "白皮书" a good translation of "open letter"? Looking through twitter today I came across this tweet that says:

加拿大前六个部长上白皮书，要求释放王炳章 Six former Canadian ministers call for release of jailed Chinese dissident in open letter /via @globeandmail

The original article is in English, where they use the term "open letter." The Chinese translation is seeming just from Wang Bingwu where he rendered it as "白皮书."
This translation doesn't make much sense to me, as 公开信 is a perfectly common 1-to-1 translation for "open letter." And 白皮书 is just a translation of white paper. But, perhaps there is something to this that I am missing.
Is "白皮书" a good translation of "open letter"?

No, as stated in your post : 公开信 is a perfectly common 1-to-1 translation for "open letter."; while "white paper" is a specific term for a type of government-issued document or business to business document, and it is always translated as 白皮书 in Chinese
The function of 白皮书 is different from 公开信. Translating 'open letter' as '白皮书' is a mistake.


What does 合痕类的个数 (hé hén lèi de gè shù) mean in this mathematics article? From the mathematics article 拉丁阵的枚举和计数(Ⅱ):情形n=4,k〈=4, we have the following first paragraph:

I'm confused about what 合痕类的个数 (hé hén lèi de gè shù) means here (it's used twice).  Google Translate says it means "the number of traces", but I don't feel this is accurate.

Question: What does 合痕类的个数 (hé hén lèi de gè shù) mean in this mathematics article?

My transcription:

  文献[1]中引人了(n,k)-拉丁阵概念，并对n=2，3的情形给出了(n,k)-拉丁阵和它们的合痕类的个数。本文继续讨论n=4的情形，给出了(4,k,1)-拉丁阵，(4,2),(4,3)-和(4,4)-拉丁阵及它们的合痕类的个数。

My translation:

  In document [1] is the fascinating引人 (short for 引人入胜 (?)) concept概念 of the (n,k)-Latin matrix, and the case情形 of n=2,3, gives (n,k)-Latin matrices and their [合痕类的个数 (?)].  In this paper, we continue继续 the discussion讨论 to the case情形 of n=4, give (4,k,1)-Latin matrices, (4,2), (4,3), and (4,4)-Latin matrices and their [合痕类的个数 (?)].

If it helps, here's an example of what one looks like:

I am absolutely not a mathematician, but here is my stab:

isotropic: "having the same properties in all directions,"

In your case, a regular matrix, your example showing the vertical and horizontal elements to be the same.

合痕：isotropy
合痕类：isotropic
合痕类的个数： isotropic elements / individual elements
矩阵: matrix

本文继续讨论n=4的情形，
This document goes on to discuss n=4 matrices
给出了(4,k,1)-拉丁阵，(4,2),(4,3)-和
showing (4,k,1) - Latin matrices, (4,2), (4,3)- and
(4,4)-拉丁阵及它们的合痕类的个数。
4 by 4 Latin matrices and their isotropic elements


Would you use 为 or 给 (or neither) as a dedication? I'm wondering how to write a dedication (in a book or on a memorial, for example). In English I would inscribe "For my friend." I like the somewhat ambiguous and all-encompassing meaning of this English phrase, as it can mean "I wrote this for my friend" or "I made this for my friend" or "This is to honor my friend" and so on.

Would "为我的朋友" fit this meaning? Would "给我的朋友" be better? Is there an idiomatic phrase or different translation that would be better? Or would I have to lose the ambiguity and translate it more specifically?

I understand that 为 is primarily used to mean "for the sake of," which is sort of the meaning, but "For my friend" also has the meaning of giving something or dedicating something to someone.

EDIT: Based on the comments/answer supplied and further research, my understanding is that there are two ways to write this (neither of which were included in my original question).

献给 seems to have more of a "dedicated to" connotation, while 致 is a more formal/poetic way of devoting or addressing something to someone. Can a native speaker confirm if I am understanding this correctly?

"致"is often used in the beginning of the letter.
"献给"is a more formal way of "给".


What's wrong with 一个年? From what I can tell, 一个年 is completely wrong because you can never use a classifier together with 年. The situation is different from a phrase like 一个朋友.

My question is: why? Is there a reason why 年 is different from 朋友 like this? Are there other nouns which behave like 年?

Or is 年 really syntactically more like 个? Is 年 actually usable as a measure word? Can you for example say 一年时间 or 两年工作?

You cannot say 一个年, but you can say 一个年头

The difference between 年 and 年头 had been explained here  Understanding 年頭 in context

Yes, 年 itself can be a classifier  '一年时间' and '两年工夫' are both valid


Can you 关心 an object? So, I've used 关心  consistently with people -  关心别人， 关心我的妹妹，  but can 关心 be used for object or a phrase??

Example for a phrase
我们关心的应该是房子应该有几间屋子?

Example for an object
吃饭时， 我关心的是调味。 长得怎么样， 我都不管。

Yes, you can.
Oxford

VERB
care for
关心国家大事
be concerned about the major issues of one's country
双方共同关心的问题
matter of mutual concern

You above sentences have some grammatical problems but using 关心 in this manner is no problem.


Does the idiom 高城深池 have a positive or negative connotation? The dictionary says that this idiom means impenetrable defense (high city walls, deep moat). Does this mean that an individual described with this idiom is stubborn or strong in resolve?

It is a neutral term. It describes a property of an object. Not commonly used in a metaphorical sense to describe a human characteristic
高城深池 is typically used to describe a defended city, base and of course, castle.
There are many idioms graphically describe objects with no metaphorical usage.
Example:
一望無際 (cannot see the edge) describe the view of a vast area - express: vastness
皮堅肉厚 (tough skin and thick muscle) literally describes a man or an animal with tough skin and thick muscle  - express: physically durable
水清山秀 (clear water and beautiful mountains) literally describes a place with clear water and beautiful mountains  - express: beautiful scenery
高城深池 literally describes a castle has high wall and deep moat - express: impenetrable defense


Difference between the verbs 轮 and 轮流 (meaning to take turns) In HSK 5, lesson 1, the word '轮' is part of the word list, with the translation: 'v. to take turns'. In lesson 3, the word '轮流' is part of the word list, again with the translation: 'v. to take turns'.

My teacher has told me that there are three differences between these two words:

轮 is informal (口语) and 轮流 is formal (书面语)
You can't say 轮流到你了, but you can say 轮到你了（it's your turn)
You can't say 轮去做.., but you can say 轮流去做.. and 轮着去做.. (taking turns doing something)

This still doesn't really explain why you can't say such a thing and what the difference actually is, is there somebody who knows?

When 轮(rotate/ to take turn) is acting as a verb, most of the time it would include the result complement 到 - e.g "轮到你了" [it rotates to you (it is your turn)]

or followed by a word particle 着 (indicate continuous state)  as in 轮着做 (taking turns to work)

or incorporated into a compound words along with a noun, like 轮米(getting in line for or queuing for rice handouts), 轮班 (in rotation; in shift)

轮 is also a noun for 'wheel' and 'turn'

轮流 (to take turns/ to alternate/to rotate) is also a verb, but it is only use as an auxiliary verb. For example, "轮流拜访他" - (take turns visiting him); 轮流看火 (take turns watching the fire). In other words, whenever you see 轮流, another verb must follow it directly. Meaning it can never be placed directly before the object


The words for "boyfriend" and "male friend" - 男朋友，男性朋友，男的朋友 Regarding 男朋友 and 男性朋友(or 男的朋友), I don't understand how to use these words appropriately. At least I understand that 男朋友 can mean both "boyfriend" and "male friend" and the meaning depends on the context, and 男性朋友 means "male friend".

However, what I don’t get about these words is:

男朋友 means both "boyfriend" and "male friend". Can 男性朋友 also mean "boyfriend" as well as "male friend"?
Are 男性朋友 and 男的朋友 synonyms?
If you have multiple "boyfriends" or "male friends", how would you express this?
If a man uses "男朋友", does this mean he is gay? Or does this always mean "male friend"? (and would there some other word to express "boyfriend in a gay relationship"?
Are all of the above the same in the case of 女朋友/女性朋友?

男朋友 mean both "boyfriend" and "male friend". Can 男性朋友 also mean "boyfriend" as well as "male friend"?

No, "男朋友" means 'boyfriend' exclusively. For both men and women.

A woman would refer to her male friends as "男性朋友" or "朋友"

A man would refer to his female friends as "女性朋友" or "朋友"

Most of the time men and women just use the unisex term  "朋友"

  Are 男性朋友 and 男的朋友 the synonym?

Yes

  If you have multiple "boyfriends" or "male friends", how do you express?

If you have multiple "boyfriends", they are all your "男朋友"

If you have multiple "male friends", they are all your "男性朋友" or "朋友"

  If a man uses "男朋友", does this mean he is a gay? Or does this always mean "male friend"? (and is there any other word to express "boyfriend for gay"?

If a man calls someone "男朋友", that means he is his 'same sex partner', and yes, they are gay.

  Are all the above the same in the case of 女朋友/女性朋友?

No,  women sometimes call their female friends "女朋友",  but usually just "朋友" ; Men never call their male friends "男朋友"

Women do not call their female friends as "女性朋友"

Men do not call their male friends "男朋友" or "男性朋友" , they just call them "朋友"

In summary

Men and women usually call their friends "朋友".
"男朋友" to a man (in a gay relationship) or a woman, means "boyfriend"
"女朋友" to a man, can only mean "girlfriend"
"女朋友" for a woman, can mean "girlfriend" (in a lesbian relationship) or "female friend" (in joking manner)


Mnemonic or Glyph Origin for 御 I can't fiugure out suitable mnemonic for 御.

Does someone has a good idea?

「御」 originally meant to operate or manage/control, then extended to mean the adjective imperial.

  The meaning to drive a carriage is specifically held by the character 「馭」; when 「御」 is used for this meaning, it is a rebus of 「馭」.

商甲菁1.1合集6057隸定

「御」 (to operate/manage) originally depicted a kneeling person 「卩」 using (operating) a pestle 「午」.

  Pestle is now written as the derivative character 「杵」.

Later on, two verb-like markers were added:

「彳」 (half of the character 「行」, picture of a road intersection > roads, travelling)

商甲前2.18.6合集8189隸定
「止」 (picture of a foot > walking). This leads on to the modern form 「御」.

西周金頌鼎集成2829秦簡秦115睡虎地秦簡今楷

References:

季旭昇《說文新證》
小學堂
國學大師

郭沫若《甲骨文合集》
中國社會科學院考古研究所《殷周金文集成》


How to express a hairdresser in Mandarin? Recently my Chinese friend rephrased my use of 美容院 with 理发店 during the conversation, on which I said I'm looking for a hairdresser.

In Japanese there are two types of hair salons - 美容院 and 理容院. Both cut your hairs but the service is different. The former focuses on the aesthetic and used by women and most of younger men. The latter is for men who don't care about the aesthetic (mostly middle-aged and elderly men), and often offers the shaving service as well as the hair cut, and cheaper.

In Mandarin, is this distinction applied in the same way? Or are these words more like the synonym and thus can a (fashionable) girl use 理发店?

Also, does it sound awkward for men to use 美容院? I wonder why my Chinese friend rephrased it... (she is female and I'm male, and both of us are 20s, FYI)

理发店 is more of a general term for hair salons. If it were for a girl, then we usually say 美发中心，美发院。


How to distinguish the difference between the pronunciation of different erhuayin? For example,

小黄儿, 小欢儿, 小花儿;
唱歌儿, 树根儿, 一横儿;

What's the difference?

I can't understand the difference between each phonetic symbol in the same row in the table below:

The picture is from Wikipedia.

I agree with TaraWordoor. You shouldn't be able to differentiate /er/ from /nr/ because when the sound /n/ is "erhua"-ed, you don't pronounce /n/ at all. So if you want to say 人儿, you're actually pronouncing /rer/. (BTW, these sounds are not in international phonetic alphabet. They're basically pinyin.) However, you should be able to hear the difference between /er/(/nr/) and /ngr/ because /ngr/ has a nasal sound at the end.

As you said, after you move to southern China, it's not a problem any more. It is mainly because "the southerners" (with all due respect) don't have 儿化音, and they don't have the difference between /n/ and /ng/ either. However, if you watch sit-coms about people from the north, it should be pretty easy to tell. I can't agree with some of the responses that standard Mandarin doesn't have 儿化音. Mandarin, as a partially artificial language, uses Beijing accent as a standard and northern accent in general as a base. So by definition, Mandarin should have 儿化音. The reason why you don't hear them often in the news is because 儿化音 is more colloquial and less formal. When you say something like 可爱的人儿, you're basically saying "cutie pie"; but when you say 可爱的人, you're saying "lovely person". Not just the meaning changes, the connotation changes as well.


How do I ask "Can you wash your clothes at the hotel?" I've recently come across this statement.

那你可以在宾馆洗. "Then you can wash them (clothes) at the hotel."

I'd like to say,

"Can you wash your clothes at the hotel?"

But I can't figure out the placement of the noun clothes.  Could someone translate "Can you wash your clothes at the hotel?" for me?

To translate directly:

  "Can you wash your clothes at the hotel?"

  你可以在宾馆洗你的衣服(clothes)吗?

Not sure if it is really what you want. But if you are asking the hotel staff whether they help you wash your clothes, then it should be:

  "Do you provide laundry service?"

  你有提供洗衣服务(service)吗?

The basic order of a Chinese sentence is usually in the form of subject-verb-object arrangement. From the two sentences above, 你 is the subject, 洗 and 提供 are the verbs, 衣服 and 洗衣服务 are the objects. Please refer to this article for more examples on the Chinese grammar.


The glyph origins of 半 Pursuant to the question below about 伴：

What intrigues me is what 8 八 and a cow 牛(or 2 cows) have to do with this?

chineseetymology.org says for 半: 'Augmented pictograph 半. Augmentation 八 (indicating separation) and cow 牛.' （WTF is an 'augmented cow??)

zhongwen.com says 半: divide 八 an ox 牛 (share it? cut it up??)

An old version of 伴  is this 2 'augmented cows'??

We see what looks like 2 people to me, but the dictionary says it is 2 times 半， =  八 (8 or divide) and 牛 (ox, cow) twice. Later we see 伴 as 人 + 半 Maybe on a notion of 'a man's best companion is his cow?' （In ancient times I think, a cow was regarded more valuable than a wife, at least in many societies.)

Perhaps those etymologies are not quite correct.
The, current, definition in the new Outliers dictionary gives the following explanation:

FORM
Ancient form:

半 was originally composed of 八 “to divide; cut into two parts” and 斗 “measuring spoon,” indicating the original meaning “a spoon used to serve alcohol with a capacity of half a 斗 (dǒu).”

They give the following reference:

杜忠誥，2002《說文篆文訛形釋例》，台北市：文史哲出版社，2009年2月初版修訂。
p. 191-195

Then under Meanings they continue:

1 (orig.) a spoon used to serve alcohol with a capacity of half a 斗 (dǒu)
2 → half

I guess a 半 is almost like a half-pint - if we’re to put it in modern terms westerners could understand.
——
edit: I would imagine 伴 is comprised of 亻/人 [a meaning component] and 半 [a sound component].


Can I say 没 to negate future events? I saw this sentence in a book:

明年这个时候你还没有毕业呢

I thought the sentence was wrong at first, but it says the sentence is grammatically correct and that there's nothing wrong with it. As you know, most Chinese grammar books tell you have to use 没 to negate past actions, so I didn't understand how 明年, which refers to a future time, can stand with 没. The book says 没(有) is used for unfinished events(毕业), regardless of the time.
Nevertheless, I'm still not sure what cases I have to use 没, not 不, with adverbials of future time like 明年, 下星期, etc. for. Can you give me some examples?
Also I'm wondering if there's a difference between the meanings of these two sentences:

明年这个时候你还没有毕业呢
明年这个时候你还不毕业呢

Thanks in advance.

I've never heard of 没 being restricted to past actions. It is perfectly useful, as in 范冰冰明年没有结婚的打算.

I interpret these sentences as:

明年这个时候你还没有毕业呢 = next year at this time you will still not have graduated.

明年这个时候你还不毕业呢 = next year at this time you will still refuse to graduate.


What happened to the Old Chinese coda -p of 拉 in Cantonese? Baxter's Middle Chinese reconstruction has 拉 as *lop, which surprised me given that the Cantonese reflex is laai1.

Other characters with the rime -op such as 合, 答 and 雜 end up with the rime -ap or -aap in Cantonese, so what happened to 拉?

I imagine it's similar to what happened to 內 (MC *nop), but why didn't it happen with other syllables with the same rime?

The qu4 去  tone class in Middle Chinese is generally understood to derive from an OC suffix –s.  Sagart regards the whole class as deriving from this process (Roots of OC, p. 131). This results in word pairs of plain root and root + s that in Middle Chinese and later differ by tone.
If the –s is applied to a root that ends in a stop, it seems to efface that stop in later developments.  Sagart, citing Baxter, gives these examples (p. 54):

nei4 內  *nups > nwojH  ‘inside’, compare na4 納  *nup > nop  ‘to put in’
dui4 對  *tups > twojH  ‘to answer’, compare da2 答  *tup > top  ‘to respond’

In Cantonese, in both these cases, the final stop has been retained in the second (unsuffixed) word, but has disappeared in the first.  (In Mandarin you don’t see it anywhere, because all final stops are gone.)
The –s suffix seems to have had a variety of functions.  Often it seems to form exoactive or causative verbs – as well as Sagart, Schuessler discusses this at length in the introduction to his etymological dictionary.
Could the Cantonese form of 拉 be the reflex of a word with this suffix, which caused the final stop to be lost?


How does 土口 match 'a person wearing a pendant'? Please see the green arrow beneath. I can't copy and paste from Yellowbridge for 袁:

There is no pendant in the character. 「袁」 (Mandarin: yuán) originally meant to wear (clothes), where

「土」 is a corruption of 「又」, a picture of a hand, signifying the action of wearing clothes, and
「口」 is a corruption of 「〇」 (yuán), a phonetic hint.

「〇」 is the shape of a circle, and this word is now written as 「圓」.

商甲庫1022合集33692
「袁」 was originally 「⿰衣又」, which is an abstract depiction of a hand 「又」 putting on robes 「衣」. This word is now written as 「擐」 (Baxter-Sagart OC: /*[ɢ]ʷˤren-s/).

「擐」 (to wear, put on) is made by

Adding on an additional semantic 「扌・手」

Complexifying 「袁」 to a pure phonetic 「瞏」 (something like /*[ɢ]ʷˁ<r>en/) by adding on 「目・罒」 to the top.

「瞏」 is systematically written as 「睘」 today across all characters.

「⿰衣又」 had a few variants, produced by some small modifications in two main ways:

Sometimes, multiple 「又」 were included, and 「又」 at the top was further corrupted into 「止」.
商甲1648懷特甲骨集商甲存・下506合集31774

Other times, 「〇」 (/*ɢʷ<r>en/) was added as a phonetic hint.
商甲寧滬1.501合集27756商甲2061 (⿰彳袁)小屯南甲骨

「〇」 is the shape of a circle, and this word is now written as 「圓」.

Both of these modifications were eventually incorporated:
西周金史墻盤 (遠)集成10175
Later,

「止」 merged with the top part of 「衣」 and was further corrupted into 「土」
「〇」 was systematically corrupted into 「口」 across all Chinese characters

秦簡秦律十八87 (遠)睡虎地秦簡今楷

References:

季旭昇《說文新證》
殷墟甲骨文中の「遠」「（邇）」と関連字
小學堂
國學大師

郭沫若《甲骨文合集》
中國社會科學院考古研究所《殷周金文集成》
許進雄《懷特氏等收藏甲骨文集》
中國社會科學院考古研究所《小屯南地甲骨》

漢語多功能字庫


How to translate the phrase 利而物利章 in context? I am reading a passage from 呂氏春秋. I think I understand the basic meaning of the three first quarters, but then it becomes difficult. The hard part is the tiny snippet below and especially the last five characters, where I cannot even guess what part each plays in the sentence:

  故廢其非君，而立其行君道者。
      君道何如？利而物利章

Below are the whole passage and my attempt at a translation (for everything but the last five characters). The last five characters pose the greatest challenge. I have no clue as to how to translate them! I saw a German translation saying something like:

  The benefit of all beings becomes manifest

but I have no idea, why it should mean that!

昔太古嘗無君矣，其民聚生群處，知母不知父，
無親戚兄弟夫妻男女之別，無上下長幼之道，
無進退揖讓之禮，無衣服履帶宮室畜積之便，
無器械舟車城郭險阻之備，此無君之患。
故君臣之義，不可不明也。
自上世以來，天下亡國多矣，而君道不廢者，天下之利也。
故廢其非君，而立其行君道者。
君道何如？利而物利章。

Previously, during high antiquity, people experienced the rulerless condition.
The lived in hordes, knowing their mother, but not their father,
nor any kinship, or distinctions such as the ones
between elder and younger brother, husband and wife, man and woman.
There were no principles of old and young, high and low, no rules of curtesy.
Nor were there comforts such as clothes, girdles, lodgings,
or preparations such as carts, vessels and walled cities to protect against dangers.
Such were the perils of the rulerless condition.
Hence the proper relation between ruler and subject must absolutely be clear.
Since the times of yore, there have been many kingdoms indeed!
But the (institution of the) ruler was never abolished. It is beneficial to the realm!
Hence, the countries waned, but not the (institution of the) rulers
and they established a system with a ruler. What does the ruler comprehend?
(He comprehends) benefit and ???

after reading other literary chinese texts, here's my approach :)

君道何如 - what is the principle(s) of sovereign

利而物利章 - this verse is very tricky, i would interpret it as "利而物利" + "章"

the first "利" is shortcut of "利民", beneficial to people

而 - and

物 --> 勿 - not

the second "利" is shortcut of "自利", beneficial to oneself

章 --> 彰 - 明顯 distinct, obvious

together, 君道何如﹒利而物利章 is roughly:

what is the principle(s) of sovereign (君道何如)? [he should make it] obvious (章) that [his acts are] beneficial to people (利), and (而), not to himself (物利)

ludi kun, in volume 1 of 呂氏春秋, chapter 4 "貴公", there's a verse

"利而勿利也", with a remark "務在利民，勿自利也"

https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hant/呂氏春秋/卷一#.E8.B2.B4.E5.85.AC

edited, info added.

it's very common in literatures of yore, 章 is used, in lieu of 彰. even in 呂氏春秋, there're several usages:

孟春紀﹒本生: "萬物章章"

http://ctext.org/lv-shi-chun-qiu/ben-sheng/zh?searchu=章&searchmode=showall#result

孟夏紀﹒誣徒: "學業之章明也"

http://ctext.org/lv-shi-chun-qiu/wu-tu/zh?searchu=章&searchmode=showall#result

審分覽﹒勿躬: "名號已章矣"

http://ctext.org/lv-shi-chun-qiu/wu-gong/zh?searchu=章&searchmode=showall#result

不苟論﹒博志: "名之章也"

http://ctext.org/lv-shi-chun-qiu/bo-zhi/zh?searchu=章&searchmode=showall#result

have fun :)


Documentation of 不+"x" contractions resulting in "r" sounding initial consonant? I've been looking for documentation showing 不+"x" contractions resulting in "r" sounding initial consonants, but to no avail.

This is an interesting phenomenon and I'm sure the regular person would say: "it's just people talking fast, don't over think it," but in technical terms these would be some form of contractions. Think:

不 + 知道 = bu rao
不 + 是 = bu ri

I'm interested to know what kind of research has been done on these contractions, if any.

Any ideas?

This phenomenon is a non-standard regional accent, known as 儿化音. It is a phenomenon in some part of North China, especially in Beijing.

  不知道 (bù zhī dào) → 不儿道 (bùr rào)

  不是 (bù shì) → bú shì → 不儿 (búr)

  告诉你 (gào sù nǐ) → 告儿你 (gàor nǐ)


I'm sorry I don't understand I have a series of useful phrases from Jukuu, that assist learners in developing conversations and learning new word/phrases. Which of these would be more appropriate for talking to a stranger?  Would I choose a different phrase for a doctor or for a family member? If other phrases are more appropriate please let me know.

謝謝！

Will you speak a little more slowly?
请你说得再慢一点，好吗?

I am sorry, sir. Can you repeat that more slowly, please?
对不起，请你再说慢点。

I'm sorry, can you repeat that.
对不起，您能重复一下吗？

A: Can you repeat that, please?
甲：请您再说一遍好吗?

Sorry, I don't understand.
对不起，我没明白。

EDIT: To clarify this question. Please note that I am looking for the situation where one would use one phrase rather than another.

Examples might be:

Use phrase x when talking to family members (etc.)

Both five sentences above will be used under talking with strangers rather than people who you actually know. These are very polite expression and are in most case inter-changeable. However, it will be odd to talk to someone who you have already known with that level of politeness. It might work for Professor(s) / leader(s). Talking with friends or family will use more colloquial expression like

"稍微慢一点" "等一下，你说得太快了"


Is 勺 really the phonetic component of 的? The etymology of 的 is described here. Is this resource correct is saying that 勺 is this character's phonetic component? I ask because it doesn't seem to hint at the correct pronunciation at all. 勺 is pronounced sháo while 的 is pronounced de. Thanks!

Modern Chinese has underwent many pronunciation changes since characters were first invented and phonetic components often reflect words as they were pronounced in Old Chinese rather than modern Chinese.

The pronunciations of 的 and 勺 were much more similar in Old Chinese. This link explains:

  的 and 勺 had roughly similar pronunciations in Old Chinese; Baxter-Sagart reconstruct 的 as *t-lˤewk, compared with 勺 *m-t-qewk.

Note the that 的 character as originally used means "target" and is pronounced dì in Modern Mandarin. In modern times, it was borrowed to also represent the genitive particle de (this usage ultimately descends from 之; refer to this previous question for more information).

A few other modern Chinese languages still preserve the final -k in both of these words. For instance, Cantonese has the pronunciations dik (IPA: /tɪk/) and zoek (IPA: /t͡sœːk/) for 的 and 勺.


a word/phrase for 贪小便宜的 Need a word to describe someone who doesn't need the product but buys it because he/she has a coupon.

I would use 贪小便宜的 , but what is a proper equivalent in English

Have seen the posts
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/308698/a-word-for-a-person-who-never-overpays, still couldn't decide which is the best one.

Note：I am looking for the English equivalent of 贪小便宜的，rather than a Chinese synonym.

You can use 葛朗台, which is actually the Chinese translation of the main character's name in Eugénie Grandet, a novel by French author Honoré de Balzac.

A less witty one would be 小气鬼，which is equivalent to the English penny-pincher or cheapskate.


快把大衣穿穿！When is it wrong? In our book under 改錯句 there is the following exercise:

  外邊很冷，快把大衣穿穿！

I assume they consider it wrong because the object is not definite. Is that so, or is there any other reason?

If the context makes it clear that we are talking about a specific 大衣，would the sentence be ok, or do I absolutely need to grammatically express the definite nature by

  那件大衣/你的大衣/爸爸送給你的大衣⋯?

Edit:

according to our book, reduplication of the verb makes the predicate complex, fulfilling the requirement for 把字句。 The example given is: 把桌子擦擦。

Ludi wrote:

  according to our book, reduplication of the verb makes the predicate complex, fulfilling the requirement for (把)字句

Reduplication of verb imply the verb is in 'a slight degree', 'a casual manner' or 'tentative manner'

Examples:

吃 = eat

吃吃 =  (slightly/ casually) eat

试 = try

试试 = (slightly/ tentatively) try

The first part of the sentence '外邊很冷' is a reason; the second part of the sentence '快把大衣穿穿 is a request/ command, you can switch the positions of the 'request/ command' and the 'reason' and the meaning would be the same. '快把大衣穿穿, (because) 外邊很冷'

Since this sentence request/ command  the object to do something definite, it shouldn't be in reduplication form that implies it is in 'slight', 'casual' or 'tentatively' manner

user3a is correct:

  外邊很冷，快把大衣「穿上」

把 is not an important factor in choosing reduplicate the verb or not.
You shouldn't  reduplicate 穿 in "外邊很冷，快穿上大衣" neither.


Who would we describe as 豪爽? 豪爽 (háoshuǎng)
CC-CEDICT: outspoken and straightforward / forthright / expansive

豪爽 is an adjective used to describe people's personalities.  Judging from dictionary definitions and examples, such people tend to have a combination of traits: they are (a) frank, straightforward, blunt, outspoken; (b) kind, generous, gracious; and (c) bold, heroic.  I don't know if English has an equivalent concept to 豪爽.
I'm wondering if there is some good examples of e.g. famous people who would be considered 豪爽.
Question: Who would we describe as 豪爽?

If someone drinks wildly and helps friends out without hesitation, he/she could be called 豪爽, you can take it as the opposite of petty, sissy and selfish. The most famous examples would be general Guan Yu/关羽 in the the Three Kingdoms period/三国时期, and Li Bai/李白 the poet in the Tang Dynasty/唐朝.


Is 爱 limited to people? What's the meaning of the first part of: 他爱怎么想就怎么想，我才不在乎呢

and

Is "我爱辣" (Wǒ ài là) a correct/understandable/idiomatic way of saying I like my food spicy?

suggest that 爱 can be used for things and abstractions, but that it may not be idiomatic.

Would it be common, sometimes, or never for pets?  Other animals?  Hobbies?  etc.

this is my first answer on this website.

他爱怎么想就怎么想,我才不在乎呢  = whatever he thinks/would like to think, I don't care.
In this sentence, 爱 is generally can be understanded as "would like".
I prefer to say 我爱吃辣(I love eating spicy food) insted of 我爱辣
If you just only say 我爱辣, people may get confused when they hear this.

爱 can be used for things/hobbies etc, but a verb often followed by 爱。Examples: I love sports = 我爱运动。 I love playing basketball =我爱打篮球。 I love playing games = 我爱玩游戏。

Sometimes, you can use 爱 for pets and animals. However, I prefer to say 喜欢. Examples: 我喜欢动物。我喜欢小狗。 我喜欢小猫。


Alternative expression for 二位小姐 In the text for lesson 20 in New Practical Chinese Reader, 林娜 and her friend 王小云 are waiting for 丁力波 (another student). They plan to take a taxi to somebody else's house, where they have been invited to celebrate New Year. The dialogue contains the following exchange (emphasis added):

王小云： 你又来晚了。
丁力波： 真不好意思。 二位小姐别着急，出租车已经来了。

二位小姐 uses 二 instead of 两 before the measure word 位. I have been told that this is typical of Shanghai. What do speakers of Standard Chinese outside Shanghai typically say? Do they say 两位小姐 (which would be the expected alternative based on Standard Chinese grammar) or use a totally different expression?

I know we might be slaying the slain but seeing as you're asking for an

  [a]lternative expression for 二位小姐

it might as well be said.

MDBG defines 小姐 as:

  young lady / miss / (slang) prostitute / CL: 個｜个, 位

with prostitute being the operative definition.

Seeing as 小姐 is so stigmatized - I believe most people tend to stay far away from it.

二位 on the other hand is usually better put as 两位.

两位 is a very common expression for two people you don't know and you don't even need to classify it with guys/gals/whatever.

  两位，慢走


What is this character? I would like to know what this necklace means, thank you

It's 寿（in simplified Chinese）: old age, long life; lifespan. It is used for expressing best wishes: wish people who wear it to have a good long life.

See Ref on Wikipedia.


Why's flesh (⺼ ) the semantic component for 肩, 脖? I know that 脖 (neck) and 肩 (shoulder) contains flesh, but they aren't the fleshiest, most sarcous or adipose, unlike the butt.

If CUHK is proclaiming that 肩 resembles a shoulder, I can't see the resemblance.

I also don't understand how the shoulder can be "the body's gate". Yellowbridge

CUHK and Yellowbridge don't expound 脖.

If CUHK is proclaiming that 肩 resembles a shoulder, I can't see the resemblance.

商甲乙6638合集14199商甲後2.17.13合集13917商甲鐵215.4合集4786商甲甲759合集35191
The top left of 「肩」 was originally a picture of the shoulder bone (scapula), most easily illustrated with those used in oracle bone divination from oxen:

(Left) Oracle bone from the Shanghai Museum*. (Right) Binary image of this oracle bone given in 《甲骨文合集》32028.
*Credits to Herr Klugbeisser, CC BY-SA 3.0, original photo at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone#/media/File:Orakelknochen.JPG.

Later on, the character became more stylised and abstract. 「肉」 (flesh > body part) was added, perhaps to enhance character recognition of what might otherwise highly resemble 「戶」 or 「耳」.
戰國・楚簡乙4.61新蔡葛陵楚墓竹簡秦簡日甲75背睡虎地秦簡隸定
The bone-shape was later firmly corrupted into 「戶」.
東漢隸武梁祠畫象　楷

References:

季旭昇《說文新證》
小學堂
國學大師

郭沫若《甲骨文合集》
中國社會科學院考古研究所《殷周金文集成》


Character for "□" 西南官话 kuai³¹: "～着走, 两脚尖向内地走" □ is the official place-marker for unknown or unwritable characters. Sometimes though there are appropriate characters for the mistakenly believed unwritable or nonexistent.
Here's my conundrum:
《现代汉语方言音库》
《成都话音档》

□
kuai³¹
～着走, 两脚尖向内地走

《成都方言词典》

《四川方言词典》

I'm willing to bet the missing character could be written 拐, but I haven't any proof.
What character could be written here instead of □?

There could be two answers to this question.

1.拐 can pronounced as kuai in some dialects. For example, in Lufeng dialect, it's pronounced as kuai3.

2.擓(pronounced as kuai3 in Mandarin, Unicode:U+64D3).

This character has three meanings:

First, in some dialects it means scratch, such as ShanDong dialect and Mandarin of Jianghuai.

Second, in others dialects it means carrying on arm, it's used as a synonym for 挎(kua2). In this sense, it can be interpreted as an adjective. To describe the posture that deliberately lift legs in walking.

Third, it means ladle out.

When we use the second meaning, it could be written in the common sayings(一～一～).

Sorry for my terrible English. Hope my answer is helpful.


Why is 把 in 我去洗把脸 (wǒ qù xǐ bǎ liǎn) = I'm going to wash my face? YouDao has an example of 我去洗把脸:

  知道了，妈。我去洗把脸，让自己清醒一些。
  Zhīdàole, mā. Wǒ qù xǐ bǎ liǎn, ràng zìjǐ qīngxǐng yīxiē.
  I see, Mummy. I'm going to wash my face and wake myself up.

and I just encountered it in the Chinese TV series 如果蜗牛有爱情, with the English title When a Snail Falls in Love (Wikipedia), in the first episode on QQ about 15 minutes, 49 seconds in:

There's similar examples at YouDao for 洗把脸.

It seems weird to me to put 把 in 洗把脸.  I would expect 我去洗脸 or 我洗脸去.  YouDao indicates 我要去洗脸了 and 把脸洗 are good choices.

Question: Why is 把 in 我去洗把脸?

I see no real reason for 把 to be in there.  My guess is that it's a variation on 把脸洗.

把 is used as 量词 (measure word) here.

三、“把”还可以表示动作的次数和量。大部分用于手的动作，如：拉、帮、推、拽、搭、抓等，后面都可以用“把”，用法跟“次”“下”“回”相近。
可是，在现代汉语中，表示动作的量的意义有所扩展，这些动作与手关系不大。
如：表现一把、玩一把、练一把等，时下最流行的一个词就是“过把瘾”。

It's usually used in spoken language, has similar meaning with 次/下. So 洗把脸 is similar to 洗一次脸/洗一下脸, but sounds more vivid and direct.


To what degree is 戈 used in common Mandarin? I understand that the phonetic part of 我 (wo3) is pronounced 戈 (ge1). It seems also that it means (or used to mean) "Dagger"/"Sword", however the only references I can find to this character says that that is an old, defunct usage.

So, to what degree is this character used in common Mandarin? Is it just thought of as a radical, or does it have some other usage in speech?

It seems also that it means (or used to mean) "Dagger"/"Sword", however the only references I can find to this character says that that is an old, defunct usage.

戈 as a noun, simply mean 'dagger-axe or halberd'
The reason that it is an old, defunct usage, is no one are using it in modern warfare. Therefore the term 戈 as a weapon had disappeared from common vocabulary

  So, to what degree is this character used in common Mandarin? Is it just thought of as a radical, or does it have some other usage in speech?

戈 beside being a common radical, is also part of some 'warfare' related compound words and idiom.

Example:

干戈  = warfare

同室操戈 = infighting; fight between family members, partners or allies (
Two athletes from the same nation fighting for the Gold medal can be described as 同室操戈)

  止弋為武

  toes + dagger-axe = advance with weapon = 武 (force);
  止(stop)+ dagger-axe = stopping war = force

  #1 is the more likely origin of 武

戈 is often used as a transliteration word, for example: 戈壁 in 戈壁沙漠 is a transliteration of Gobi; 探戈 in 探戈舞 is the transliteration of Tango


Can't find suitable resource for character frequencies for traditional Chinese (Mandarin) I am looking to do the (seemingly simple) task of creating a simple frequency table for traditional Chinese characters (not words). I'm encountering the following problems:

Most resources are in simplified Chinese, such as all of these.
Traditional Chinese resources are either too small (like this one which also has some weird non-identifiable characters such as #2959) or too old (like this one from 1993–1994 which also has 資 in 11th place which I think is very strange, even though it's very large (13000+ chars).
I have also tried to find Traditional Chinese corpora in a usable format to calculate the frequency myself (which is obviously barely any effort), but all corpora I could find where either paid or not accessible/downloadable like this and this. I also downloaded the zhwiki-latest-pages-articles.xml.bz2 from here to use Wikipedia as a resource but it mixes simplified and traditional and I couldn't find any way of only getting the traditional Chinese Wikipedia articles.

I am surprised at how difficult it is to find any of the resources I'm looking for. If you know of any accessible Mandarin corpus with traditional characters (nothing fancy, don't need any parsing, tagging, tokenizing or other annotation, just pure text) or how to quickly build one, feel free to share! Thanks in advance.

I made an effort to summarise available information about character and word frequencies for learners and teachers a while back and came up with the following which are relevant for traditional characters.

Chih-hao Tsai has a list of well over 13 000 characters, described as follows: "The corpus consists of all the BIG-5 Chinese characters appeared on Usenet newsgroups during 1993-1994. It consists of 171,882,493 characters. This is perhaps by far the largest Chinese corpus in the world." More info here.
The following list is also linked to on that page, referring to frequency data from Shih-Kun Huang. Maybe both lists are based on the same data; I'm not sure.
I don't know about any downloadable corpora for traditional Chinese, but I have mainly relied on Academia Sinica Balanced Corpus of Modern Chinese, which is also tokenised, although I don't know if there's any frequency data based on that corpus.
The Taiwan MoE offers a frequency lists that is available for free, based on mixed sources totalling around two million characters. You can get it here, but you have to download and run an executable file in Windows (but why?). It does work, though. Info about the samples used can be found here. The sources are not as new as one would wish, but they are more balanced than online Usenet newsgroups at least.

I summarised all the resources I found for both simplified and traditional Chinese, for both character components, characters and words here, in case anyone is interested: The most common Chinese words, characters and components for language learners and teachers


I wonder is there a Mandarin term for " jump the shark" I wonder is there a Mandarin term for " jump the shark" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_the_shark which means the decline of quality of a T.V show reached the breaking point for the viewers, even the most loyal fans have no choice but give up on the show.

My guess would be 沒救了，

  The T.V show 'House' finally jumped the shark. (電視劇 「醫神」終於沒救了。)

but is there other choices?

I am a native Cantonese speaker, there might be some mainland term I am not aware of.

That should be "江郞才尽"

"江郎才尽" means someone was always writing good articles, but one day, his article is not that good anymore.


Why does Mandarin Chinese have a smaller inventory of unique syllables? From How languages compare with the number of different syllables from all words?, considering the 20,000 most frequent words in each language, Mandarin Chinese has 1274 different syllables (see also 3 and 4). Compared to other languages, such as English with 6949 different syllables or Spanish with 2778 syllables, it has a small number of different syllables.
This might be the reason why Chinese has many characters repeating phonemes and why I wondered Does Chinese require more context to avoid ambiguities than English?
What are the possible historical / linguistic reasons behind this? Is there some relationship with the writing system, as Mandarin Chinese uses characters?

From San Duanmu, The Phonology of Standard Chinese:

While Middle Chinese (about AD 600) had over 3,000 syllables (including tonal
distinctions), modern Standard Chinese (SC) has just over 1,300. Thus, over a period of 1,500 years, Chinese lost more than half of its syllables. Moreover, the syllable inventory of modern Chinese continues to shrink. In addition, about 200 of the 1,300 syllables in SC are now rarely used. From a functional point of view, what is happening in Chinese is quite counter-intuitive and mysterious: why is it that the high homophone density has not prevented syllable loss in SC or at least slowed it down? I suggest that there are two parts to the answer. In the first place, most lexical ambiguities are clarified by context. For example,
although sun and son are homophones in English, there is hardly any context
in which they would cause ambiguity. Therefore, homophone density
rarely impedes how people speak. Secondly, paradoxically, high homophone
density may in fact speed up syllable loss. Studies on frequency effects show that frequent words are more likely to undergo reduction than infrequent words (Bybee 2001). Because Chinese has fewer syllables than
English, Chinese syllables are used more frequently, and so they are more
likely to undergo reduction and loss of contrasts.

On the other side, the reason why there are so many homophone words in Mandarin is that it is a monosyllabic morpheme language, which means that every syllable corresponds to a character with a meaning—a word. Other languages like Japanese, might have a smaller number of different syllables but also less homophone words, as they do not require each syllable to be a word.


Is there a Chinese term for dramatic irony? In English, dramatic irony is when the readers'/audience's omniscience means they know something that the characters don't yet know.
Irony is 讽（諷）刺, but I'm not sure how "dramatic" might be translated in this context. Besides, if you translate each word individually, you'd end up with an overly literal translation. You could describe it as irony derived from the fact that the reader/audience has 上帝视（視）角 (omniscience), but that feels a bit awkward. Is there a term for this?

戏剧(性)
This is a good way to express dramatic in Chinese. Wiktionary has the following definitions:

1 (uncountable) drama; dramatic art; theater(performing art)
2 (countable) play; script of a play; piece of theater, work of theater (Classifier: 部 m; 齣／出 m)

Here's an except from an article on Zhihu:

最后聊聊Dramatic irony（戏剧讽刺），它是常用的文学、戏剧手法。指在某一情景中，观众对情况的把握多于剧中人，剧中人的无意识和观众的有意识之间构成张力。观众对这种张力所产生的喜剧或悲剧效果心领神会，讽刺效果就实现了。

There you can see the English along with the Chinese for dramatic irony.


Difference between 室友 and 同屋 I am very alarmed! At university, as far as I can remember, we learned 同屋 as “roommate” and 室友 as a synonym, particularly popular in southern China.

Now this site

claims that:

  同屋" usually refers to two people or a couple who live in the same house/bedroom and are most likely in a sexual relationship.

Is that true? I don’t want such misunderstandings to arise, possibly insulting people!!!

I live in north, we only use 室友, when I see your question, I have to check dictionary for 同屋( I have never heard of it) to make sure I know it right, cuz we can not rely on the literary meanings, for example 家里那人 refer to husband or wife, not any other family members.

You would better avoid 同屋, because that is a slang, they always have other meanings in different areas. For example 同一个屋檐下 usually refer to neighbors, relations but not rootmates.


What is equivalent of "分润"? In many trading system I can offen find a concept call "分润".
Is that a word in english equivalent to "分润" ?

Sort of.

The the generic 分润 just means "profit-sharing", which is also an easily understood, and similarly generic, English term. Alternatively, "a cut of the profit" would also be widely understood, but obviously that's not a single word.

You might also be able to use the English term "fee-splitting", if you're talking about sharing fees with a referrer for referring a client (typically, doctors or lawyers). In situations of a illegal connotation, the term "rake-off" could be used. Similarly, the term "kickback" could be used, but illegality/coercion tends to be implied with that as well.

If you insist on a single word, the generic profit sharing meaning has a word borrowed from French: tantième. I doubt it's a term with much currency in real life, however.


Names for forms of ancient poetry I am preparing an edition of Sappho in Chinese, and need to mention the various meters she used, because it is according to meter that the fragments are arranged. Do ancient forms of poetry like "Sapphic stanzas", "Alcaic stanzas", "Glyconians", "Asclepiads" and such have established Chinese names?

Sources: this short article, another blog post, and iChaCha.

Sapphic stanza = 萨福诗律 or 莎孚诗选
Alcaic = 阿尔凯
glyconic = 格莱坎诗体
asclepiad = 阿斯克莱皮亚底斯(诗体) [in most online dictionaries it simply gets described] or 阿斯克里皮亚底斯(诗体) [according to Wikipedia's article on the eponymous originator]

The Roman and Greek classics are of course very rarely studied in the Sinosphere (Japan's (Western) Classics probably being the most advanced). But there are some initiatives.


在。。。中 / 在。。。下 / 在。。。上 It is probably quite likely that someone has asked this question before, however the search function doesn't throw anything up and it is actually quite difficult to search for!

Simply put, I have noticed the sentence structures 在...中 / 在...下 / 在...上 and am not entirely sure what they mean， though I can limit their possible meanings from context. For example:

在中国和印度两个大国的努力下 must mean something like "due to" or "as a result of" or "in the process of" or "thanks to".

However, I don't know what it is precisely enough to do use it confidently myself. The same goes for 在...中 and 在...上.

If someone fancies giving a bit of an insight, it'd be much appreciated!

Hashamyim

As I understand them, they are used very similar to how you use them in English.

在．．．中 is like "during", "in the middle of", or just "in"

在．．．下 is like "under" ("Under the rule of...", "Under the stress of...", "Under the efforts of China and India...")

在．．．上 is like "on the..." ("On the merits of...", "On the basis of...")


What does this sentence mean? “千万比我不要更有格调！” 您好！Hello!
我是中文学习的初心者！：）I just started learning Chinese and yes, it is quite daunting haha.

我偶然发现此句子。“千万比我不要更有格调！”。（可能这个句子写的人不是中国人！）

我不明白意思的这句子。请帮助我明白！
多谢！

千万比我不要更有格调

The correct grammar is 千万不要比我更有格调 (absolutely don't be more stylish than me)

千万 - absolutely

不要 - don't

比我 - compare to me

更 - more

有格调 - stylish


What's the difference between voiced and "unaspirated" consonants and how can I check if I got it correct? I heard from somewhere that there are no voiced consonants in Mandarin. Wikipedia says that consonants like the pinyin "d", "b", "g" are "unaspirated", whatever that means...

Although my first language is Mandarin, I think I spoke too much in English and might have forgotten how do the "unaspirated" consonants sound. For example, I am not sure whether I am pronouncing the "unaspirated" pinyin "b" or the voiced consonant "b" in English when I say something like "不".

Wikipedia says that the pinyin "b" is the same as the p in the word "spy". But this didn't really help me understand "unaspirated" consonants. I have always been told that, in English, when "s" is followed by a "p", the "p" usually turns into a "b" sound. I always thought that the "p" in "spy" is the same as in the "b" in "but".

In addition, I can't seem to distinguish between voiced and "unaspirated" consonants by hearing. So I need another way to check if I pronounced it correctly.

What are the difference pronouncing a pinyin "b" and an English "b"? How can I check if I pronounced it correctly?

Voice-Onset Time

As you probably already know, the distinction between voiced vs unvoiced-unaspirated vs unvoiced-aspirated is the relative timing of articulation and voicing (called voice-onset time or VOT):

Voiced stops have a negative VOT (i.e., the voicing begins before articulation)
Unvoiced-unaspirated (sometimes called "lenis") stops have approximately zero VOT (i.e., voicing and articulation co-occur).
Unvoiced-aspirated stops have positive VOT (i.e., voicing begins after a delay relative to articulation).

In IPA, we use discrete symbols to indicate these distinctions (e.g., b/p/pʰ). Lumping VOT measurements into "negative", "zero", and "positive" is just a convenient simplification, though. In fact, there is a range of possible values that it can take on, and languages do, in fact, differ from one another in terms of how they realize "voicing" or "aspiration". However, any given language only distinguishes at most 3 stops on the basis of VOT alone**, so IPA (e.g., b/p/pʰ) is sufficient to describe things.

Measuring VOT

This is all great, but you say that you're learning Japanese (which has very negative VOT on its voiced stops), and as a speaker of Mandarin (zero VOT) and English (slightly negative VOT), you're not sure whether you're producing voiced or lenis stops. You can in fact measure VOT on an audio recording of yourself. Here's a tutorial on using praat to measure VOT on audio recordings.

If that sounds too complicated, you put your hand on your throat and feel when you produce voicing. To practice making voiced consonants having very negative VOT, try to keep your lips closed while starting vibrate your vocal chords. It's hard to do this very long, as your mouth starts to fill up with air, but it can help you see how it feels to begin voicing earlier than releasing a stop.

* It's probably even more complicated than that, but I'm going to assume that VoT is good enough to explain everything.

** Hindi "voiced aspirated stops" are breathy voiced, to respond to the obvious rebuttal.


Character Gaps On Comic Conversation : 3 Here is the work that I have done so far. Thank you for any help finding the missing characters (I don't need the translations, per se but just seeing a clear copy of the character would be helpful).

I have some problems with seeing some characters in this older copy of a book (the Chinese character is sometimes too dark to distinguish strokes and scanning doesn't help).

There are multiple questions because I want to show the work in context. I could break these up into smaller questions but that would not be helpful to other learners (learning conversation) and would unnecessarily clog the website.

  四十分鐘後會 (？) 火 (？)

  。。。。(？) 有半個人在

  Also not sure how to interpret the characters on the last panel

Here is what I have so far:
(Please let me know if anything is wrong)

  是誰在說話？
  (Who is talking?)

  快出來！
  (Come out!)

  好可怕！
  (Awful! How Scary!)

UPDATE

(Based on answers, please note the updates. Thanks for the help.)

  四十分鐘後會 (？) 火 (？) ➾ 四十分钟后会被火烤

  。。。。(？) 有半個人在  ➾ 没有半个人在

  Also not sure how to interpret the characters on the last panel  ➾ 咚卡咚 (appears to be sounds)

四十分钟后会被火烤 (it) will be roasted (by fire) in forty minutes

没有半个人在 there's not even half-a-person here!

咚卡咚 onomatopoeia (maybe like 'den den den' or whatever)

the only correction I would make is on your 好可怕！ (Awful!) I would translate this as how scary! instead...


Role/Grammar of 找 and 跟 in "他找白如玉跟他在師大附近走走"? 他找白如玉跟他在師大附近走走, 試試地圖好用不好用。

My book translates this as:

  He went to see Bai Ruyu and asked her to accompany him on a walk around NTNU to try out the map functions.

This is how my English brain is breaking the sentence down
[他找白如玉 - he looks for Bai Ruyu] (跟他 - with him) (在師大附近走走 - near shida walks)

Confused how "asked her" is included in the Chinese? Also confused how the three above parts link together logically.

他找白如玉跟他在師大附近走走, 試試地圖好用不好用。

让她(ask her) is implied in this sentence. So, it can be reworded:

  他找白如玉让她跟他在師大附近走走, 試試地圖好用不好用。

他找白如玉: he looks for 白如玉; 跟他: with him; 在師大附近: near/around shida; 走走: have a walk;

Put all pieces together:

  he looks for 白如玉 to/and ask her to have a walk with him around Shida.

You should be aware that sentence order between English and Chinese is quite different sometimes.

Hope this could help you out.


How come AFC Championship become a "洲际比赛” "洲际" literally means between continents or intercontinental, but AFC Championship is a competition staged by the Asian Football Confederation, the governing body of Asian football, with participating teams from within Asia, so it could be a continent-wise contest, but absolutely not an intercontinental championship.

But most of Chinese media, including CCTV, the national official broadcaster talked about the AFC Championship matches of Guangzhou Evergrande vs other Asian rivals as "洲际比赛". Would it be appropriate to introduce such games as "洲级比赛"?

Because the member countries are not just located in the Asian continent now.

The Asian Football Confederation includes Australia (Oceania) and the Oceanian island of Guam, a territory of the United States.

洲级比赛 is not very common.


一方面...另一方面 Can you use it with a positive and negative idea? A Chinese teacher once told me that you can only put two positive or two negative adjectives in this construction. Is this correct? So I couldn't say for example:

我哥哥一方面有名，另一方面不帅。

Many thanks!
G

Please go to this link:
https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_various_aspects_with_%22yi_fangmian%22

Thank you.


What's the Chinese word for "bare-metal" (computer programming)? Bare-Metal Programming

  Bare-metal programming is a term for programming that operates without various layers of abstraction or, as some experts describe it, "without an operating system supporting it."

Example:

A: I made a nice motor controller with a STM32 MCU.
B: Interesting, what OS did you use?
A: No OS, bare metal.

The informal Chinese word for this bare metal seems to be 裸奔.

Although this word is widely used and understood among the programming community, I find it hard to use on a more formal occasion.

Any suggestions?

Bare Metal could be tanslated as 裸金属 literally, but it doesn't make sense for Computer Science. I prefer to translate is as 裸机 (Bare machine).

Bare machine

  Bare machine (or bare metal), in computer parlance, means a computer
  without its operating system.

Example from youdao:

  A new remote boot technology based on IP storage area network was
  designed, and the core technology of it is the firmware protocol stack
  running under bare machine platform.

  设计了一种基于IP存储区域网络的远程引导技术，该技术的核心是运行在裸机下的固件协议栈。

From baidu:

  For example, you might choose to allow the results from the virtual
  machines to vary within 10 percent of the results from the bare metal
  control machine.

  例如，您可以选择允许来自虚拟机的结果与来自裸机控制机器的结果存在10%的偏差。


Which is better, 其他所有 or 所有其他？ 其他所有 or 所有其他，which word order is more natural and ”合乎中文的习惯” ？

For example, as in 其他所有内容 or 所有其他内容， 其他所有人 or 所有其他人， etc.

Both will be fine. They have a different emphasis and usage for the context.

When you say 其他所有, you are emphasizing "others" and 所有 isn't got special attention. The felling will be similar to "The guests today include faculty members from the math department, physics department, and all other departments from south campus".

When you say 所有其他, you have a special emphasizing of "all". It's like "Every person leave, please. EVERY one."


Is this a correct usage of "來日方長"? I want to say:

  You still have a long way to go, wish you have a memorable secondary school career

And here's my translation to Chinese:

  來日方長, 希望你有個難忘的中學生涯

I'm wondering if it is correct to use 來日方長 here?

It's based on your intention. 来日方长 usually used for the two situations, if you want to tell sb that

There's still time to do sth
Need not to hurry in doing sth now

现代汉语词典（第五版）：未来的日还很长，表示事有可为，或劝人不必急于做某事。


Confusion when words are combined Hello I have been learning Mandarin for only a few weeks, although an issue has been bugging me.

It concerns combining words together to make a sentence.

For example I have heard that a correct sentence is:

我有一个会

However I have learned that the correct word for 'meeting' is:

会议

So why has the 议 been dropped? Am I allowed to say this?:

我有一个会议

It seems that characters get dropped all the time in sentences:

浸泡 gets changed to 泡 in sentences

货物 get changed to 货 in sentences

兔子 gets changed to 兔 in sentences

I obviously realise that context is very important in Mandarin. I could not go up to my friend and ask what does '兔 tu' mean, in the same way that I could ask what does '兔子 tuzi' mean.

But why not just use 兔子 in all sentences. It is only one extra syllable! Has it just been dropped to be said quicker? Am I allowed to not drop it?

Could I say: 今年是兔子年 instead of the standard 今年是兔年 ?

I just find it a little confusing as I need to learn the standard word (usually two characters) and then learn how to use it in combination (drop one character).

Sorry if this sounds like a stupid question! I have only been learning for a few weeks.

In addition to what @Sweeper has mentioned: there is a natural tendency in Chinese to minimize the number of characters in compound words, e.g. 北京大学 becomes just 北大 in colloquial language. This is akin to abbreviations in other languages, e.g. California Institute of Technology vs. Caltech. But this point is only distantly related to your question.

To focus more on your exact question, you need to understand that 子 in 兔子 is just a "suffix" that you can use to build a myriad of things, like 勺子，筷子，儿子，包子 and so on. In itself 子 has a very abstract meaning and therefore you omit 子 in 兔子 when you build a compound like 兔年. The 兔 character already carries the proper meaning in itself alone, so there is no need for a redundant extra character. If I say that 子 is "redundant", you might as why on earth do we just use 兔子 instead of 兔. The reason is that modern Mandarin has a comparatively low number of possible syllables to work with, and therefore a huge number of homophone words, which make mutual understanding in oral communication quite hard sometimes. To solve this problem, modern Mandarin combines characters, in many cases of identical meaning, to build words that point to "simple" things like 街道 (street), 浸泡, 货物 are other examples of this. In other cases, it will use 子，儿 (erhua final 'r') or 头 like in 花儿 (flower) or 石头 ([a piece of] stone). In yet other cases a "prefix" like 老 as in 老师 or 老虎 will come in handy, or repeating the character, e.g. 哥哥.

But as soon as these two-syllable, "simple" words are combined with other ones, things start to get "economical", i.e. omit characters you don't need to express compound things. This is why we say 兔肉 instead of *兔子肉, 虎爪 (tiger claw) instead of *老虎爪, 大哥 (elder/st brother) instead of *大哥哥. The three character variants are just too long, the two character ones express the same meaning, and are therefore preferred.

You might now ask, if you can omit according to you own judging and sense. The answer is rather no. You really need to learn these things as vocabulary items, because you can shorten 火车站 to 车站 [which could refer to a railway station among others] but you cannot shorten 地铁站 to 铁站 or 地站. In this case all the two characters of 地铁 are need to express "subway", so omitting characters does not apply here. On the other hand 港口 (harbor, port) becomes just 港 in compounds like 港水 (harbor water) or 海港 (sea port) and not 港口水 or 海港口.

UPDATE: OK, 铁站 or 地站 might work in some cases, especially when they are part of another compound expression, but 地铁站 sounds more standard.


Pronouncing pinyin "c" in Shanxi dialect I had thought I knew how to pronounce pinyin "c," like the English "ts" in "cats." But on a trip to Shanxi it seemed like most of my friends were pronouncing it like pinyin "ch."  Village names ending in pinyin "cun" seemed to be pronounced as if they had "chun."  Chinese "蔬菜" (shucai) seemed to be pronounced "shuchai."

Was it just my bad ears?

Your pronunciation is correct.

This is a common mis-pronunciation in many places in China, not just Shanxi. In fact, this is so common that nearly every modern Chinese input software supports so called "模糊音"（ambiguous pronunciation). The user can config if this function is enabled. Here's a screenshot of the config in Google Pinyin software:

As you can see, there are more than just "c" and "ch".

This is actually also a problem in China. It's a common topic in the many exams of Chinese language. The national exam for entrance to university used to have questions on this every year.


What does it mean when there are 2 verbs next to each other in a sentence? I came across this sentence "我喜欢说话" today and I'm sort of confused as to how this works. I dug around a bit and on all set learning they say that 2 verb phrases can come right after one another, but then, why can't a I put a 着 in between the 喜欢 and 说话? To furthermore add to my confusion, one of the example sentences on the all set learning site said "她 喜欢 站 着 吃饭 ", which I kinda understand as "She likes to eat while standing up", but then why can't I again, but a  着 inbetween? Another example is the sentence "我忘说了", but don't I need to have a verb phrase as opposed to just 2 verbs put together? Any help would be much appreciated

1. V1+V2
Chinese permits placing verbs immediately next to one another. In fact this is observed when there are more than two verbs, especially if some of them are auxiliary in nature (e.g. 去, 來).

(1.1) 去 幫忙 做 家務 吧。 Go help do chores.
(1.2) 我 答應 來 幫忙 做 家務。 I promised to come help do chores.

are all grammatical.
2. V+着 as a verb
Only some verbs can have 着 added after them, as 着 suggests a continuous action. So in

(2.1a) *我喜歡着說話。 *I am liking to speak.
(2.2a) *我喜歡說着話。 *I like to be speaking.
(2.3) 我喜歡說話。 I like to speak.

sentences (2.1a) and (2.2a) sound weird, even in English. In a way the continuous tense is unnecessary when indicating general likings and interests. However, that is not to say 喜歡着 and 說着話 are ungrammatical. Using them really depends on the context:

(2.1b) 我一直喜歡着你。 I have always liked you.
(2.2b) 他邊說着話，邊跳着舞。 He is speaking as he is dancing.

We can appreciate the speaker in sentence (2.1b) has liked the listener for quite some time already, from the past all the way to the present. And in sentence (2.2b), both actions are occurring continuously and simultaneously.
3. V+着 as an adverb
In the example

(3.1) 她喜歡站着吃飯。 She likes to eat while standing

站着 can be seen, in a way, as adverbial on the verb 吃, specifying the way she eats. The continuous tense is used because all the while she ate, she was standing. Other examples include

(3.2) 先放着不管那件事。 As of now, leave that matter alone and let it be.

It is hard to translate sentence (3.2) literally into English, but similarly, the verb 放 'to place', together with 着, functions as if it is adverbial on the verb 不管 'to not care', meaning 'to not care about it while placing it there'.
4. On 忘

(4.1) 我忘說了。
(4.2) 我忘記說了。
(4.3) 我忘了說。

There is some awkwardness in sentence (4.1), but it is not ungrammatical (meaning the rule V1+V2 still stands). A better way to phrase it would be using the compound verb 忘記, as shown in sentence (4.2). The awkwardness exists perhaps because 忘 is, in a sense, akin to classical Chinese. Sentence (4.3) is less awkward than (4.1) because 忘 is not used alone, but together with the suffix 了. Other similar compounding include: 忘掉 and 忘卻.


What does the inital /dⁿ/ stand for? While answering @Qiangong2's question here: Are Characters customized in different provinces due to dialectal differences? I was looking through the table on 四川方言字.
On the table the following initial keeps showing up:

/dⁿ/

For instance here is one single entry:

 | nang¹ | dⁿaŋ˥ | 形 | 瘦小、弱小

The entry for this word in《成都话方言词典》is notated as:

 [Ĩaŋ⁵⁵] 身体瘦小

《现代汉语方言音库 • 成都话音档》writes it as:

 naŋ⁵⁵ 瘦小

I've seen both /n/ and /Ĩ/ as an initial, I have a preference of the two, but I have never come across /dⁿ/. I'm guessing that a simplified writing of /dⁿ/ would be: d‘, but how d‘ sounds anything like /n/ or /Ĩ/ is beyond me.
Ideas?

It's the IPA diacritic for the nasal release from a stopped consonant:
Quoting right from that Wikipedia page:

That is, the /d/ is released directly into the /n/: [ˈsʌdⁿn̩].

Where [ˈsʌdⁿn̩] is the IPA transcription of the English word "sudden", where the blocked air flow from the articulation of /d/ is released through the nose (you should feel it vibrating in your pharynx).
For those who don't have the font installed, I believe the character in the OP is:


What Does '技能技术' Mean? Can you please tell me how to translate "提高技能技术".

Both "技能" and "技术" seem to mean skill, but "技术" also means technology.

From http://wiki.mbalib.com/wiki/%E6%8A%80%E6%9C%AF%E6%8A%80%E8%83%BD , "技術技能" means "technical skill" (.... a typical example of piecemeal translation ....).  "技術" is commonly used as an attributive noun, e.g. "技術人員" (technical staff) and "技術支援" (technical support)

On the other hand, "技術" is seldom used as an attributive noun.

Hence, there are two possibilities:

1) "技能技術" is "技能和技術" with "和" omitted.  Thus, we can translate it as "techniques and skills".

2) It is a typo of "技術技能".  In such case, we should translate it as "technical skills".


What is the verbatim (grammatical) meaning of 不了了之? 不了了之 is a ChengYu, read as bu4 liao3 liao3 zhi1 its figurative meaning is "to let sth. in its original state". I guess the ChengYu had some concrete verbatim meaning in literary Chinese, but I do not understand it.

If I tried anyway to disclose its verbatim meaning, I would translate it into "if it is not considered as finished, finish it" and by conclusion "If it is considered as finishd, do not finish it",
 wherein

了 = to finish
不了 = to not finish, used as noun of the putative form
了之 = finish it
conditional not explicitly written.

(IF)不了-nominalized putative-(THEN)了之 - verb,object pronoun

But actually, this is only a shot in the dark and could be even false grammatical understanding.

Your understanding for 不了 and 了之, respectively, are accurate. The key to your question is the relationship between the two parts.

In classical Chinese, omission of conjunctions is a very common thing, which brings beauty and ambiguity at the same time. In most cases it's intentionally left blank for the reader to interpret. There is no single correct answer. Even with the presence of a conjunction (e.g. 而), it could be just a syntactical tool without nailing down the logical relationship between two clauses. I believe this is the case in 不了了之. The most natural conjunction, if to insert, is 而 i.e. 不了而了之, however it is still unclear whether that's an 'and' or a 'but' or anything else.

One thing clear though is it's definitely not a strong causation (e.g. 'if-then'). But it could really be anything depending on the context from weak causation, adverseness/comparison, concession to simple time continuation. Some possible translations:

Ending without finishing.
There is no resolution but it's ended.
Settle by leaving unsettled.
Although it's not resolved, leave it be.


Is Autumn being referred to by the female pronoun 她? Is this normal? This is from my 3-rd grade 语文 book (there's a version here):

  现在正是金秋时节。我们已经看到了她缤纷的色彩， 听见了她美妙的声音，分享了她带给我们的欢乐。

I translate this to:

  It's currently Golden Autumn.  We already see her diverse (缤纷的) colors (色彩), heard her wonderful (美妙的) sounds (声音), [and] shared (分享了) the joy (欢乐) she provides us (带给我们的).

I think I've managed to understand it correctly, but it looks like "Golden Autumn" (金秋时节) is being referred to using the female pronoun 她 (instead of "it" 它), perhaps for poetic reasons, or perhaps this is normal.  I just want to check this.

Question: Is Autumn being referred to by the female pronoun 她?  Is this normal?

Yes, It is a very common way to refer something to pronoun 她 in Chinese, commonly known as personification. In such a way, the author can strengthen his/her feelings about autumn. There are also many similar cases: such as 长江/黄河/故乡(Yangzi River/Yellow River/hometown) can often be referred to 她 as well.


In 那个是我工作上的东西, what is the difference between 工作上 and 工作? 那个是我工作上的东西

Why is there a 上 in this sentence? How does it change the meaning? Ie, what's the difference between 工作的东西 and 工作上的东西? When should 工作上 be used as opposed to 工作?

上 here means about（相关）.

Try to understand it like this: 那个是我工作相关的东西

If you omit 上, it'd be understand as the item used for work rather than about.

那个是我工作的东西 sounds a bit like 那个是我工作用的东西.

Anyway, both are rarely spoken for native Mandarin speakers. You'd better provide more context.


In spoken Mandarin, what adjectives can be used to complement a person's appearance? In spoken Mandarin Chinese what adjectives can be used to complement a person's appearance?

I can think of a couple off the top of my head:

美丽 - Měilì - Beautiful
可爱 - Kě'ài - Cute
性感 - Xìnggǎn - Sexy

I've been looking around but having trouble finding any information relating to this subject

Assuming a pre-existing close relationship with the person you're complimenting, what compliments would be used in a informal setting?

Question updated to be more concise, also declaring "pre-existing close relationship" as someone you have known for a period greater then 6 months whom you're comfortable speaking freely around

Some other words are:

  漂亮 (piàoliang)
  秀丽 (xiùlì)
  姣好 (jiāohǎo)
  俏丽 (qiàolì)
  标致 (biāozhì)
  文雅 (wényǎ)

The adjectives you came about and the words above often used for females. By the way it's sometimes impolite to describe a girl as 性感。


What does 到达境外经转局 mean? I’m expecting a package from China and tracking shows the last comment as 到达境外经转局

Any help with this translation?

到达 = arrive

境外 = abroad

经转局 =  processing/ transit center

到达境外经转局 = Arrived at processing center abroad (The package is currently in a  processing center in your country awaiting transit )


How to say, "Did you hold your cellphone close to your face?" in Cantonese? As the question states, how do you say, "Did you hold your cellphone close to your face?" in Cantonese?

I suppose that you mean "Were you holding your phone to your ear?" Then you can say "你 lik 住部手机来打啊？" I don't know the character for "lik", which means "to hold".


Are 无期 and 无限期 same? As you know, when you say 无期徒刑, that means it is a lifetime prisonment or the term is limitless until your death, but recently the news said a Chinese singer claimed that he would 无限期 stay out of career due to his wife getting videoed having an affair with a male model, but two or three months later, he resumed his singing career at the jeer of fans, who thought he broke his promise.

Are they the same?

无期 (without time limit) in '无期徒刑' is short for '无限期' . However, the term '无期徒刑' itself is a common set phrase for 'life sentence' . Therefore '无限期徒刑' is considered incorrect phrasing of "life-sentence' , although it is not grammatically incorrect. ('无限期' as an adjectival phrase that modifies the noun '徒刑')

无限期 (without time limit) is a phrase made up of 无 (without) and 限期 (time limit).

When used as an adjective, it requires an adjective marker '的' as in '无限期的徒刑' (jail sentence that without a time limit)
When used as an adverb, it requires an adverb marker '地' - as in '无限期地監禁' (indefinitely imprison)
'无限期' can also be an adverbial phrase, and modifies a verb without marker, as in '无限期罢工'

无期 (never) in '會再无期'(no date/ never to meet again) is an adverb


What is the function of 了 in the sentence 我最怕去西单了? Received this in a text from a Chinese friend. I want to say that "了" here is not part of the verb phrase but instead just an emphatic particle, same as if you said something like "我最怕蜘蛛了"。Then again, that's not something I would ever think to produce, it just sounds more normal that way to me. Does anyone have a more authoritative answer?

In a phrase with this construct:

  可/太/最 + [adjective/adverb/stative verb] + 了

了 serves as a modal article (rather than tense particle) to express emphasis and is optional.

Reference: http://cdmd.cnki.com.cn/Article/CDMD-10475-1012379314.htm


Macau Cantonese, any differences from HK? Does anyone know how Cantonese from Macau differ from HK if there are any? Any slangs or terms used in Macanese Cantonese that is rarely used or heard in HK? Maybe some sinicised portuguese words? What about phonology? Closer to a little bit oldfashioned "classical" Guangzhou pronunciation or to those in HK? Or maybe even some minor differencees in grammar?
Thank you!

P.S. Sorry for my English. My native language is not English nor Cantonese or Mandarin. Thank again :)

A quick browse on Google Scholar yields a few results. Macau Cantonese appears to be intermediate between Zhongshan Cantonese and Hong Kong Cantonese.

There is only one rising tone derived from Middle Chinese 上聲, which is pronounced closer to the lower one of Guangzhou and Hong Kong Cantonese. This brings it closer to Zhongshan Cantonese.
However, this high rising tone re-appears in changed tone even in the Macau version of Cantonese, so the number of contrastive tones remains 6.
There is no longer the distinction between the high falling and high level tones, much like Hong Kong Cantonese but different from Guangzhou Cantonese.
Similar to across the Yuehai region, /l/ is replacing /n/ as an initial.
There is the loss of the w-glide after k- and g- and before -o-, like Hong Kong, although that is meant to have started very early. It is already complete in Zhongshan-Shiyi.
This paper (in Chinese) points to a difference in the long monophthongs between Macau, Hong Kong and Guangzhou. But there's little indication of how the non-cardinal vowels are different betwee the three.

There is meant to be a few sentence-final particles which are particularly well-used in Macau:

The sentence-final particle mo4 is stated as being "rarely attested in Hong Kong Cantonese..." but "fairly common in Macau Cantonese, especially among older speakers", and is described as a less intense version of 咩 me1.
I can't access this 2013 paper, but it seems to deal specifically with Macau Cantonese's particles.

Finally this 2010 review summarises research on Macao's evolving linguistic situation. It does mention something about the slight influence of Portuguese in loanwords, and the difference in the way English loanwords are employed in Macao vs HK media.


What software can detect the parts of speech of written text? What software or online tools can detect the parts of speech in a piece of written text (e.g. to predict if a word is a verb, adjective, etc.)?

There is a web demo system called ICTCLAS (Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Lexical Analysis System). It was developed by the Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Science.

There is also a web demo system from THULAS (Tsinghua University - Lexical Analyzer for Chinese), which was developed by the Nature Language Processing Group, Tsinghua University.

NOTE: I don't know (and I cannot test) whether these site can be accessed freely across the world.
NOTE2: As with any software language tool, take the results with a grain of salt, they aren't perfect.


Neutral Terms for "White People" This is always a difficult topic because racial and ethnic identities are so complex, sensitive, and dynamic: what are the best (as in the most precise and neutral) terms for "White" people?  I've heard terms like 老外, 洋人, and 鬼佬.  Do Chinese also say 白人?  More precisely, I'd like to know any terms that could be used for anyone that self-identifies as "White" (could have origins in Europe, North Africa, West Asia, or any of their former colonies like here in America).  Many East Asians have skin that is as light as any European's; would they ever self-identify with a term that could be translated as "White"?

My closer Chinese friends do use the terms 白人 and 白种人 neutrally in the same way we use "white people", but by and large I find Chinese people avoid these terms, and are set slightly on edge when I drop them casually into conversation. One friend told me she doesn't use 白人 because "听起来有种族歧视，不是吗?". Instead she and other Chinese usually use "美国人/法国人/英国人 etc." to indicate whiteness, but of course this can lead to some politically incorrect statements：

A: “你的朋友是华裔吗?” ("Is your friend ethnically Chinese?")
B: “不，她是美国人.” ("No, she's American.") [actually she's both]

Or this one:

B: “是不是美国人和黑人之间发生过很多冲突?” ("There have been many conflicts between Americans and black people, right?") [as if the two are separate groups]

In both examples, I'm fairly certain that the speaker is using "美国人" to mean "白人". Most Americans would take offense at this definition, because it subtly implies that non-whites are not true Americans, even if the speaker didn't mean it that way. Ironically, it is the avoidance of the term "白人", not its use, that causes the political incorrectness.

So, to answer your question, I think "白人" or "白种人" actually is the most neutral term possible for "white people", despite the fact that it seems to make most Chinese people slightly uncomfortable. Neutrality aside, 老外, 洋人, and 鬼佬 all refer to all Westerners, not just whites. And I don't think any Chinese people would self-identify as "白人" because of their skin color, except jokingly.


What is the proper pronunciation of 等等？ Is 等等 pronounced:

deng2deng0 (2nd tone and neutral) like 老子、孔子

OR

deng3 deng0 (3rd tone and neutral) like 椅子、法子

It's pronounced

deng2deng3

as in the typical tonal sandhi of two consecutive 3rd tones, like 老板 (lao2ban3).
However I wouldn't outright exclude your first suggestion deng2deng0, as it might be pronounced like that in fast speech, or in the middle of a sentence.


How to translate "web-project" into Chinese? "web-project" is an idea of complete service on the web, e.g.: some news site, personal website, facebook, twitter...

For 'web' is most likely '网络' should be used.

The problem is 'project'
'计划' does not suit, cause it sounds more like 'organization of network, network configuration.

'工程' makes the phrase as a name of specialization 'Network Engineering'.

Any right ideas, please?

Perhaps you can use 项目. And for web I don't know I think 网络 sounds more like networks/internet.


Was Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字 originally written in the seal script 小篆? Modern editions of Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字 use seal characters 小篆 only in the headwords. This is also the case with editions published a few hundred years ago. Was the whole original 121 edition of Shuowen written in seal characters, or was the main text written in the clerical script 隸書?

Baidu Baike says "《说文解字》是首部按部首编排的汉语字典。原书作于汉和帝永元十二年（100年）到安帝建光元年（121年），现已失传，传至今日的大多是宋朝版本，或是清朝的段玉裁注释本。原文以小篆书写，逐字解释字体来源．全书共分540个部首．收字9353个．另有“重文”（即异体字）1163个．共10516字。《说文解字》是科学文字学和文献语言学的奠基之作，在中国语言学史上有极其重要的地位。"

But I can't guarantee it is true.


The word "why": what's the difference between 为什么 and 怎么? In Mandarin, usually 为什么 is used to express "why". Sometimes 怎么 is also used to mean the same thing.

What makes them different? Most grammar books I beleive introduce 为什么, but I feel many Chinese use 怎么 on WeChat. Since 怎么 also means "what" or "how", sometimes I got stuck to understand what it means on a context.

Also, is there any other words to mean "why", except them and 为何 (which is the same as 为什么 but literary, right?) and 为啥...?

什么 = what

怎= how

怎么 = how / how is that (how come)

为什么 = for what = why

为什 is short form of 为什么

为何 is the literary form of 为什么

何故 or 何以 is the literary form of 什么原因 or 什么导致 (for what reason = why)

Examples:

"什么我不能去？" = "What? I can't go?" or "what (you mean) I can't go"
"怎么我不能去?" = "How is that I can't go?" or " how (come) I can't go?"
"为什么我不能去?" = "For what (reason) I can't go?" or " why I can't go"

Basically 为什么 (why) emphasizes the reason itself ; 怎么(how is that) emphasizes 'in what manner' or 'with what method'  the cause exist


躺着 can be used for persons laying on an object. What can we use for an object laying on another object? ...着? What verb can one use to describe an object laying on another object.
I know that one can use 躺着 for a person laying on/in a bed... what about an object laying, for example, on the table? ...着
I assume one could say 放着, are there alternative options?

Assume you have a piece of paper.
Now you if put a pencil on the paper, you can say: 把一支笔放在纸上。As you've already known, 放 just means "put", so there is a wide range of usage.
If you put a stone on the paper to avoid your paper being blown away. You may want to emphasize the weight that the stone put on the paper, you can say: 把一块石头压在纸上。
If you put another piece of paper on the paper, you can say: 把一张纸叠在另一张纸上。You usually 叠 something similar together. say, 把桌子上的纸叠到一起，把书叠整齐，etc... Usually they are thin stuff, but there is an exception, that we call human pyramid as 叠罗汉 (罗汉 means people here)。
If you put something on the paper (e.g. a hat), and want no body see what you write on the paper. You can say, 把帽子盖在纸上。
If you put the paper on water, the paper floats on the water. Then you can say, 纸漂在水面上。If you want to emphasize that, its density is low, so that if you put it down to water, it can come back to the surface. Then you may say, a rubber duck 浮在水面上。
Other cases may depends on what the action look like, then you choose a corresponding verb: 衣服挂在衣架上，气球悬在屋顶上，刀子架在脖子上 etc.
You can use all of them with "着"：纸上放着笔，压着石头，叠着书，盖着帽子，supprisingly with all these stuff, 它还在水面上浮着。


A song called "Lu Hua" I recently heard a live performance of an amazing song by a Chinese woman in the United States. She said the title of the song is "Lu Hua", and I was able to find a version on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywgm4BeoR8c

Can anyone tell me more about this song? Like what it means, who the original artist is, and if there is a high-quality soundtrack available anywhere (like Spotify).

芦花 is the correct song name. 崔晓琳 is the original artist, but the artist 雷佳 version is more popular.
You can listen it here: https://y.qq.com/n/yqq/song/000lL1ly0LYiE6.html.


When to use 相比 and 比? I'm not sure to get the difference. If the two following sentences are correct, when should I use one over the other?

相比:

  和打羽毛球相比我更喜欢打网球。

比:

  我羽毛球比网球更喜欢打。

It's quite easy to distinguish.

First is the conclusion:

"相比" in Chinese equals to "compare with" in English.It's usually a common verb.

"比" in Chinese equals to "more than" or "xxxer than" in English.It's usually a comparative form.

Their usages are quite different.

For example:

  you can use "比" like "我比你高。(I'm taller than you.)" and "相比" like
  "农村的文化生活无法与大城市相比。(The cultural life in the country cannot compare with
  that of a large city.)".

Hope my answer helps you.


Talking about things in the past - 曾经， 从前，以前 So, I am trying to establish the difference between these words and when you would use one over the other. Here are a few things that I have established so far:

only 以前 can be used with a period of time (e.g. 一个星期以前)
they can all be used colloquially, but 曾经 sounds more formal than 以前

And that is about as far as I have got...

I suppose my main question is when to use 从前 and when to use 曾经
Any insight is greatly appreciated!

I would like to modify mbjb's answer about 曾经.
曾经 should be translated as once instead.
“我曾经吃过” should mean "I have once eaten" ("I have eaten before" is correct as well, but to distinguish the differences, once is more accurate)
Although similar, 曾经 and 以前 are not interchangeable. Take a look at the following sentence:
"我以前经常来这操场玩，而且曾经在这里摔倒。"
I often come to this playground to play in the past, I also fell down here once.
You cannot switch the 曾经 to 以前 here, it cannot give the meaning of "once".
以前 and 曾经 can actually be used together as well!
"我以前曾经在这里摔倒。"
I have fell down here once before
I am sorry that I don't have enough reputation so I cannot comment.


What mental imagery does 如麻 invoke? People use the idiom 杀人如麻 all the time but hemp is no longer a familiar scene to most people, and I doubt anyone ever saw a hemp in his whole life. Exactly what mental imagery is 麻 supposed to invoke?

in literatures of yore, the term "殺人如*" has several variations.

in 陳拾遺集卷九

  殺人如麻﹒血流成澤

in 太白詩　白馬篇

  殺人如剪草

in 建炎以來繫年要錄　卷四

  殺人如刈麻﹒臭聞數百里

i would make a mental image of "殺人如麻" as "killing people like mowing hemps". such metaphor would be:

sickle - the sword, knife

mowing - killing (people) without considerations, massively

when mowing hemps, or grasses, no one spend time to examine particular grass, appreciate it's beauty; or consider the rationale of mowing.

hemps - life is worthless, without value

well, in mowing, one would consider cutting / clearing as many hemps / grasses as possible, with minimum efforts.


“Are you up to the challenge? “ phrase Let’s say I want to ask someone if he is up to the task (swimming in freezing temperature, climb the mountain, etc.)
Google Translate gives this 你准备好挑战了吗？ Is this correct?

挑战 is more verb than noun in Chinese. So 你准备好挑战了吗 sounds like "are you ready to challenge others?" If you want to enforce 挑战 to be a noun, you can add a verb before it, also to indicate the direction, saying 你准备好 接受 挑战了吗


When did the meaning of shi 是 shift from »this« (此) to being a copula (»be«)? I know this question is somewhat unclear since the word shi 是 never only meant this, but carries (and has done so for a long time) several meanings.
The Gu Hanyu da cidian (via Pleco) lists some of them (not a direct quote; the numbers denote the century of the sources that the example sentences were taken from):

  正確(5)；訂正(3)；以爲是(-4)；表示肯定或加強肯定之詞(-3) etc.

But very generally speaking, shi was used in the language of the Lunyu (which I call here Classical Chinese) to denote »this« rather than any of its other meanings.

But when did shi start to mainly have the meaning as a copula that it has today, to be, as in »She is a student«, »Those are books«?

A quote from the 2017 paper "Some New Insight into the Historical Source of the Chinese Copula Shì/*deʔ 是 ":

  Wang (1937) claims that there was no genuine copula in the Chinese language until the emergence of the copula shì / *deʔ 是 around the 5th century — a dating he later modified to the 1st century (Wang 1958) — evolving from the demonstrative shì.

That is the general consensus, and this idea has been established for the best part of 80 years.

However, there is the statement that:

  [S]ome later studies, especially those based on excavated materials (Qiu 1979; Tang 1991), argue that the copular use of shì starts from the Warring States period (475–221 BCE).

Li and Thompson (1977) is the classic source for citing this well-trodden pathway cross-linguistically:

  TOPIC - COMMENT > SUBJECT - PREDICATE

  [NP1] - [DEM] [NP2] > [NP1 COPULA NP2]

The 2017 paper quoted says that 是 was always somewhat atypical as a demonstrative, always having had anaphoric reference.


Is this Chinese sentence grammatical? I'm unsure about a few words and phrases I've been trying to translate this sentence but there are a few points I'm puzzled on:

市场调查部就最近为针对Quest公司在市场策略上对'以客户为主以雇员为本'所作出的调整而拟定的方案发表了分内整和外扩的两个方面的建议，其目的为促使本公司在相应策略上能够与时并进，从而得到市场竞争力的提升.

This is the best I've been able to translate myself:
The market research department, regarding Quest Company's newest market strategy, the produced 'Customer First and Employee-Based,' adjusted and drafted plan, has issued a double-aspect suggestion of [.....] and outward expansion, the aim of which is to impel the company's coordinating strategy to keep up with the times, and as a result can attain a rise in market competitiveness.

Four questions I have on certain words and phrases in the original Chinese:

What does '就' mean here?
What does '为针对' mean?
What does '分内整' mean?  (Something about doing one's part?)
What does '其目的为促使本公司在相应策略上能够与时并进' mean?

Thank you very much for your help, if you are able to help me.
--Rachel

Okay .... [takes a deep breath]
就 in regard to the
BLANK1
方案 plan,
市场调查部 the Marketing Survey Department
发表了 presented their
BLANK2
建议， suggestions;
其目的为  the goal of their suggestions is
促使 to ensure that
本公司 THE COMPANY,
在相应策略上, as far as the relevant strategies are concerned
能够 is able to
与时并进， keep pace with the times
从而 and thus
提升 市场上的竞争力 increase their competitiveness in the market
BLANK 1 describes a plan which was
最近 recently
拟定 formulated
为 in order to
针对 take account of
所作出的调整 the adjustments made
在市场策略上 to marketing strategies
of/by Quest公司,
对' specificially --
以客户为主 customers as the key
以雇员为本' employees as the base,
的方案 THAT plan.
BLANK 2 describes how the suggestion includes
分 dividing the plan into
两个方面的 two parts:
内整 internal consolidation
和 and
外扩 external expansion
In answer to the other parts of the question:

Is the sentence grammatical?

This sentence should be taken outside and shot.

What does 就 mean here?

Acc. to the 教育部國語辭典 就 here is a preposition (coverb) that means: 依照。 如：「就事論事」、「就原來的規畫加以調整。」 I often translate as in regard to; this is an old habit, but surely other translations (based on?) would work too.

What does 為針對 mean here?

為 is a coverb that means in order to, 針對 is verbish creature that means to direct toward, to take into consideration. 國語辭典 gives a nice example: 「為了節省時間，請大家儘量針對問題來討論。」

What does '分内整' mean?

You've divided it wrong, its 分 | 内整 和 外扩 (两个方面)

What does '其目的为促使本公司在相应策略上能够与时并进' mean?

hopefully looking at the literal translation above will help answer


What does 了 mean in ...这份工作让我认识到了团队合作的重要? Is it a verb? A past tense maker? Which is its function of 了 in this sentence?

  曾在新西兰Burger King做过汉堡，当过收银员。这份工作让我认识到了团队合作的重要

"verb + 了" is used to emphasize the completion of the action.

So "认识到了" means "I have realized".


What does 拜 mean in 拜在俄做生意的中国有钱人所赐，他们的入境手续都不合法? In the following sentence over 知乎:

  最后，特别特别重要的提示！！！出门的时候记得带上护照，遇到警察，在他没有发现你之前躲开他！俄罗斯的警察待遇非常低，所以几乎90%的警察都会勒索外国人，尤其是中国人（拜在俄做生意的中国有钱人所赐，他们的入境手续都不合法，所以一查就给钱，一查就给钱，一来二去警察都知道中国人好给钱了），当然如果你懂语言且签证合法的话，也可以和他们沟通，一般遇到这样的，警察也不敢太过分，但总而言之还是躲着他们好。

According to Pleco, I found out that 拜 can work as the following:

  POLITE [used before a verb to show respect]

That might make sense in this context. But I have never seen that kind of usage of 拜 and I'm not sure if it is correct.

Or does 拜 here mean anything others?

拜X所賜, Y is a standard expression which means Y happens, thanks to X or if it weren't for X, Y wouldn't have happened. It may also carry all the sarcasm or irony contained in the English version. If you want to decompose the structure, it literally means acknowledging the bestowed/conferred upon X, this causes Y.

拜在俄做生意的中國有錢人所賜，他們的入境手續都不合法，所以一查就給錢，一查就給錢，一來二去警察都知道中國人好給錢了
Thanks to the wealthy Chinese people doing business in Russia, who enter the country without following proper procedures and underhandedly pay the inspection/police officers every time they get checked, all the police officers [who are inside this shady bribery business] now know [or more logically, are now under the impression] that Chinese people love giving bribes.


Gaoxing (高兴) vs. Kaixin (开心) A few of the translation apps I use show both to mean happy.  Are these synonyms or is there a deeper level for one, like joy might be considered deeper than happy?

高 = highly; 兴= delighted
高兴 = happy; glad; delighted
describe a  emotional state of being delighted

~

开= open; 心 = heart
开心 = happy; joyful
metaphorically describe an effect of being happy

Both 高兴  and 开心 means 'happy', but with different emphasis.
For example, if you are glad that you didn't get killed in a car accident, you can say: "我很高興我還活著" (I am glad that I am still alive), but you wouldn't say: "我很開心我還活著" (I am joyful that I am still alive)
Another example,  We use 我很高興見到你 (I am glad to see you) as a polite greeting, but "見到你我很開心" (seeing you make me happy) would be a more passionate expression.

开心 is also more personal, e.g. "今天是我最开心的一天" is more natural than "今天是我最高興的一天"

Another word for 'happy:
快 = satisfactory; 樂 = delight
快樂 = happy/ joyful/ cheerful (describe a joyful emotional state). It can be a noun or an adjective


How do you say "representative" as in Student Council Representative I"m trying to figure out the best way to translate "representative" as in a "representative in government". In Taiwan people say 班代, but that doesn't seem like it would translate into other student council's where you aren'ts necessarily voted as a class representative, but rather as a rep as a whole.

Thanks!

In general,"representative " rather as a rep,but he(or she)is recommended(or be voted) by the people(as you say,by the members of the council). However,sometimes,if the student council is from an organization ,like 'student union','representative 'is the leader or  he is in charge of the organization .


The synonyms of '雨后送伞' The phrase '雨后送伞' means unnecessary assistance.

[释义]    比喻事后献殷勤。也比喻帮助不及时。

Is there better phrases or idiom to express such a context?

How about

贼过兴兵

mobilize the troops after the bandits had gone

Meaning: fail to provide assistance timely; present unhelpful, useless, belated action


Can I just translate 犯 as often? I had this text: 我的性格比较好静，让我发言或接受采访我就犯晕。

First I thought 犯晕 is a word, but I can't find it as a word.
I see 犯 can mean 'recurrence of something bad'. I also found:

英雄犯大错误。 Great men (often) have great faults.

In this kind of context, can 犯 be 'often'??

http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/2546/

  犯

  /faan6/ /faan6*2 / ( jyutping)

  / fan4 /  (pinyin)

  [1] [v] offend; violate; go against

  [2] [v] invade; attack; encroach on

  [3] [n] criminal; convict; culprit

  [4] [v] suffer recurrence of (illness, bad habit, etc)

In the context of :

「犯頭暈」，「犯作嘔」，「犯肚痛」「犯口癢」and 「犯儍」,「犯」means " suffer recurrence of "(see [4])

「犯頭暈」= "suffer recurrence of fainting"
「犯作嘔」= "suffer recurrence of vomiting "
「犯肚痛」= " suffer recurrence of stomachache"
「犯口癢」= " suffer recurrence of open my big mouth."
「犯儍」 = " suffer recurrence of stupidity."

The word "often " describe an event happens frequently, but not regularly; while "recurrence" means something happens repeatedly, regularly. Therefore, The answer to your question is: "No" - 「 犯」doesn't mean " often",  it means: " repeatedly suffering"

*「犯暈」is short for 「犯頭暈」

  Can I just translate 犯 as often?

You could translate 犯 as "repeatedly suffer"

"I repeatedly suffer fainting every time they ask me to make a speech or take an interview."

  英雄犯大错误。

It simply means :" The hero made (committed) a big mistake."


Answering yes/no questions I was a bit surprised at first when I discovered that Chinese doesn't have single words or expressions for "yes" or "no", and that instead we must use the verb from the question to either confirm or deny. The difficulty is not insurmountable if we can understand the verb from the question, but there seems to be exceptions, and this brings me to the object of the question.

I have this sentence and I need to modify as a yes/no question and then answer both positively and negatively:

  Statement:
  我妹妹来美国。
  Wǒ mèimei lái Mĕiguó.

  Yes/No Question:
  你妹妹来美国吗？
  Nĭ mèimei lái Mĕiguó ma?

I answered with "来。／不来。", but looking at the key of the exercise, enough surprisingly I noticed I was wrong, since I should have answered "是。／不是。".

Why is 是 used here instead of 来？ Is this event contemplated in the grammar, I mean, are there rules/guidelines to know when we can use 是 even if it's not the verb used in the question?

Statement:
  我妹妹来美国。= My sister is coming to the States.
  Wǒ mèimei lái Mĕiguó.

  Yes/No Question:
  你妹妹来美国吗？ = Is your sister coming to the States?
  Nĭ mèimei lái Mĕiguó ma?

Under this circumstances, both 来/不来 and 是/不是 are acceptable and can be understood with no difficulties. However, I have to disagree with your key to the exercise because 来/不来 is much more commonly used by native speaker. Chinese usually use the main verb in the questions to answer them.

I can understand the confusion. It is probably caused by the fact that "是/不是" means the same thing for "yes/no", "is/is not", "are/ are not" and "am/ am not". Let me use a few example to illustrate my point:

你妹妹来美国吗？ Is your sister coming to the States?
The way Chinese commonly do is: 来。It means: Yes.

The full answer is: 是的，她来。Which, in English, should be:  Yes, she is. Here "is" refers to "is coming", where the main verb is"来".

你妹妹是美国人吗? Is your sister American?
The correct way in Chinese is: 是的。Also means Yes.

However, this time, the main verb is "is". So the full answer is "是的，她是的。"meaning, "Yes, she is." See we have two "是" here, meaning differently (yes and is) in English. This is where you need to use "是/不是”。


How Do I Write "At [descriptor], ..." in Chinese? In English, I can write "At x pages, y." where x pages refers to a document consisting of x number of pages and y is a description of the document. Example: At two pages, the proposed bill is short.

The Chinese equivalent of "at" is "在", however it applies to locations. "Pages" isn't a location in this case, so what would I write to convey "at" here? Or can I use "at" as I do in English?

My best guesses (using the preceding example) are "在兩頁，法案很簡短" and "包括兩頁，法案很簡短", but it's not clear to me whether either is correct.

The Chinese way to say "At x pages, y."

1a. "x pages  就 y 而言"
Example: 一百頁就小說而言真是很短" (one hundred pages for a novel is really short)
2a. "就 y 而言, x pages"
Example: 就小說而言, 一百頁真是很短" (for a novel, one hundred pages is really short)

or

1b. "x pages 以/ 對 y 來說, "
2b. "以/ 對 y 來說, x pages"

1a, 1b are more literary
2a, 2b are more colloquial