请教一下『还』字（huan2、hai2 两者）的语源 『还』字的这两个读音，韵母不一样，实际意思差别也挺大的。

当它读作huan2是指『回归』之意，可以译作『return』，是个动词；

但是若以hai2音来翻译，应当是代表了一种『当下并没有，但以后可能会这样』的状态，译作『still/yet』等副词。

我私下里就想，这俩意思之间有着千差万别，从上古汉语追溯下来，应该不是同源的吧？

然后我就去网上搜了一圈，在《说文》和《康熙字典》里也没找到什么特别的注解。

我这作为一个北京人，在汉语上遇到了问题，还要来国际网站上发帖，真是惭愧。不过子曾经曰过：『敏而好学，不耻下问』，这不懂的就要问。

还是麻烦您帮着解答一下我的疑惑了，谢谢！

Btw be free to answer/discuss in English, I was just thinking that this website is just all about Chinese, so I posted this question in Chinese. :-D

「還」（huan2），从「辵」（辶），「睘」（瞏）聲。「回歸」、「復也」是「還」字的本意，古文也偶爾用「睘」字假借爲「復也」之意。現代普通話 hai2、 huan2 二者有分工作用，前者是表示副詞的讀法，但古文竝不出現這種用法，huan2、hai2 的上古、中古等先音混用在「復也」、副詞之意。Hai2 先音不現於反切記錄，可能是白讀。

「睘」部在「還」裏衹是聲符，「睘」从「目」，「袁」省聲，本意是「目驚視也」，跟「復也」的意思不同。「睘」字在古文多被爲「還」、「環」、「縣」、「煢」詞的假借字。

「還」也當過假借字。例：

「環」

散氏盤：「道以東一奉（封），還（環），以西一奉（封）。」
《馬王堆．五十二病方》第101行：「取井中泥，以還（環）封其傷。」

「懷」

《郭店簡．尊德義》簡25：「治民非還（懷）生而已也。」

Axel Schussler 認爲「還，復也」本从南亞語系，跟高棉語 raṅvā’na repayment; return; recompense 同源。「還」副詞意的詞源不明，可能在荀子之前就出現這種用法：

  《荀子．王霸》：「如是則禹舜還至，王業還起。」

當副詞，現在衹能釋「還」爲假借，有新證據之後文學家再可復考。


How do you pronounce the name "Liqun" The title already describes what i would like to know.

How to pronounce the Chinese name Liqun.

“李群” “/Lǐ Qún/ I think

李 /li3/ is a common family name

/qun2/ can be 裙(skirt), 羣 or 群 (multitude;crowd; group)

I don't think any parent would name their child 李裙


Difference between 元宵节 and 灯节？ Is there a difference between the expressions 元宵节 and  灯节, or are they exactly the same?

元宵節

  亦稱為上元節、小正月、元夕、小年或春燈節。
  時間是每年的農曆正月十五。
  佛教有在正月十五點燈供佛的習俗。
  而道教中，上元節乃天官華誕，故燃燈以慶。

元：上元 (農曆正月十五，the 15th of the 1st lunar month)
宵：夜晚 (night, evening)
元宵：the evening of the 15th of the 1st lunar month

Lantern: 燈
Festival: 節
Lantern Festival: 燈節

元宵節的由來英文介紹

  The Lantern Festival falls on the 15th day of the 1st lunar month, usually in February or March in the Gregorian calendar. As early as the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 25), it had become a festival with great significance. This day's important activity is watching lanterns. Throughout the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220), Buddhism flourished in China. One emperor heard that Buddhist monks would watch sarira, or remains from the cremation of Buddha's body, and light lanterns to worship Buddha on the 15th day of the 1st lunar month, so he ordered to light lanterns in the imperial palace and temples to show respect to Buddha on this day. Later, the Buddhist rite developed into a grand festival among common people and its influence expanded from the Central Plains to the whole of China.

  每年農曆的正月十五日，春節剛過，迎來的就是中國的傳統節日--元宵節。元宵節主要的活動就是看燈。東漢明帝時期，明帝提倡佛教，聽說佛教有正月十五日僧人觀佛舍利，點燈敬佛的做法，就命令這一天夜晚在皇宮和寺廟裡點燈敬佛，令士族庶民都掛燈。以後這種佛教禮儀節日逐漸形成民間盛大的節日。該節經歷了由宮廷到民間，由中原到全國的發展過程。


Verb used to deny age When talking about age we don't use any verbs, for example:

我二十岁。

What about when you need to deny someone's age? Do we use 不是 or 没有?

我不是二十岁。 or
我没有二十岁。

Thanks

Yes, we use 不是 and 没有, for different meaning.

我不是二十岁。
I'm not twenty years old. (Probably 10, or 30, ...)

我没有二十岁。
I'm less than twenty years old.

PS: You could use 是 such as 我是二十岁 to emphasize the fact (that you're twenty). And when asked with the specified age, we usually answer it with using 是. e.g.

你是二十岁吗？
我是二十岁。

When asked about the age generally, we usually answer it without using 是.

你多大？
我二十岁。


Why is it incorrect to say (Someone) 想要了一 (Something)? Basically whole question in the title. I was told that saying 我想要了一杯茶 or anything along those lines is incorrect. Why?

I think the problem is the usage of the character "了".

When "想要" and "了" are used together, the object is usually placed between them.  e.g. "我剛才不渴, 但現在想要一杯茶了."  The object may be omitted too, e.g. "親愛的, 我想要了."  (....the wife whispering to her husband....)

You may also have noted the difference between "想要" and "想要....了".  When "想要" is used alone, it refers to the intention/though/request itself.  When "想要....了" is used, it usually signifies a recent change or a decision just made.

As for "想" vs "要" vs "想要", cingS has given a clear answer already.


Are both 我家 and 我的 okay in 下班以后我去你家或者你来[我家/我的]，都可以? In the this sentence,

  下班以后我去你家或者你来我家，都可以。

Can I change it to;

  下班以后我去你家或者你来我的，都可以。

Can I do this every time? If the context is clear then can I just say (sth.) 的？

Also does the second sentence sound natural (if it's grammatically correct)?

For this particular sentence, it is much more natural to use the first expression. The second one is grammatically correct but I have not seen this usage among native Chinese speaker/writer. Though it is to common say something like 你吃你的我吃我的 [Eat your (food) and I eat mine] in other context.


Distinct terms for 'authentication' and 'validation'? Both seem to be 验证 Could someone point me to distinct, accurate terms for 'authentication' and 'validation' in Chinese?

This is in a web development context, and I can only find 验证 as the best word for both of them.

When writing about web development, that's quite a big problem as these are both important and distinct concepts.

Some dictionaries give 证明 for authentication, but I get the impression that isn't appropriate for authenticating with a website.

Wikipedia has 身份验证 for authentication, which isn't bad. Currently I'm using 数据验证 for validation and 用户验证 for authentication.

authenticate ＝ 核实

authenticate here means to prove your identity

validate ＝ 验证

captcha is 验证码


Using 得 with past particle 了 I tried to translate this sentence:

  The man cleaned the bathroom cleanly.

I thought it would be:

  他把卫生间打扫得干净了。

but my Chinese friends said that this is a wrong sentence.
I am wondering,

Why is this grammatically wrong?
How should I fix this sentence?

You could say

"他把卫生间打扫干净了"  The man have cleaned the bathroom.
"他把卫生间打扫得很干净" The man cleaned the bathroom cleanly.

「得」字的用法：

1.覺得。feel.

2.介詞。preposition. After verb or adj. to express the result or state.

After verb. Ex：跑得快、說得很動聽。
After adj. Ex：美得冒泡。


What is the meaning of 没 in 有啥推荐没? 有啥推荐没?
What is the meaning of 没 here in this sentence?
Can I put 吗 instead of 没 here?

有啥推荐没? （有啥推荐吗?）
Are there any suggestions, or not?
I would say it's a kind of short-speak for:
关于这个问题，有没有什么推荐吗？
Concerning this problem, are there any suggestions?


How do you say "To take a gap year"? Is there a clear translation for the phrase "Take a gap year" (i.e. take a year off between your last year of high school and college (often for travel, work, etc.))?

I don't think there is a 'clear' translation because of the culture difference behind it. Chinese people don't take a gap year until very recently and the few who do are still considered rebel by many. It hasn't become that popular yet to have a well-known terminology. In some circles it's just called gap year, gap年 or 间隔年.
间隔年 is probably the best option for now, but you may still want to define or explain it to the audience beforehand. This translation has actually made its entry on Baidu Baike and appeared in a book title 迟到的间隔年.
You can see how some people still refer to the concept as 'gap year' in discussions like this, which suggests the Chinese term hasn't got its full popularity yet.
As for the verb ('take'), I think the best context-free translation is 体验 (to experience). Depending on the context you can also use 开始 (to start) or 要 (to have). E.g.

He decided to take a gap year after graduation. 他决定毕业后体验间隔年 (formal) or 他决定要个间隔年 (colloquial).
His friends took a gap year right after graduation, but he didn't. 他的朋友们一毕业就开始了间隔年，但是他没有。


Glyph origins: are explanations in such dictionaries authoritative or just later vague interpretations? I know this topic has been discussed in quite a few questions post on this site.

My question concerns the 'authoritativeness' of such glyph origins based on the decomposition of characters.

Here's e.g. 孝 (filial piety) explained in an online etymology dictionary (the choice of character is arbitrary). Where do such interpretations come from? Are they based on older documented sources or are they later interpretations based on individual attempts of imagination and decomposition of a certain character? Are they authoritative in the sense that these explanations are widely accepted or they vary among different sources?

You seem to think the studies are vague or just imaginary. They are not.

For example, 人 is the drawing of a man, 山 is the picture of a mountain. The relation is clear and you don't need to be very imaginative to draw the conclusions.

Same with ideograms in all ideographic languages, the relation of a symbol and its meaning is sometimes dead obvious. Do you call all these interpretations "vague" or "imaginary"?

  Where do such interpretations come from?

Traces of etymology on single characters are seen on earlier classical texts, but the major source is the dictionary 说文解字, which is written in East Han dynasty, 1300 years after the first oracle bones. Later studies are largely based on this dictionary.

  Are they based on older documented sources or are they later interpretations based on individual attempts of imagination and decomposition of a certain character?

Early documentation on the etymology of individual characters is scarce. There are individual attempts, probably a lot. The inventor of Chinese (if there is one) didn't leave any documents, so it's probably the only way to go.

Fortunately the Chinese writing system is largely ideographic, so the interpretations can't go very wrong. There is a set of general rules called 六书, it is a quite accurate description of the basic principles of creating Chinese characters.

The author of 说文解字 haven't seen a single oracle bone, but many of his interpretation can be verified by the later discovered oracle bones.

  Are they authoritative in the sense that these explanations are widely accepted or they vary among different sources?

Later scholars have found errors in 说文解字, but it's still largely a credible source.  The study of Chinese etymology is a mature subject. Competing theories on single characters do exist but rarely do you see it.


How can 敷衍 signify both 'perfunctory' and 'expound'? ABC Chinese–English Comprehensive Dictionary (2003). I can't access the "slightly revised through July 2005" ed. p 278. Zdic.net annunciates the same meanings.

Doubtless, "perfunctory" is the polar opposite of "expound". So how can 敷衍 signify both 'perfunctory' and 'expound'?

敷演 is an ancient expression while 敷衍 is still in use. They are different words.
I am not sure why 演 in 敷演 can be replaced by 衍.
ref:

敷演
敷衍


I can't recognise the 八 radical in many characters I have my oxford and tuttle dictionary in front of me and the radical list has a lot of characters with 八 as it's radical, which means "divide" apparently.

But where is this radical in 兰 ，半 ，弟， 单 etc ?

Is it written in mirror in those characters? Thank you

丷 is a variant of 八, just as 灬 is a variant of 火.

Variant characters are common for radicals, given that they can occur at difference positions within a composite character.


Simplified variant of 幺? This question is regarding when 幺 appears in traditional Chinese.

What is the simplified variant of 幺?

I asked this question on the cantodict forums recently, and one member gave this excellent response:

http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/phorum/read.php?14,129472,129515#msg-129515

But it's still not clear to me what the answer is.  I'm quite confused why so many online dictionaries seem to give 么 as the answer.  Could it be that simplification in Cantonese is different to simplification in Mandarin?

I found over 20 words in ABC Comprehensive Chinese Dictionary where the traditional contained 幺 and the simplified form uses 么. This is a consistent mapping in that dictionary.

幺 is used formally in the PRC, as in 幺女, 幺妹, 幺三五, meaning "one" or "youngest".

Therefore, it is part of the simplified script, but it was never simplified to begin with. It is a standard character. 说文 says: 小也。通俗文曰。不長曰幺。細小曰麼。許無麼字。象子初生之形。子初生，甚小也。俗謂一爲幺。亦謂晚生子爲幺。皆謂其小也。於堯切。二部。凡幺之屬皆从幺。

康熙字典 also describes this character, and adds at the very end: 俗作么

么 is therefore an 异体字 that seems to have been normalized within the traditional script, at least as it is used in Taiwan and other locations. It is also used in China, though, as in 么妹. 么 in China is of course the interrogative particles "me" or "ma" in its own right.

It is 么麼 in traditional, but 幺麽 (or even 幺么) in simplified.

This is gonna bake your noodle further: note how the traditional 么 is part of the simplified 麽, whereas the simplified 幺 is part of the traditional 麼.


Is there an Old Chinese dictionary which shows clearly the usage of a word? 类似于OALD等英语学习者词典，我希望这本词典能在含义之外详细说明词的用法，以使得读者看完后能够用所查的词写出正确的古汉语句子。

以“语”字为例，我希望这本词典至少能够说明这个字（作“告诉”讲时）如何接续表示“告诉”的对象，如何接续表示“告诉”的内容，并给出相应例句。

词典本身是用任何语言编纂的都可以。

古漢語既常以單字爲詞，容個人推薦 《王力古漢語字典》。

我也很贊成@水巷孑蠻的建議，應該用繁體讀古文。不但有簡繁轉換一對多的一個問題，古文裏假借與通假字甚多，分析古文的時侯字與詞的聲、調、韻等十分重要。簡體新造字用的聲部多數都不符合古漢語的聲韻。

例：《王力古漢語字典》「語」字詞條：


Are 朝鲜冷面 (Cháoxiǎn lěngmiàn) from Korea (North and South) or only North Korea? In Tianjin, sometimes we see 朝鲜冷面 (Cháoxiǎn lěngmiàn) for sale:

Breaking this down:

朝鲜 (Cháoxiǎn) = Korea or North Korea, depending on context
冷面 (lěng miàn) = cold noodles

YouDao says 朝鲜冷面 translates to "Korean cold noodles".

Question: Are 朝鲜冷面 from Korea (North and South) or only North Korea?

朝鮮冷麪 is just Korean cold noodles, not specifically from North or South Korea.

The confusion arises because 朝鮮 may be either translated as

Korea, as it is the traditional name for Korea which matches the Joseon Dynasty (大朝鮮國 or 朝鮮王朝);
North Korea, because this is what 朝鮮 refers to after the Division of Korea; the official name of the country is 朝鮮民主主義人民共和國 (Democratic People's Republic of Korea).

For anything to do with traditional culture/art/food etc., it is improbable that 朝鮮 means North Korea, although only context can make you certain of what it really refers to. Since cold noodles is a traditional food eaten throughout the whole of the Korean peninsula, 朝鮮冷麪 should be taken as (traditional) Korean cold noodles.

For disambiguation purposes, one may call North Korea as 北朝鮮 or 北韓 instead. Compare South Korea, which may be unambiguously called either 南韓 or 韓國; note that it is exceedingly rare to refer to South Korea with the name 朝鮮.

If one wants to unambiguously refer to Traditional Korea, one may use the archaic word 高麗 instead, which is where the English name Korea comes from.


该 - How do you know when to use it? Nothing to do with 应该 In the sentence below, why do you need 该公司? Chinese is contextual, right? 公司 talked about previously is 苹果. Instead of 该公司, why not use 它? Or 这个公司?

也有一些分析师和投资者为苹果辩护，他们说，该公司 完全清楚自己在做什么，设定的价格也符合 该公司 的策略。

But there were some analysts and investors who came to the company’s defense and said that Apple knew exactly what it was doing, and set the price accordingly. (NYT translation)

http://cn.nytimes.com/technology/20130912/c12iphone/dual/

Here's another example:

路易斯安那州共和党众议员约翰·弗莱明(John Fleming)说，“奥巴马医改法案(Obamacare)是国会有史以来通过的最危险的立法案。”他还说，该法案 是“自大萧条(Great Depression)以来”，美国所面临的“最根本的经济威胁，所以，我认为，多一点额外的赤字不算什么。”

“Obamacare is the most dangerous piece of legislation ever passed in Congress,” said Representative John Fleming, Republican of Louisiana. “It is the most existential threat to our economy” that the country has seen “since the Great Depression, so I think a little bit of additional deficit is nothing,” he added.

http://cn.nytimes.com/world/20130913/c13fiscal/dual/

该 is the formal equivalent of the word aforementioned or said:

  该公司 - the said company
  该法案 - the aforementioned legislation

It is usually found in text to refer back to something that was mentioned previously.

Informally, you can also use 那. Here is the meaning from 汉典:

  那，著重指出前面說過的人或事物：～地。～書。


Can I communicate without changing tones? I'm not sure why this question has not been posted yet (I might have overlooked), but is it possible to communicate with native Chinese people even if you don't change its tones?

For example, I only memorize Chinese words by pinyin just to be able to type in the keyboard, like wo, not wǒ. And thus I want to speak all the sentence as if all the words consist of the same tone.

But I just wonder if it is possible to make myself understood in oral communication even if I only use the same tone (or first tone). Does Chinese people understand it, or are they not able to understand it if it is not pronounced properly? Or more concretely, how much can I make a communication (e.g. 70%, 30%, etc...)?

I've been also curious about this and I think this could easily be a research topic. Chinese people often happen to understand me even when my tones are flat, and I highlight that they understand me a lot less when my tones are wrong.
Of course this depends a lot on the context, and on the sentence. In a known context and with basic (high frequency) words tones are not that important (I would agree with @NS.X, 80/90%). The speech could sound weird to Chinese people but they can understand. Take also into account that they are used to a wide variety of accents from all China.
But, the grammar and the set phrase is better to be perfect.

If conditions are not so particular, tones are important as grammar and words, so recognition percentage could easily fall below 50% of the sentences.

I want to add that:

Sometimes I noticed for some words Chinese people have difficulty to remember which tone it is. For them is natural to put that tone on that sentence.
When they wisper, or better, when they speak crying (you can see sometimes in the movies) tones almost disappear.

About your study I can say tones are really important, you have to study them and try to learn, but I also say you that I memorized most of them just hearing and using them. You will end up repeating a sentence in your head and saying "Ok, wo is third tone".


Comparing intensifiers There are a lot of intensifier in Chinese, like 很，真，挺，非常，相当，极为 ，太，and recently I found out about 蛮.
So how can I use them effectively?
In particular I want to compare the differences in degree of intensity.
I obviously forgot to mention other intensifiers, if possible, please add them in your answer.

很 - very
真 - really
挺 - pretty
非常 - >= very, < extremely
相当 - quite
极为 - extremely
太 -  too

These words are describing a 'level'.
挺 = 蛮 = 比较 < 很 <= 非常 = 特别 < 极为

太 is somehow special, means it is much more than you expected.

鞋太大：The shoes are larger than your size, regardless of whether your feet are large or small.

I'm answering this question by my sense as a native Chinese speaker.

蛮 is not that commonly or widely used in north China. (but people all can understand), maybe southern Chinese prefer to use it. And I believe it is widely used in Taiwan.


What are the words that are missing after the 的 so that the sentences make sense？ The following is a picture of part of a notice about housing project in China, in which there are some sentences ending with the marker of adjective 的 that make the sentences incomplete.

Perhaps it is due to the special usage of legal Chinese, but what are the parts or words that are missing?

The omitted word in all three cases is 人。

In Chinese it is common practice in written and in speech to omit generic nouns after a 的，i.e. when the generic noun is modified by a noun phrase, like a relative clause or an adjective.
In case of a relative clause, as your examples are, you could translate the ~ 的（人） into something like "those who [...]"

As an example, other generic nouns that admit this behavior are 事 (thing, matter) and 东西 (physical thing, stuff).

  我很饿的，我想吃好吃的
  I'm hungry, I want to eat tasty stuff.


- 古伦木! - 欧巴! Meaning in this context? I'm watching the movie "in the heat of the sun" and very often groups of people seem to greet this way: a guy says "古伦木!" and the other one says "欧巴!". Now, I'm trying to figure out if this has some specific meaning in the context of early '70s. I'm not very good at understanding Chinese and I'm watching the movie with english subtitles, and they just don't translate those two expressions, they just leave them as "Gooloomoo" and "Ooba".

古伦木 and 欧巴 are not character names but two lines in 奇袭白虎团, which is a Korean-war-themed 'Modern Peking Opera'（革命现代京剧, Peking operas written in PRC）. The plot involving this two lines is (which is historically accurate, based on records in the Korean War): the Chinese army and North Korean army learn from a South Korean captive the password of a certain South Korean checkpoint and successfully pass this checkpoint using the password. The password is "A: 古轮木 B: 欧巴". (It is said that 古轮木 is from Korean 구름 gureum [cloud] and 欧巴 from 우박 ubak [hail].)
The movie In the Heat of the Sun focused on youngsters who grew up in the Cultural Revolution era. Eight selected modern Peking operas, or 八大样板戏 Eight Model Operas, are the most-often performed and the most influential operas during that time. Almost everyone then knows these two lines. In the movie, Ma Xiaojun and his gang use these to tease the fool 傻子, who always answers with 欧巴 when asked with 古轮木 (an imitation of that opera). However in the end of the movie, when they, as grown-ups, meet the fool and try to tease him again, the fool answers with 傻屄 stupid cunt. It represents the end of dissipated youth of Ma Xiaojun.
Jiang Wen used this as a symbol of the Cultural Revolution era and his youth (he has grown up in the same era and the same environment as Ma Xiaojun, and the movie can be seen as his attempt to put his youth memories onto the screen).
Jiang Wen's movies are not easy to understand (the meaning of the character of the fool is still often discussed in China today), let alone to people with little knowledge of that special era (including today's Chinese young men who were born after the Cultural Revolution and didn't experience it personally).
The full text of 奇袭白虎团 can be found here: http://www.mzdbl.com.cn/yinyue/gepian/baihutuan.html
The discussion of the character 傻子 on Zhihu:
https://www.zhihu.com/question/30430096


人无千日好: Literal Translation Is Completely Different From here.  The literal translation is:

  Person no 1000 days good (人无千日好).

The author says this translates into:

  There is no person that has 1000 good days in a row

That's a bit of added words and meaning.  I don't see anything to do with in a row in the sentence and it's not clear that the 1000 days belongs to the person.

Why doesn't this sentence require a 的 to indicate that the 1000 days belongs to the person (or person has no 1000 days good).

It's an old Chinese proverb, that's why there are some words missing.

In old times, as long as people can understand what you mean, you can omit as many as words you want.

The whole sentence is

  人无千日好，花无百日红。

Here, 好 means happy, happy life, good life, or easy life.

And 百, 千, 万 in Chinese proverbs or idioms usually refers to a very long time

So the whole sentence's meaning is:

  There is no person can be happy for a thousand days, and there is no flower can bloom for a hundred days.

which means:

  Someone is happy for now doesn't mean he can be happy forever.

it also means:

  Someone (maybe your friend) is nice to you now doesn't mean he can be nice to you forever.

it's like the proverb in English:

  For age and want save while you may; no morning sun lasts a whole day


Does the word 酱 in 酱香 refer to 醬油? English language descriptions of baijiu constantly repeat that "sauce flavored" baijiu -- meaning  酱香型 -- is called this because it smells like soy sauce (醬油).  I believe this is sheer ignorance and just shows they think all Chinese sauce is soy sauce.  Am I wrong?  Does the word 酱 in the phrase 酱香型 refer to 醬油?

In fact, I see that Google Translate does not even render 酱香型 as "sauce flavor," it renders that phrase as "Maotai flavor."  I guess that seems less misleading to me, but only because it is completely uninformative.

To be clear, I have a bottle of Maotai here as I write, which I have enjoyed over the past three weeks since friends brought it to a dinner.  I do know what it tastes like. But people may differ in what resemblances they notice.

"sauce flavored" baijiu has a fermented bean sauce flavor.In my opinion,this flavor shares some similarity with soy sauce's flavor as the soy sauce is also made from fermented beans.However,the baijiu's fragrance is far more strong and abundant than soy sauce's.It's a mixture of various fragrance.
See more in What's "sauce flavored" baijiu?


还是付了吧，要不忘了。了 is ...? 还是付了吧，要不忘了

This sentence probably means

That's exactly I'll pay for it , not to forget to do.

I know　了 has many aspects.

What's difference between "first 了" and "second 了"?

I think "first 了" is to draw a conclusion, and "second 了"　expresses just the time of forgetting to pay for it.

Is it not right?

I think both denote the completion as defined in this dictionary:

  放在动词或形容词后，表示动作或变化已经完成：写完～。

付了: get it paid; 忘了: forgotten it.

  还是付了吧，要不忘了:

  Better get it paid (now), or you/I would/might have forgotten (to pay it).
  Better get it paid (now), in case you/I would/might have forgotten (to pay it).


Journey to the West: "Mother of wood" I am reading Wu Cheng'en's Journey to the West in English (using the translation by Anthony C. Yu, don't know enough language to understand the source) and there seems to be a recurring theme of using the elements for characters and (maybe) their interactions.

Specifically, I keep seeing "mother of wood" (meant for Pig, from context)

Example in Chapter 63:

When the mother of wood was taken by the water monster
The mind−ape did not flinch from a difficult rescue.
One used his secret skills to open the locks;

and further on

The yellow−wife blindly joined in the prostration,
While the mother of wood foolishly agreed.
The monsters used force to oppress the true nature;

And hosts of sages helped to wage the fight.
The mother of wood suffers for showing mercy.
Determination moves the yellow−wife.

What is mother of wood meaning? Yellow-wife?

At another point (quote missing) the demon that punches his nose to make fire, he is said to "arrange the carts of elements in a pattern" before doing so.

Is this a feature of the language that is lost in translation (a pun I can't understand), or does it have some aspect of symbolism (like Monkey as "mind-ape")
I would be sad to miss out on an interesting layer of the text due to that.

Sorry if this is the wrong site to ask in, I hesitated between Literature and here.

comparing the original text, with the english version you provided; i would say, most meanings, details and metaphors are lost.
the scenario that "mother of wood" was caught, and recused by "mind ape" is paragraphs 9 - 11 https://ctext.org/xiyouji/ch63/zh
rant about the translation:

When the mother of wood was taken by the water monster

the monster is a (nine-heads reptile "九頭蟲")

One used his secret skills to open the locks

well, the "mother of wood" was tied on the pillar (那獃子綁在柱上). later, mind-ape cut the rope by bite (行者四顧無人，將拑咬斷索子叫走). no locks lah.
such translation, is like, "middlemarch", or "pride and prejudice" in 500 words.

what is mother of wood meaning? yellow-wife?

first of all, the book "journey to the west" is full of taoism metaphors.
then, there're two main groups of taoism, alchemist (外丹) and internal alchemy (內丹). further, over thousands of years, there're many sects, which explain taoism literatures in completely difference ways.
yellow-wife should be "黃婆", a more precise term should be yellow matchmaker (黃 + 媒婆). the metaphor is:
a matchmaker let males and females to get married, intercoursed, producing offsprings. he/she should never be part of the "children production".
yellow matchmaker (黃婆) means the element earth (土), which has the colour yellow.
in 悟真篇闡幽, stated

眞土又名黃婆
調水火而和金木者也

the original text is longer, with more metaphors. here's a brief explanation for beginner.
the yellow matchmaker (黃婆) is to mediate between other four elements: water, fire, metal and wood; it do nothing by itself.
back to the journey to the west, the third disciple (沙僧) always was the mediator between the first and second disciple. that's why the author assigned the nickname yellow matchmaker (黃婆) to him.

what is mother of wood meaning? yellow-wife?

mother of wood is 木母, this nickname is assigned to the second disciple (豬八戒). i can't get the rationale at this moment.
frankly, if you have knowledge of taoism, this book is more funny :)


Sentence construction with 除了, 被，一方面 I'm currently studying these sentence constructions and I tried to translate in the best way possible.

in addition to the kitchen, the living room of this apartment is also very large.Only if the surroundings are not too confusing, I will rent it.

除了厨房以外，还这间房子的客厅大
只有周围环境得不太乱， 我才租。

Yesterday I was criticized by my friends: they say that transport there it's more uncomfortable every year.

昨天我被我的朋友批评了:他们说那果的 交通一年比一年不方便

Marco will be back in a quarter of an hour and we will leave at 8 o'clock tonight. He does not like to watch the Beijing opera as much as I do, so when we get to Beijing, he thinks that on one hand to go eat jiaozi, on the other to exercise the spoken language

麦克一刻就要回了，我们今天晚上八点。他没有我那么爱看京剧， 我们到北京去的时候，他觉得一方面去吃饺子一方面练习口语

in addition to the kitchen, the living room of this apartment is also very large.Only if the surroundings are not too confusing, I will rent it.
除了厨房以外，这间公寓的客厅也很大。只要周围不太乱，我就会租下来。

Comments:

还 means 'still', while 也  means 'also'. BTW, in no way you can put 还 in the beginning of the clause like this.
只要...就... 'only if ..., ... will ...'

Yesterday I was criticized by my friends: they say that transport there it's more uncomfortable every year.
昨天我被朋友批评了：他们说那儿的交通一年比一年糟糕。

Comments:

You are supposed to omit possessives when the context is clear.

Marco will be back in a quarter of an hour and we will leave at 8 o'clock tonight. He does not like to watch the Beijing opera as much as I do, so when we get to Beijing, he thinks that on one hand to go eat jiaozi, on the other to exercise the spoken language
麦克再有一刻钟就要回去了，而我们今晚8点才走。因为他不如我喜欢听京剧，所以我们到北京后，他打算去吃饺子，同时练习口语。

Comments:

Use 一刻钟 instead of 一刻 to avoid ambiguity.
in a quarter of an hour -> 还有/再有一刻钟
and ->而
You seems to have missed 'leave'
'So' should be translated into 因为...所以...
It might be confusing but in Chinese, you listen to a play: 听京戏/听京剧
I don't think 'on one hand..., on the other hand' or 一方面..., 另一方面 is appropriate here.


What does this phrase in Yue Fei Temple mean? (Characters identified: 忠孝千秋) Most of the phrases put up in Yue Fei Temple are easy to read, but this one is in Seal Script and I can't figure it out. I know the first character to be 忠, but the others I can't figure out. On the left I can see this was made in the winder of 2012, but I can't find out any information on google about this.

It is 忠孝千秋 (Thanks to the link Johan88 provided)
 = 忠
 = 孝
 = 千
 =  秋 (The image from the site used 秌, which is an older version of 秋. The people who made the plaque used the 秋 modern Chinese use )


Why is 的 necessary in 你是什么时候买的苹果? I've found the following sentence:

你是什么时候买的苹果？

However, I'm convinced that this sentence should be 你是什么时候买苹果的？.

Why does the sentence above require 的 after 买? What purpose does it function for?

的 is used here for past tense.

你(是)什么时候买苹果的？ -> When did you buy the apple?
你(是)什么时候买苹果？ -> When will you buy the apple?

And 你是什么时候买的苹果？ is same as 你是什么时候买苹果的？, but more oral.


Help with pronouncing 道 precisely Practical conclusion from the responses: No digital media currently focus on the precise pronunciation of Pinyin Dao, or Beijing for English speaking students of Chinese.  You must look to sources on IPA on line or for purchase.

Most English speakers need explicit phonological explanation of how to speak the distinction of voiced  /b,d/ from unvoiced  /p,t/, along with hearing it demonstrated.  We typically cannot hear it from demonstration alone, let alone produce it, because this contrast is changing in English usage (and other Germanic languages as well).  The very complicated current situation is described at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_(phonetics)

The issue is not just this one word Dao but includes at least b and d as initial consonants in Pinyin.  Every expert work I have looked at on the issue agrees with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daoism%E2%80%93Taoism_romanization_issue#Notes

They say the initial of 道 /Dao is a tenuis voiceless alveolar plosive, close to the IPA symbol [t], but although Pinyin d is unvoiced, it often gives the impression of being voiced to the untrained ear.  And because Pinyin d has no voiced alveolar plosive allophone in Mandarin, native Chinese speakers do not find it important when foreigners say it voiced.

On the other hand, English speakers actually distinguish between the tenuis voiceless alveolar plosive (the Pinyin d or the t of "stop") and the d of "dog," but are not good at hearing the distinction, because they are allophones of one phoneme in English.

This question on English stackexchange bears on the matter:  https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/203866/pronunciation-of-st-when-is-it-sd-and-when-st
It confirms what @Janus Bahs Jacquet says in a comment below, that the English usage is pretty variable.

I'd like to have some good models for how to pronounce these things.  I know about the "t" in "top" versus "stop."  I can do that as an exercise.  And I am beginning to think that may be the best approach I can take.  But I'd still like to hear some carefully pronounced models of the Mandarin words.

Can anyone point me to a web site or a cd where I can hear careful examples of these distinctions?

As a Mandarin native speaker I pronounce 道 exactly same as 到，稻。 I pronounce the initial d exactly same as in dog or dad.

I also pronounce t exactly in the same way for stop. The native English pronunciation of dog and stop might be different, but to my ESL ears, they are exactly same.

Added: Here is a video teaching Pinyin Mandarin Chinese Pinyin Pronunciation. In the video the girl pronounces initials and finals 100% correctly.

Here is another online tool teaching Pinyin 汉语拼音全套flash.
Scroll down and look for these flashes:

The male pronunciations are also 100% correct.


Has Unicode included these Classical Chinese characters? I've found these characters in an old dictionary about Classical Chinese / Sino-Vietnamese / Vietnamese. Although they can be analyzed pictorially (I don't know better words), I personally can't find their Unicode encodings. So, I wonder whether they or their variants have been coded. Moreover, are they really Classical Chinese characters, or were they just mistaken to be Classical Chinese by some Vietnamese?

Imgur album

Here are the description:

Left: 巾, Right: 由
Left: 舟, Right: 者
Left: 米, Right: 欠
Left: 盎, Right: 瓦
Left: 口, Right: 召
Left: 扌, Right: 乖
Left: 舌, Right: 單
Left: 忄, Right: 省
Up: 推, Down: 火
Up: 其, Down: 巾
Left: 犭, Right: 長
Left: 歹, Right: 曹
Left: 魚, Right: 小
Left: 僉, Right: 鳥
Up: 髟, Down: 兆
Left: 牜, Right: 霍
Left: 走, Right: 斗
Left: 米, Right: 周
Up: 髟, Down: 忿
Left: 米, Right: 孛

U+2208E
 U+26A73
 U+25E37
 U+24B79
 U+20C09
 U+22BBF
 U+269F4
 U+2272B
 U+24350
 U+220DB
 U+247D4
 U+23A52
 U+29D56
 U+2A1C7
 U+29B31
 U+24705
﨣 U+FA23
 U+25E9D
髟＋忿？(not found) ( U+29B64 U+29B6E  U+29B09)
 U+25E78

Most of them are in the block of "CJK Unified Ideographs Extension B".
﨣 is in the block of "CJK Compatibility Ideographs".

If you cannot see some Chinese characters above, I suggest installing the Hanazono font, 花園明朝體.


Do you pronounce 敢吗？and 干嘛? the same? 敢吗？= Dare you?
干嘛? = What's up? What are you doing?

Do you pronounce them both the same and depending on the context, people can understand what you mean?
or
Do you pronounce them both a little bit differently which new beginners can hardly hear the difference?

敢吗？= Dare you? = gǎn ma?
干嘛? = What's up? What are you doing? = gàn má?


What is the proper word order when a sentence contains an adverb using 地 and a coverb phrase? Can anyone provide some guidance on word order of a sentence if it has an adverb using 地 and coverb phrases. I thought 地 always came directly in front of the verb, but then I saw this site: http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Word_order#Placement_of_manner_in_a_sentence
Which showed the "manner" part coming before all the coverb phrases. So, I started doing some searching and found this sentence which has the coverb 向 after the adverb and before the verb:

  他会很诚恳地向你道歉.

But, I also found this sentence with the coverb 把 first, and then the adverb after:

  父母应该把事情好好地告诉孩子.

So, what is the difference between the two word orders?

In Chinese you can also say "他会很诚恳地向你道歉" in this way: "他会向你很诚恳地道歉"

Then the order of coverb and adverb is the same as the sentence "父母应该把事情好好地告诉孩子."

Example: the following 2 sentences have the same meaning

coverb first, adverb after: 医生*对他*仔细地检查

adverb first, coverb after: 医生仔细地*对他*检查


Why are the lists of Kangxi radicals different everywhere? I'm trying to find an "official" list of Kangxi radicals that I can rely on and currently, I use two different Chinese apps to look for characters. Today I have realized that the lists for Kangxi radicals are different from each other in these apps, and also they are both different from the list on Wikipedia!

Of course, the lists are mostly identical but there are many differences like:

-The number of one-stroke characters displayed
-Whether there are 17-stroke characters or not
-For example, one of the lists regard "老" as a radical on its own, and another treats it as a combination of two different radicals...

I'm confused, is there an official list that everyone has agreed on?

Also, I'm sorry if this question is a bit silly, but does the Kanji in Japanese have anything to do with the Kangxi in Chinese?

There are exactly (no exceptions) 214 Kangxi radicals:

Any misunderstanding to the number of these probably comes from a confusion to what radicals actually are. Remember that radicals are dictionary headers (部首), used to group characters or words in a dictionary. The Kangxi radicals are similarly used to group entries in the Kangxi dictionary, not any other dictionary (unless the maker of another dictionary consciously chooses to use the exact same radical set as the Kangxi radicals). This means that

If a smaller dictionary chooses not to list some of the more obscure characters that are found in larger/more comprehensive dictionaries, then the dictionary may well not have the full set of Kangxi radicals.
The Kangxi dictionary is a Traditional Chinese dictionary, and Simplified Chinese dictionaries will not use the same radicals as the Kangxi radicals (although their entries may be based off the Kangxi dictionary).
Radicals (Kangxi or not) are completely arbitrary. For many characters, they have very little to do with the meaning or sound of the character. It is completely valid for a new dictionary publisher to make up their own radical system to group characters.

To answer your queries directly:

  Whether there are 17-stroke characters or not

There are incredibly obscure characters which exist in larger dictionaries but are not in common use. Smaller dictionaries for common use may not include these entries - but in any case this has nothing to do with the Kangxi radicals.

  one of the lists regard "老" as a radical on its own, and another treats it as a combination of two different radicals

Two notes here:

Each character has only one radical, just like each English word has only one first letter for which it is grouped under a dictionary
If a dictionary lists「老」under another radical other than「老」itself, they are definitely not using the Kangxi radical system. Here's the page from the Kangxi dictionary itself listing「老」:

  Also, I'm sorry if this question is a bit silly, but does the Kanji in Japanese have anything to do with the Kangxi in Chinese?

No, it doesn't. Kangxi refers to the Kangxi Emperor, the one who mandated the compilation of the Kangxi dictionary. In Japanese, Kangxi is called kōseki, while kanji is the Japanese name for Hanzi/Chinese characters.


Weird Chinese text next to the Great Wall I was looking the Great Wall of China with Google Earth, and I found relly weird characters (that are the same size as the Great Wall) near it. I don't know what these characters mean, so here is picture if anyone can tell me the meaning.

The writing says 忠于毛主席, or "loyal to Chairman Mao", 倪阔乐 says. as This has a pretty interesting history.

It is said that it was constructed by Red Guards during the early Cultural Revolution, out of rocks painted with lime. It is a famous slogan, the first part of the "三忠于四无限" movement (three loyal, four infinite), which provides the following slogans:

忠于毛主席 (loyal to Chairman Mao)
忠于毛泽东思想 (loyal to Maoism)
忠于毛主席的无产阶级革命路线 (loyal to Chairman Mao's proletarian revolutionary path)

and the four infinites refers to the degree of loyalty to the above three:

无限崇拜 (unlimited worship)
无限热爱 (unlimited adoration)
无限信仰 (unlimited faith)
无限忠诚 (unlimited loyalty)

As the Cultural Revolution ended and its legacy discredited, the writing became obscured by brush. But for whatever reason, in 2008 the area was cleared and repainted, making the writing visible again. It's placed in a very prominent position in the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall, a section that's already special as it's one of the few with merlons on both sides of the wall - very picturesque. Here you can see before/after pictures of the clearing, note that the writing is visible even from far away on the wall, as it's on the inside of a turn:

Before:

After:

Photos from http://www.thegreatwall.com.cn/phpbbs/index.php?id=125518&forumid=1&threadid=125489

What's interesting is why the writing was restored, as usually the Cultural Revolution and its artifacts are unpopular even in China. Perhaps after so many years, it's gained historical value. Perhaps it's become popular by Chinese millenials, who have not lived through the Cultural Revolution - it was also a time where leftists like Bo Xilai were at their peak in popularity.


Can 我 be used as: our, us, we? Saw this on Collins dictionary entry for 我

我公司最近更新了设备

It's translated as 'Our company recently updated the equipment'
Likewise, Google, Bing, and DeepL translated 我 as 'our' from the Chinese sentence above
First time I see the use of 我 as plural (our)
Shouldn't it be 我们公司?
If I want to emphasize it's my(singular) company, how to phrase My company in Chinese?
I have this entry for 我 in the dictionary of Chinese words separator Chrome extension
"我":"our, us, i, me, my, we",

I'm thinking if I should remove the our, us, we from extension's dictionary, as 我 is not normally used as plural, or should I keep those words?

If I want to emphasize it's my(singular) company, how to phrase My company in Chinese?

You can use the possessive marker 的 to denote relating to or possession of an object noun.
我的公司 = my company (you don't own it, just work for it, so  的 indicates 'relating', not 'possessing')
我的公司 = my company (if you own it, 的 indicates possessing' not 'relating')
This means either you own it or not, you still say 我的公司
~
我公司 can be the shortened form of 我的公司 (my company) or 我們的公司 (our company) That mean 我 before a noun without a possessive marker 的 can be singular or plural
You can omit the possessive marker 的 and say 我公司 when you don't directly possess it, only relatively possess it. e.g. 我的父親 (my father) can be reduced to 我父親 because you don't own your father; 我的房子 cannot be reduced to 我房子 because you do own your house.
Also, check Why there is no 的 after 你 in 你国家的医院好吗?


也 and 还 diference not clear enough I thouht 还 ment besides or además(in spanish)， it gives more informatión but let me give you an example

There are clear examples like when you say i play piano, he plays piano to. Here where you have two subjects doing the same thing is obvius that you use 也。

But in the next example I asked my teacher if you could use 还 instead of 也 and she said that if you use 还 it is not right or properly used. ¿is it because you are still talking about things about his studies in both sentences?. She said 还 would not be proper but would not explain clear to me.

他上课时开始不专心听讲。他的学习成绩也越来越差。

Saludos desde España. Málaga. Greetings from Málaga Spain.

还 can be translated to something like "not only that" or "furthermore" in English. On the other hand, 也 means something like "and" or "also". Their literal meaning is almost exactly the same, but 还 places an additional emphasis on the object that comes afterwards.

In your example

  他上课时开始不专心听讲。他的学习成绩也越来越差。

This roughly translates to

  He doesn't listen attentively during lessons. His results are also getting worse over time.

This places more or less equal emphasis on “不专心听讲” and “学习成绩”. On the other hand, the following version

  他上课时开始不专心听讲。他的学习成绩还越来越差。

roughly means

  He doesn't listen attentively during lessons. Not only that, his results are getting worse over time!

So there is a greater emphasis on the 学习成绩越来越差 in the latter version with the 还 over the 也, and there's a slight difference in meaning. So although both are perfectly grammatical sentences, they do have slightly different meaning, and it depends on which meaning you want to express when choosing terms.


How to translate 食客 into English? 食客 were honoured guests living in the houses of kings and princes for free. They had neither property nor rank; and they scarcely ran any errands. They were not even officially employed. They nevertheless belonged to the leisured class. Unlike the Greek civilization which was created by property owners, the best of the Chinese civilization was actually created by these parasites.

Due to the unbelievable worship of busywork in western culture, I am unable to find a translation for 食客 that is also associated with honour and respect.

I believe you are talking about 食客/门客 in the ancient Spring and Autumn and the Warring States Periods. Sponger maybe more accurate than parasite.
But you have missunderstanding about them. They are not honoured guests, their relationship is more like master and indentured worker which means you provider me with what I want, and I will pay back for you when you need. Basicly level, you provider me with food, I will do basic work when you need as to do some basic work for you(though some masters don't need it and just provider free food for nothing). Second one, you provider me with good life and I just pay my life for you. Best one, you provider me with everything I want and I will do what I can to help you by intellectual or asassinate the rival when you are in great danger or oppotunities.

Some one translate to hanger-on, or retainer, but realy these words can't identify their property. 食客 has the meaning of pay back, they are not just only an attendant. There is no contract to limit them with masters.


Why is 我的朋友今年住在美国 translated to both "my friend [is living in / lived in] America this year"? Here I am trying to translate two different English sentences to Chinese.

"My friend is living in America this year."

He is still living in America at the point of stating this fact.

Translation : 我的朋友今年住在美国
"My friend lived in America this year."

Maybe he lived only for an earlier part of the year in America and right now he is living in Hong Kong.

Translation : 我的朋友今年住在美国

I have understood so far that Chinese is a contextual language. Since both the sentences have the same translation (At least at my level of learning :), could you please show me how to put these sentences in Chinese such that their context is clear.

Also, can it be done without having to share any additional information like he is "currently living in Hong Kong"?

Of course, please correct me if my above translations are incorrect. I was wondering whether we will add 了 in the second sentence as there is a change of state (was living -> not living now).

Chinese language doesn't have tense. To indicate event happened in the past, you need to add time reference in the context or verb particle that indicate past verb

Example:

我的朋友今年在美国(住过) = My friend (had lived) in America this year

过 is a verb particle that indicates 'experienced' aspect of the verb

~

我的朋友今年(曾住)在美国 = My friend (had lived) in America this year

曾 is an adverb that indicates 'once'; formerly

~

You can use either or both in the same sentence:

我的朋友今年(曾)在美国住(过)


Translation for “as it is” I would like to know if there is a chinese translation for “as it is” used in the following context.

If you are paying for an item in the supermarket and the staff offers you a shopping bag, but you decline the bag and want the item “as it is”. How would you say it?

The japanese have a phrase for it: そのままで、 which translates to “as it is”. Would you have a chinese translatiom for this?

Chinese does not have a exact translation of そのままで (其の儘で) which is as flexible as the situation that you've described. The literal translations are

照原樣
依舊

which both mean something like in accord with its original nature/form, but we would not use those terms to decline a shopping bag. Instead, you may say something similar to the following in casual vernacular:

不用了 (No need)
這樣就行了 (It'll be fine like this)

(2) matches そのままで fairly well in meaning in this case.


Do 辩论 and 吵架 both mean "to argue"? For some reason, I imagine the difference is quite significant, but in which two directions do these verbs (辩论 and 吵架) go? How do they differ?

辯論 means to debate.
吵架 means to quarrel.

They both mean to argue, but 辯論 is more about presenting logical arguments in a cool, calm and collected manner in an attempt to derive a conclusion from an intellectual problem, while 吵架 is a chaotic and emotional argument with people getting upset.


How to tell when one word starts and another word ends? I am doing some work with scanning Chinese text with my computer and I have run into a problem that I do not have with other languages.

Because there are no spaces between characters, I cannot tell when one word ends and another one begins. Is there any easy way to do this? For example in English I am telling my computer to split things like this:

sentence = "My name is John"
the computer will return a list of words.
computer = ['my', 'name', 'is', 'John']

Short of a lexicographic analysis, you can't. There is a little punctuation in Chinese, so you can split sentences into subgroups. But after that, there's no easy way to say where a word stops.

Even very common words like 的 (genitive marker, appears right after the possessor, eg 我的朋友: me, I; genitive; friend: my friend) cannot be relied on 100% to be always just that. 'Taxi' is written 的士, and in this case 的 would not be a single character delimiting two words, but the first character of a word.

And Chinese is not the only language that doesn't have spaces. You'll run into more problems like this.


What does phrase 死牢 refer to? Does it means a prison that people is left for dead? Or does it means a prison to imprison a death-sentence criminal?

死牢 is a place for death sentence prisoner


Chinese-English translation On a plaque in the Zhalan Cemetery there seems to be an inconsistency. In the English text the burial date of Matteo Ricci is 1611 while in the Chinese text it appears to be 1610. Does the Chinese text say something else and is the English not an exact translation? (E.g. the Chinese speaks of date of death and English speaks of burial date.)

The Chinese text says "he died in 1610 and was buried here in the next year", the English text is just an indirect tranlation.


Placeholder name for a Chinese person targeting foreign audience, ie. John Doe equivalent Suppose I want to make up a story featuring an unimportant Chinese character. How do I give the name, so it sound like Chinese, but do not carry too much particular meaning?

That said, the Chinese character is neither the protagonist nor the antagonist, and has a minimal characteristic. Neverthless, a name is still needed. What I want is a name that sound like annonymous, while still consisting of a first name and a last name.

Like "Charlie" for English and "Ivan" for Russian, I want the name to imply Chinese nationality, especially when heard by foreign people.

I don't want the name as a pun, because thus will limit the target audience to some native language the pun originated.

Both genders may be considered.

EDIT

Although statistics are out there on name distribution among the population, I am still interested how those names sound like when some foreign people hear it.

Also please do not come up with names "Madam Three", "Mister Four", and "Five" alike. They are too made up that real parents would never name a child as such.

Below is this exact question phrased in Chinese.

给鬼子讲故事的时候儿，如果提到某个华夏人龙套，起什么名字好？名字要常见。不带特殊含意。要让鬼子听上去有华夏色彩。要有名儿有姓儿。在鬼子一般印象里，华夏人都叫什么？还有，这年头儿没人给自己家孩子起名儿阿猫阿狗的，甲乙丙的，又不是大商朝（笑）。

张三
Is pretty much the Chinese equivalent of John Doe.
There's the well known phrase 张三李四 which means:

any Tom, Dick, or Harry (ABC)

any man in street (Oxford)

张三 is the first part of the phrase and you could totally use it as a name. 李四 like-wise would also work; there are two other names: 王五 and 赵六 that are mentioned in this word: 张三，李四，王五，赵六 which again means:

1 four proverbial names
2 Tom, Dick and Harry (CC-CEDICT)

Any of those four could actually be options to you. With 张三 being the most well known followed by 李四, leaving 王五 and 赵六 as the two least unlikely candidates.

大名
Is another name that might work.
Literally meaning big, name. It is often used as a Chinese name in learning Chinese langauge texts for foreigners.


How do natives pronounce the 2nd tone in regular conversation? (Pitch levels: 35, 33, or 434?) In the thread Do tones change at the end of an interrogative sentence?
 , one of the answers asserts:
SCALE KEY: 1 (low) to 5 (high). So 55 is a high level tone, 51 is a falling tone, 35 is rising, etc.

The second tone (textbook 25 or 35) often comes out sounding mid-level
(33) or dipping-rising (434) -- this seems to be especially common at
the end of a sentence.

Is this observation valid/true? If so, why does textbook-Mandarin teach that 2nd tone is 35?
E.g:

XXX很难！XXX is so hard!

Here I understand 很 can be pronounced in a more drawn out/long way so as to stress the severity of hard.

你叫什么名字？What's your name?

Common phrase but 什么 (when spoken fast) sounds a bit like 33 to me.

我想去葡萄牙。I want to go to Portugal.

Pu2tao2ya2 also might be a good example of not completely saying 35 35 35 2nd tones.
I'm very interested in the ability of natives to, on the one hand, abide by the rules of lexical tones in daily speech, while on the other hand,  modify/alter tones for the sake of convenience, pace, brevity, emotion etc. So when I stumbled upon this answer stating that 2nd tone isn't really pronounced 35 and instead is 33 / 434, I immediately wondered if it had any merit.
For sake of context, the same answer also included an observation on 1st tone's 55 modification in daily speech:

The first tone (textbook 55) is always level, but how high it is depends on the level of emphasis. It will be exceptionally high if you want to stress the word: 你喜不喜欢吃..中..餐 "Do you like Chinese food". It will often sound quite low as the second syllable in a two-syllable word (亚洲 "Asia" ya51 zhou22) and in other contexts where it doesn't need emphasis.

A tone may, upon certain instances, take on a pitch different from its classic pitch. That is to say, while a pitch is absolute (in sound frequency), a tone is not.
中餐 may change from the classic zhōng˥ ˥ cān˥ ˥ to zhōng˥ ˥ cān˧ ˧ when 中 is intended to be stressed by the speaker (not necessarily in a question).
葡萄牙 may change from the classic Pú˧ ˥ táo˧ ˥ yá˧ ˥ to Pú˦ táo˥ yá˧ ˥ in rapid speech. The justification being, a sudden change in pitch requires too much effort. (I used only 1 pitch letter, not more, because they are supposed to be spoken quickly.)
叫他 may change from the classic jiào˥ ˩ tā˥ ˥ to jiào˥ ˩ ta꜌ (i.e., 他 becomes neutral; unaccentuated. In this example, the tone changes too) when the speaker wishes to be imperative with the verb.

Tone sandhi in Mandarin can be classified into facultative (自由音變) and obligate (不自由音變) (Zhang & Yang, 2007:6).* Obligate tone sandhi means it must be followed under all circumstances. The simplest example is obviously two neighbouring third-tones. More difficult examples include the application of neutral tones to distinguish polysemy (see the first point in this answer).

Facultative tone sandhi, however, is optional (that is to say, the classic pitch and the altered pitch coexist, while sharing the exact same meaning, only used in different contexts). The examples 中餐, 葡萄牙, and 叫他 all belong to this category. They are not as well studied, documented, and taught, so much so mastering them would require 'language intuition' (語感).

I actually find it difficult to comprehend how the second tone may take on the pitch ˧ ˧ or ˦ ˧ ˦. The answerer to the original question may a) be attempting to allocate a pitch for a second tone that is neutralised; or b) have thought of a context where facultative tone sandhi is applied. Either way, I cannot think of an example as of now.

Reference: Zhang Bennan & Yang Ruowei (2007). [普通話連讀音變]. Hong Kong: Commercial Press.
* There is no English translation in the reference, so I borrowed the jargons 'facultative' and 'obligate' that are used to classify anaerobes in biology. An obligate anaerobe can only survive in an environment without oxygen, but a facultative anaerobe can survive with or without it.


Well-known Synonym: 打墙也是动土 打墙也是动土
http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/70931373.html?fr=ala&word=打墙也是动土&device=mobile&ssid=0&from=844b&uid=0&pu=usm@0,sz@1320_2001,ta@iphone_1_8.4_3_600&bd_page_type=1&baiduid=B0DC14BD4CFD809A8478494C15B38C6D&tj=zhidao_1_0_10_l1

动土：指破土建房。意谓为了小事费了大手续，便不如索性做起大事来。
出处：《红楼梦》第二十九回：“‘打墙也是动土’！已经惊动了人，今日乐得还去逛逛。”

ABC

Lit Building a wall also [requires] moving earth.
Fig Building a wall requires almost as much work as building a house, so why not build a house? If one is going to undertake something, why stop at half measures? Why not “go the whole hog”/go “all the way”?

打墙也是动土 doesn't seem to be super well known, I'm looking for something that expresses the idea of "If one is going to undertake something, why stop at half measures?".
Any synonyms?

Besides 一不做，二不休, there is 好人做到底，送佛送到西. Or simply 既然已经做了，索性做到底.

In English you can say "in for a penny, in for a pound".


Where can I find people to communicate in Chinese to learn and improve it? I am a beginner in Chinese language. I have taken the Chinese - level 1 course on edX [MandarinX]. I did learn the basics which I could use when I travel and go to a restaurant while I am there as a part of the course. I did score 94% in my final exam but I lack the people who speak in Chinese so that I can practice. I have Chinese friends but they want to learn English and I teach them, but they never speak in Chinese when I tell them I want to learn. It's kind of discouraging. Is there a place, a website or a good application where I could find Chinese speaking people to learn, practice and grow.

Depending on how easy it is for you to get in touch with native speakers IRL, I suggest the following:

1) natives everywhere:

download Wechat 微信 and use the "People near me" function (附近的人), it will show people in a 5-10km radius near you that are online right now. Given that Chinese people do tend to use Wechat more often than non-Chinese, your chances to meet people will increase. You could start chatting people up randomly or based on mutual interests, and even hang out together.

However, don't expect natives to be willing to speak in Chinese to you ALL the time. Keep in mind that people speak their native language naturally, which means they will quickly become frustrated if they have to put too much effort in communicating with you. The worse is your Chinese, the sooner they'll feel like switching to a language they can have an actual conversation with you with.
In order to mitigate this outcome, you either improve your level BEFOREHAND or you specifically look for someone interested in language exchange.

2) I just have an internet connection:

speaking about language exchange, that's exactly what you want to go for if there are no natives able to physically go out with you.
I can recommend LingQ, lang-8, HelloTalk (app) or the excellent italki  where you can connect with real people that will correct your sentences and answer your questions (provided you do the same for them).


Why is there repetition of the measure words in 一把把小扇子 and 一枚枚邮票? This is from my 3-rd grade Chinese 语文 book (transcript is here):

  秋天的雨，有一盒五彩缤纷的颜料。你看，它把黄色给了银杏树，黄黄的叶子像一把把小扇子，扇哪扇哪，扇走了夏天的炎热。它把红色给了枫树，红红的枫叶像一枚枚邮票，飘哇飘哇，邮来了秋天的凉爽。金黄色是给田野的，看，田野像金色的海洋。橙红色是给果树的，橘子、柿子你挤我碰，争着要人们去摘呢！菊花仙子得到的颜色就更多了，紫红的、淡黄的、雪白的……美丽的菊花在秋雨里频频点头。

Question: Why is there repetition of the measure words in 一把把小扇子 and 一枚枚邮票?

I would guess this is for poetic reasons, but I'm not sure.  I've never seen this before.

The use above seems different to the question What is the meaning of "一把把" on "他更是一把把她的书包给枪了过去“？ where it seems only the first 把 is the measure word.

There is a similar question What does the second "幅” mean in the following sentence?

My answer there should be applicable here too.

  "一幅幅" in "一幅幅美丽的山水画" mainly means 'one after another'

With the same logic,  一把把小扇子 and 一枚枚邮票 means "one small fan after another" and "one stamp after another" (meaning many fans and many stamps)


In ancient China, was there an equivalent of pinyin? The question is the title. Considering pinyin is in romanised form, did the ancient Chinese have pinyin to help them learn characters, or did they just have to repeat them hundreds of times to help them remember what the reading was?

Also, I know that characters have been simplified, but in ancient China why did they make the characters so ludicrously complex, considering they've decided that's a bad idea now? I think 为 is a lot easier to remember than 為 personally. There are other examples like 难 versus 難. In ancient China why did they make the characters have loads of strokes, when its logistically easier to write and remember a character with less strokes?

There was no equivalent of pinyin in ancient Chinese, because Chinese writing developed as a way of representing the spoken language—at first for special purposes (e.g., recording divination), and then later more generally.  If there had been pinyin in, say, the 商 Shang dynasty, they might well have used that instead of Chinese characters.  Why have the (as you say) more complicated Chinese characters at all, if you already have a perfectly good representation in the pinyin?

This sounds a little odd today, because we're used to the idea of Chinese characters, and pinyin is used as a way to indicate their pronunciation, but English gets by perfectly fine using only its equivalent of pinyin (normal English orthography).  Chinese could have done so, if they had had such a system, but keep in mind that the alphabet is a rather deep innovation, and it is by no means obvious, and we should not be surprised that they did not have such a thing around the inception of the Chinese writing system.

Probably by the Three Dynasties period, and certainly no later than the 隋 Sui dynasty, when the 切韻 Qieyun (the oldest surviving example) was created, people used 反切 fanqie as a way to express character pronunciations.  It should be emphasized that fanqie is not spelling as we normally think of it in alphabetic languages.  In principle, it divides Chinese character pronunciations into two parts—an initial and a rhyme—so that the character 東 dōng would be split up into d- and -ōng.

But these two parts would not be represented using new symbols introduced only for phonetic purposes, which would have been the beginning of a true spelling system.  Instead, two other existing characters would be selected, one that shared the initial, and one that shared the rhyme.  In the Qieyun, these characters were 德 dé and 紅 hóng, and so 東 was understood to have a pronunciation that shared the d- with 德 and the -óng with 紅.

To be sure, 東 is first tone and 紅 is second tone, but at the time of the Qieyun (Middle Chinese), both characters were level tone, and what we call level (first) and rising (second) tone are the result of a register split that happened in all four Middle Chinese tones, after the time of the Qieyun.  Mandarin preserves this split of the level tone, but only keeps one side of the rising tone in its third tone, one side of the departing tone in its fourth tone, and loses (in most areas) the entering tone altogether.  Other dialects, such as Cantonese, preserve most of the results of the split.

Note that fanqie merely expresses the pronunciation of one character in terms of two others, so just as someone who is ignorant of English would find it difficult to learn it from a dictionary, someone who is ignorant of all characters cannot learn anything about the pronunciation of any character from fanqie "spellings".  (Also, as a side note, the Qieyun was not intended as a general-use pronunciation reference, but was rather dedicated to Classical readings.)  We might say that equivalence classes of initials and finals are generated by the fanqie spellings, but no explicit values are denoted.  That requires a set of specialized phonetic symbols such as an alphabet.

As far as the characters are concerned, they were not always so complicated; in many cases, the so-called "simplified" characters are actually the original form, and what we call "traditional" characters were later elaborations to distinguish two characters with the same pronunciation but radically (pun only partially intended) different meanings.

This came about in part because of the use of 假借 jiǎjiè, or borrowing, in which an existing Chinese character with (typically) a concrete meaning, and therefore a straightforward pictorial or representational depiction, was borrowed for another word with the same pronunciation.  One of the most (in)famous examples is 來 lái "come", whose character represents a wheat stalk, a meaning now captured by the character 麥 mài "wheat".  The simpler character was borrowed for the more common meaning, which led some people to speculate that there was a form lái that meant "wheat"—but in fact, the situation is simpler than that: The original character for "come" was 麥—note the presence of the foot radical at the bottom—so the two characters merely "switched places".

This kind of extended usage is fine if you only want to write something down to remind you of what you yourself meant, but if you want to convey something to someone else, it behooves you to specify it more precisely, which I suspect gave rise to the use of 形聲字 xíngshēngzì, or phonetic-semantic compounds, which account for the vast majority of Chinese characters (around 90 percent, depending on whose count you trust*).  The phonetic components of many of these characters were themselves compounds already, leading to a large nested structure and the array of complicated traditional characters you observe.  (This complication, by the way, is why on the mainland, you'll typically see traditional characters referred to as 繁體字 fántǐzì, to allude to their complexity, whereas Taiwan often refers to them as 正體字 zhèngtǐzì, to allude to their "correctness".)

In short, Chinese writing evolved organically, as the result of countless scribes working independently, and even with the efforts of the Qin dynasty to keep things straight, lots of characters were standardized that today seem pointlessly complicated.  Whether simplified Chinese measurably helps literacy is a different and difficult question to answer, because that too was done somewhat organically and not always consistently.

Hope this helps.  Some of this is just general knowledge, but a couple of (English-language) reference sources that I've found useful are

Ramsey, S. Robert, The Languages of China.
Schuessler, Axel, ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese.

*Interestingly, the percentage varies from source to source, but there seems to be general agreement on how many characters are not phonetic-semantic compounds—about 1500—and so the variation in percentage arises almost wholly from how many characters are reckoned to be used in Chinese.


How to understand "实" in this context? ”五侯九伯，女实征之“（《齐桓公伐楚盟屈完》）之"实"字何以训？ 《齐桓公伐楚盟屈完》，出《左传》僖公四年，原文节此：

  ”昔召康公命我先君太公曰：‘五侯九伯，女实征之，以夹辅周室。’”

这个“实”字当何以训？“实”常见的释义里，大概只有“真正、真确”还强通文意。但看到《康熙字典》里“实”又有“具數”一义：“又具數也。《史記·始皇本紀》使黔首自實田。《註》謂令民自具頃畝實數也。”用来训此“实”，是否得当？有更好的解释吗？

Here's an expansion from 《史記》·《齊太公世家》that clarifies:

「『東至海，西至河，南至穆陵，北至無棣，五侯九伯，實得征之。』齊由此得征伐，為大國。」

In this expansion, 實 means "truly"/"legitimately" (實) authorized to (得) launch expeditions (征) against them (之): launch expeditions against them with actual authority.  So "legitimately" might be your best single word for the apparent function of 實 here.

實 as 的確 makes some sense in the expanded version, but still doesn't make sense as 的確 in the abbreviated form you cite in the 春秋左傳; so I would take that 實 as an abbreviated form of 實得, and gloss the original shorter phrase as "legitimately [authorized], go on the expedition" .  It would be interesting to interpret 實 as "具備"(權力) but I can't find any clear evidence for that reading.

More examples of the 實得 usage would be useful: I'm having trouble finding other instances of this combination.  It's worth noting that the above interpretation works quite well for the only other similar usage of 實 I can find, also from 《春秋左傳》·《昭公三十年》:「靈王之喪，我先君簡公在楚，我先大夫印段實往，...」.

Other Examples

Here are some additional examples of uses we can use to examine the problem.  Based on searches from ctext.org.

《覲禮》:

  天子設斧依於戶牖之間，左右幾。天子袞冕，負斧依。嗇夫承命，告於天子。天子曰：「非他，伯父實來，予一人嘉之。伯父其入，予一人將受之。」侯氏入門右，坐奠圭，再拜稽首。擯者謁。侯氏坐取圭，升致命。

This seems useful because the gloss as 確實 seems even more strained than the example you have provided.  Here it seems to mean "May the Royal Protector [伯父] come here under authorization, so that We may congratulate him..." and then the Royal Protector comes in (I think - not sure what 侯氏 is, maybe one clan/surname/氏 of the 諸侯?).

《周語中》

  王召士季，曰：「子弗聞乎，禘郊之事，則有全烝；王公立飫，則有房烝；親戚宴饗，則有肴烝。今女非他也，而叔父使士季實來修舊德，以獎王室。唯是先王之宴禮，欲以貽女。...

I.e., the Royal Uncle [叔父, again, whatever] has dispatched 士季 to come under orders to renew old good will, in order to favor the Royal House.

There are other examples of "實來" in canon where it's not so clear it isn't simply meaning "really came". The advantage to the above selections, particularly the second, is that it's a real stretch to translate it as something like "X dispatched Y to actually visit..." - it just doesn't make very much sense.


Could someone translate text carved on my flute? could someone translate a text carved on my bamboo flute? I think it might be a poem :o

Here it goes, I took 2 photos in case it's not readible

Also this one

I suppose it might be the creator's name?

Thanks a lot in advance!

与史郎中钦听黄鹤楼上吹笛 李白
一为迁客去长沙，西望长安不见家。
黄鹤楼中吹玉笛，江城五月落梅花。

Translation is difficult for chinese poems, for charm will be lost for most times.
龙秦 is not the author, the author is 李白 the most famous poet wellknown as the poetic genius libai.
The meaning of this poem is:

Demoted to Changsha, look west to Changan but there is no home there. Hearing jade flute play in the Yellow Crane Tower, seeing plums fall at may in Jiangcheng（Wuhan）.


Help translating 针一的材质 Please help translating the following phrase:

  针一的材质

Does it mean "first class material"?

针一 and 针二 are just names of materials. They refer to different kinds of cloth. (Those words are quite professional. Even native speakers don't know that.)


Is it correct to say “在手机”？ Would it be correct to use the phrase "在手机”/“在手机上” etc. to express that I am doing something on my phone? For example, could I say

  我听音乐在我的手机上。

Or can 在 only be used for my actual physical location? If so, how would I express this sort of thing? (Phrases like "on the internet", "on my computer", "on my phone", etc.)

Your sample sentence should be "我在我的手机上听音乐" as ChineseHulu.com said.And you actually SHOULD not omit the word "上" in this sentence,or it would be a little bit weird to native Chinese people.

"在...上" is a preposition phrase.It can be used on representational target like:
在操场上 -- on playground
在沙发上 -- on sofa

And it can be used on abstract target like
在手机上 -- on cell phone
在电脑上 -- on computer
在网络上 -- on internet

Usually we Chinese won't omit "上" if we use this phrase on abstract target or express specific position relation.So these sentence should not omit this word:
我正在手机上玩游戏 -- I'm playing game on cell phone.
我想在电脑上看电影 -- I wanna watch movie on computer.
我通常在网络上聊天 -- I usually chat on internet.
男孩在沙发上跳着 -- The boy is jumping on the sofa.

But if we use this phrase to express the location where something happened,not focusing on the position relation.We can omit this word:
男孩们在操场上玩 or 男孩们在操场玩 are all ok.(Boys are playing on the playground.)

And if you wanna express something happened on the specific location but it's a large area.You MUST omit the word "上" and the phrase thus turn into another single word preposition phrase "在...".
我在上海工作 -- I'm working in Shanghai.
我在苏州旅游 -- I'm traveling in SuZhou.

Apologize for my English.Hope you will get it all... :D


Do it while you can or "Strike while the iron is hot" in Chinese How to correctly communicate or express these timely sayings in Chinese? "Do something while the conditions are right" or "Seize the opportunity when it presents itself"
Would this be correct -- 尽你所能

“Strike while the iron is hot” in Chinese is 打鐵趁熱

鍛造鐵器必須在加熱鎔燒時進行。比喻做事必須把握時機、不要拖延。

Forging ironware must be done while the iron is hot. It is a metaphor that you must seize the opportunity to do things without delay.

"Do it while you can" could mean '機不可失' (chance is rare, so don't miss it) or 勿失良機 (don't miss a good chance)


Does the chinese letter mean the number, one? As I browsing around on the internet, I was looking at what a sentence meant in English. But the issue is that I was not sure if this is the Chinese letter for "1" or does it have a different interpretation.

I am talking about is this letter ^. It's the letter that looks like a dash but has that little thing at the right end.

Yes, it is chinese number one. For the whole phrase, it is normally used like 改编自XXX同名小说, means "edited from the novel with the same name from XXX"

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 as Arabic numerals。

〇一二三四五六七八九十 for normal use in China (since ancient china).

零壹贰叁肆伍陆柒捌玖拾 for financial use in China, like accounting or bank transaction application.


Is "⤒" (UPWARDS ARROW TO BAR) (U+2912) not easily confused with "不"? WeChat official account management has this horrible looking guy for 置顶 next to the trash can:

Steam also uses the same character for download now:

I'm pretty sure it is just this character:
⤒
(U+2912)
which Unicode calls:

UPWARDS ARROW TO BAR

Is ⤒ (upwards arrow to bar) not very easily confused with 不?
Especially in the context of WeChat's usage?

No, it will never be confused, bacause 不 is not always used as a sign in public （因为“不”不太会当作一个符号来使用的）.


please help me translate this poem on my dizi into english picture shows chinese writing on my dizi

If it's "笛鸣天下曲, 箫声韵五孤", its translation should be:
The flute can play all the tunes in the world

all its voice sounds so lonely but fair

Because I do not know is the last Chinese Character "孤", so I only can translate it to "lonely" now.
Actually, "笛" and "箫" are two kind of flutes, but it seem both their English translation are "flute".


Is it correct to introduce yourself as "我是 name" Can I say "我是 john?" (wo3 shi4 john).

Would it be grammatically correct?

From a grammatical point of view your sentence is correct. The pattern 我是 + name is a casual way of introducing yourself. Personally I heard that a lot.
However, in formal situations using the pattern 我叫 + name is probably the best option.

Like user3a said, I think it's true that the structure 我是 + name implies that the focus is on 我, whereas in a sentence experessed in the form 我叫 + name it is your name that receives the focus.


Hokkien pronunciation of `白头偕老` 白头偕老 is a set expression in Mandarin, meaning to get old together, in a loose translation. I found it in a Hokkien song called 牵阮的手 (Mandarin 牵我的手, English While you hold my hand). In the linked video, it is pronounced in a way that sounds like pe̍h-thiô-kai-nóo making it rhyme with the rest of the lyrics. In a CD I have, though, I hear it pronounced something like pe̍h-thâu-kai-láu, losing the rhyme. In both cases, the accurate sounds and the tones are reconstructed from the 台湾闽南语常用词辞典. In fact, in the second one, I am not sure whether to put láu or lāu. I chose the former since it is indicated as 文 (literary), whereas the former is indicated as 白 (vernacular), and this looks like a set phrase possibly stemming from Classical CHinese, which makes a literary reading seem more appropriate. Anyway my question is: is either of these right? Or is none of these right? And if so, which is the right one?

nóo vs. ló

These two are both for literary pronunciation. Since 白頭偕老(白头偕老) is a traditional Chinese idiomatic expression (成語 Chengyu), we tend to pronounce it in the literary way.

The difference between these two might be in the sub-dialect aspect. I'd pronounce it as pe̍h-thâu-kai-ló since it's easier for me to pronounce. But I reckon that pe̍h-thiô-kai-nóo is considered more sophisticated and authentic generally.

láu vs. lāu

These are indeed two common pronunciations for 老. But I humbly argue that these two are not very likely to be used in this particular context 白頭偕老(白头偕老) (at least in my neighborhood).

I have recorded a clip saying pe̍h-thâu-kai-ló, so you can cross-check with the CD that you mentioned above. Go to pe̍h-thâu-kai-ló if you don't mind my Donald Duck voice.

Hokkien has many sub-dialects, so sometimes people (like myself) might need to be more open-minded about "what is the right way to say a certain word?".

Note and reference:

My parents are from the northern part and the middle part of Taiwan. They use Hokkien(Min Nan) as their first spoken language.
The singer in the music video is from southern part of Taiwan.
I use Mandarin as my first spoken language.


How to translate the fictional name "yuan-ti" into meaningful Chinese words? In the tabletop game Dungeons & Dragons, one of the monsters is a snake/man hybrid named "yuan-ti." The earliest appearance of this name is in Dwellers of the Forbidden City (1981), in which the name supposedly translates to "demon men." The name is gibberish that sounds vaguely of Chinese origin (and the monsters are sometimes depicted in clothing/arms/architecture with a Chinese-influenced aesthetic), perhaps a combination of the syllables yuan or you an plus ti or di.

Is there any possible way that a Chinese phrase approximating that could translate into an appropriate name for said monster? I know virtually nothing about Chinese besides what little I read online.  I looked through Chinese dictionaries and the best I could come up with was 妖蜿者 yāo wān zhě, which is not a real phrase but approximates the apparent pronunciation and meaning of the monster's name... if filtered through game of telephone, I guess?

imo, "yuan-ti" is a transliteration of chinese, using older scheme of romanisation. the characters represented are "軟體" (a pliable body), quite a good description of "snake-related-monster".

the "華英萬字典", printed in 1907,

had the entry of "軟" (juan3, jwan)

https://archive.org/stream/chineseenglishdi00pole#page/339/mode/1up

and, 體 (ti3)

https://archive.org/stream/chineseenglishdi00pole#page/386/mode/1up

it's not far away from "juan" to "yuan" :)


What is the meaning of the Taihang Mountains (太行山)? The translation is not present on the Wikipedia article about the mountains, nor anywhere else that I've looked. My best guess is that it's something like "Much movement" or "Long journey", but I can't pin it down, and I can't tell if it's referring to the length of a journey to make it through the mountains, or the way the mountains seem to move when you look at them, or something like that.
For those who are interested, this is the mountain range that separates the provinces of Shanxi and Shandong.

太行山名字的来历

太，有极大至高的意思，行，应该就是行列的意思，联系起来，就是极大的一行。再看太行山的形势，基本是南北走向，绵延千里，分割西部黄土高原和东部华北平原，真是极大地一行列。古人命名为太行，名副其实。

太 has the meaning of 'extreme; ultimate; grand'; 行 here should be interpreted as 行列 (row). 太行 means 'grand row'. Look at the shape of the 太行山, it is basically from North to South, a thousands-mile long row,  that divided the Loess Plateau in the west and the North China Plain in the east. The ancients named it 太行 was a fitting choice

Base on the description from this article 太行山 can be translated as 'Grand Row Mountains'
From the same page:

对太行山的限定《括地志》载：“太行数千里，始于怀而终于幽，为天下之脊。”

"太行", is thousands of miles long. Starts from 怀州 (Huizhou), ends at 幽州(Youzhou). It is the spine of the world

'The spine of the world' would be an extremely long row


How should I mention my Chinese professor in a document? I really don't know Chinese but I just started to study in China online. I am preparing a report and I need to mention my professor's name. In Chinese it's written as 刘雨欣(liuyuxin), this means 刘(liu) is her surname. Should I write Professor Liu Yuxin or Professor Yuxin Liu?

Both 'Professor Liu Yuxin' and 'Professor Yuxin  Liu' are acceptable (apply the first name first or the last name first format depend on the audience). To be safe, just highlight the family name with an underline or bold fond.
It is easier just use the last name 刘教授 (Professor Liu)
You can call your professor 刘雨欣教授 or 刘教授 in Chinese but you cannot call her 雨欣.刘 教授 (apply the English first name first format directly into an all Chinese name)
Edit: capitalize the last name also work


What is this exclamation and how is it written? There is a phrase that my family uses, but I'm not sure how to type it in Mandarin. I don't know if it is purely an exclamation or if it also means something. The closest way I can write it in English is "aye yai ya sin soco lah".

For example, if someone burned food, realized they had forgotten an appointment, or dropped a plate on the floor, they might say "Aye yai ya sin soco lah!"

My grandmother uses the phrase most often, and she speaks Shanghainese.

I know this seems a bit silly, but I would appreciate it if someone could tell me exactly what this phrase is and what characters are used to write it.

Edit:

It could be

哎也也 /Āi yě yě/ ('Ouch!/ Oh no!' exclamation)

真 /Zhēn/  (really)

糟糕 /Zāogāo/  (it is bad/ not good)

啦 /la/ (final particle)

哎也也, 真糟糕啦! (Oh no! It is really bad!)


Is the 有 in 你有想要买什么吗 some kind of auxiliary verb? I was going to the convenience store and asked my local friend how to ask in Chinese "Do you want anything?"

Her answer was: 你有想要买什么吗

I wasn't sure what to make of the 有 before the verb 想要 meaning "to want" and as a native speaker she could not explain it though she did understand my questions about its grammatical function.

Is it a kind of auxiliary verb in this sentence? Or is it a case of the special Taiwanese 有 that can be used for some references to the past but which also has other uses? Or is it something entirely different?

你有想要买什么吗. It sounds more like Taiwanese usage of 有 to my ear. I found they often put 有 between subject and verb. E.g. 我有去过；我有看过；where I often just say 我去过；我看过. In this case, I'll probably say  你想要买什么? or 你想要买什么(东西)吗?.


In soccer commentary, what do Chinese say when a player scores a Goal? In English and in Spanish they say "Gooaaaaaalllll" after a player scores. How do the Chinese say goal? (My poor guess: méééééén ?)

In Cantonese they say "入波!!!!" (Rù bō)

EDIT: In Mandarian they might say "进球啦" (Jìn qiú La)


留学: Why the use of "留"? I'm sure like many students of Chinese, my first encounter with the character 留 was in the word 留学, meaning "to study abroad".

Some time later I encountered 留 as an independent word, meaning "to stay". Most of the compounds with 留 are consistent with that meaning (停留, 保留, etc.). However, 留学 doesn't really make a lot of sense as "stay" + "study". The dictionary was not very helpful, as it listed 留学 as a (presumably obvious) example of 留 meaning "to stay in a place".

Could someone proffer an explanation as to how "staying a place studying" came to mean "study abroad" as opposed to, say, "going to boarding school"? Perhaps someone knows something the history of either Chinese education and/or the usage of the word 留学?

The answer is in this article:
从"出洋"、"游学"到"留学"——晚清"留学"词源考

It is really a complicated history, but in short: During the Tang Dynasty Japanse students came to China to study. These were called 留学生 in Japan. During the Late Qing Dynasty 留学 was taken over in China and became more and more popular.


Difference between 想 and 要? I know both of them mean "want to" but have usage in different contexts. When should I use each one?

For example:

  我要去上海市 and 我想去上海市

What's the difference in the meaning between them?

Also, I've seen these two characters together in some sentences.

  我想要去上海市

When they're together, is there a third context?

The way I differentiate between these two is using "want" and "need".

In English "need" still means "want to", but there is an added necessity.

This is apparent in the following two sentences:

  我想吃饭

I want to eat

  我要吃饭

I need to eat

You will also hear people using 需要 (Xūyào) to indicate need, so just think of 要 as a shortened version of that:

  你需要我做什么？

What do you need me to do

想要 is interchangeable with 想 in most uses.

Also worth noting is 要 can be used to indicate "going to":

  你为什么想把它弄坏了？

Why do you want to break it?

  你为什么要把它弄坏了？

Why are you going to break it?

  你为什么想去他家？

Why do you want to go to (his/her) house?

  你为什么要去他家？

Why are you going to (his/her) house?


English name for this musical piece? I’m making the program booklet, and one thing they are playing is 苏三起解.
Is there a commonly used English name for it?  I have “Su San Under Escort” but see others when I search for it, like “Susan left Hongtong county”.
That’s not a pretty or poetic name.  So is there a better name I should use?
Also, Su San, not Susan, right?

Also,
The Story of SU San
Susan’s Redemption
Su San Sets Out for a Retrial (But I don’t know if that’s the name of one scene or song within the opera, or the opera itself)
The Woman Prisoner 女起解 (does appear to be the name of a specific aria, not the whole opera)

https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%B5%B7%E8%A7%A3

  起解” 如果要简单的翻译成现代汉语，那就是：“提审”

  If we want to simply translate "起解"  into modern Chinese, it is: "提审"

  “提审”。提审程序如果按照目前的诉讼法理论，是上级法院根据自己的意志做出的、对下级法院生效判决重新审理的司法程序 (It means a higher court initiates a retrial of a case that was adjudicated by a lower court)

  起解 also means [start sending prisoner away under escort]∶押送罪犯或货物上路

  Since Su San was convicted of murder and sentenced to death, there was no reason to send her somewhere else, Therefore, 起解 in 苏三起解 should mean "retrial" not "escort away"

苏三 is a woman's name (she was the heroine of the Chinese opera 苏三起解)

苏三起解 can be translated as "The retrial of Su San"  or "Exoneration of Su San"


How does 子 come to mean 'midnight'? Arch Chinese lists the meanings of 子 as

  son, seed, egg, child, small thing, noun suffix(zi5), midnight, Kangxi radical number 39, 1st terrestrial branch

The meanings of child, egg, diminutive noun suffix etc. are clearly related, but I find it hard to remember that this also means midnight (in particular in the Korean 자정/子正).

How does 子 come to mean 'midnight'? Is it related to the fact that it also stands for '1st terrestrial branch'?

It is indeed related to the terrestrial (earthly) branches, and in a 24-hour day,「子時」represents the time of day between 11:00 PM to 1:00 AM.「子正」, as noted in the question, specifically represents midnight (12:00 AM).

Unfortunately, there is no convenient mnemonic or etymology that you can use to make a connection between「子」and midnight, but I doubt that midnight shows up very often anyway as a meaning (unless you're into traditional Korean timekeeping?).


What is the meaning of 原湯化原食？ In the show 人民的名義 the suspect doesn't want to accompany the protagonist on account of his soup getting cold. The protagonist replies "講究啊"（meticulous！）and then:

  原湯化原食

None of my many Pleco dictionaries lists 原湯 or 原食，although 原湯 was my phonetic keyboard's first suggestion!

原汤化原食 is a kind of eating habit, especially exists in northern areas; means drinking the soup of the dumplings (or noodles etc) after eating them. e.g. for the case of dumplings, 原汤 refers to the water (or you can think it as soup) which used for boiling dumplings, 原食 means dumplings.

  一般来讲，“原食”指的是淀粉类食物，比如饺子、面条、馄饨、汤圆等，“原汤”就是水煮这些食物后得到的汤，而“化”有“消化”的意思。所以“原汤化原食”的意思是，汤能够帮助淀粉类食物消化吸收。

(In general, 原食 refers to starchy foods, like dumplings, noodles, wontons, glue puddings etc, 原汤 refers to the water which used for boiling these foods. 化 means digestion, so 原汤化原食 means the soup could help digesting starchy foods.)

There're several various explanations about why people doing this, someone believe 原汤 could help digestion; someone believe 原汤 is nourishing. I prefer to that it's just a habit; people like drinking something after eating and with 原汤 you don't need to cook the soup separately. And I think this article gave a nice summary:

  所以，真要较真的话，“专家”们提供的“原汤化原食”的“科学道理”实在是很牵强附会。当然，面汤本身并没有什么不好，与白开水相比，它其中还有一些淀粉甚至维生素。吃完面后喝点面汤，多少也算是节约粮食的表现。如果真的喜欢喝，“喜欢”就是最好的理由。如果非要堆砌一些科学术语来给它一个“科学解释”，可能就是弄巧成拙。


What is the meaning of 劃來劃去? In the Story 小蝌蚪找媽媽 there is this sentence i cant understand:
小蝌蚪看見小鴨子跟著媽媽在水裏劃來劃去
The tadpole saw the ducklings follow their mama in the water...?
Can someone help? thanks a lot for your time.

This is a spelling mistake, and should be written as 「划來划去」.
In Traditional Chinese, 「划」 means to row, to paddle, e.g. 「划龍舟」 (to row a dragon boat). 「劃」 normally means to delimit, to partition 「劃分」 or sometimes to plan 「計劃」.

小蝌蚪看見小鴨子跟著媽媽在水裏划來划去
The wee tadpoles saw the ducklings following their mother in the water, paddling away.

References:

萌典
國語小字典
教育部國語辭典簡編本
粵語審音配詞字庫


Does chinese songs have a natural word order? In English, it is hard to rhyme. So writers sometimes resort to rather awkward sentence structures, just to get the song to rhyme.

Recent example from Maroon Five:

I'm at a payphone trying to call home
All of my change, I spent on you
Where have the times gone?
Baby, it's all wrong
Where are the plans we made for two?

While it's perfectly legal to say "All of my change, I spent on you", nobody would phrase it that way in everyday speech.

My guess is that since a lot of chinese words sound the same, it should be easier to rhyme. So it should be easier for chinese writers to achieve a natural flow. Right?

If I learn Chinese from new songs, do I risk learning unnatural expressions and word orders?

This is really a big topic that can be expanded on multiple dimensions, but to the core of your question,

  Does Chinese songs have a natural word order?

Not always, if 'natural' means grammatical and can be used in daily spoken language or formal non-poem writing.

  If I learn Chinese from new songs, do I risk learning unnatural expressions and word orders?

Yes, as you do from lyrics in any language.

Lyrics can be seen as free-form poems, which are very lax in grammar, syntax and idiom. The author may deliberately break grammatical rules or create non-existing words and usages, for the purpose of rhetoric, rhyming, style or any other reason. In lyrics, a big proportion of the lines, if not the majority, are language fragments instead of complete sentences. This is especially true in the Chinese pop songs since the late 90's. Grammar aside, they can be too rhetorical or too literary to use in daily conversations. Keeping that in mind, lyrics are still a good way to get familiar with the language and memorize vocabularies.

I can add some examples to demonstrate the point but it's nothing special given you know the phenomenon well in English lyrics. They can be added upon request.


What are the most common Chinese terms for travel power adapters between different international socket and plug standards? Are there more specific terms than “適配器” which is the general word for “adapter”? What about “轉換器”?

English speakers use a variety of terms to refer to these devices. Personally I find "travel adapter" pretty unambiguous and straightforward.

「转换插头」 just as printed on the picture you provided.

Or, less commonly, 「插座转换器」「电源插座转换器」, etc.


What is an idiomatic way to say "This is not good" in Mandarin? The title mostly covers the question, but some elaboration might help.  In English, there is a common construction of ideas whereby the speaker makes a statement about an action or event, and follows this sentence with a comment about how it isn't good, depending on the tense of the action or event being described.  Some examples:

Past tense:

  "Last year I didn't exercise at all."

might be followed by

  "This didn't turn out well for me, the doctor said I was overweight."

"This didn't turn out well" is a mildly colloquial way of saying that the previous topic ended up being negative in some way, with the implication that this was at least somewhat surprising to the speaker.

Present tense:

  "I'm really late to class."

followed by

  "It's not good, my teacher will be very upset."

"It's not good" is a bit idiomatic, but refers to the previous statement negatively impacting the subject of the sentence, however doesn't portray any sense of surprise.

Future tense:

  "Next year, I'm going to be working three jobs."

followed by

  "We'll see how it turns out, but I don't think I'll be sleeping next year."

Here, "We'll see how it turns out" conveys that the speaker is unsure if the future action or event will be positive or negative, and the second half of that sentence clarifies that the speaker thinks it will turn out negatively.

All of these examples end up conveying the same general message, that the topic of the previous statement will negatively impact the speaker or subject.  I'm looking for a Chinese phrase or fragment which conveys a similar meaning, as well as how to structure a sentence using it.

In all these situations I would use one of these

  这样不好
  这样不太好
  这样好象不好

short, simple and broadly usable.
adds a feeling of "not optimal".
adds some level of uncertainty to the statement.


Why are multiple 学s okay in the sentence 我学英语学了4年了 In this sentence, I do not understand the purposes of each of the 2 instances of the character 学.

我学英语学了4年了。
I have been studying English for 4 years.

In my naive understanding I would personally translate the English to Chinese as follows:

我学了英语4年。

I think this might be related to my confusion about the phrase 学英语. Is this a noun that means "The Study of English" or is it a verb like "to study English"? I can see why you might add a second 学 if the former is true.

The interesting phenomenon in this example is the use of 了。。。了 to indicate an ongoing action. In cases where the ongoing verb takes an object (like 英语 in your sentence), the verb is repeated. If the object is understood, it doesn't need to be repeated. For example, if you've established with your interlocutor that you're studying English, you might say 我学了一年了 (I have studied for a year).

As an aside, your "naive translation" would be closer to "I studied (i.e., completed studying) English ...". If this is your intent, a more apt translation might be 我学了四年英语


What are the characters on this unusual seal (Characters identified: 令憲稽首) Can someonne help me to decipher this unusual seal ?
Many thanks

Side carving of this seal

The characters are

which would be expressed today as 「令憲稽首」. This roughly translates to prostrate before the law.

What you have there looks like a seal recorded to be carved by an artisan named 黄士陵. See http://www.ne.jp/asahi/yoshitaka/hanko/kousiryou.html:

The side says

仿彝器文 士陵
In imitation of bronze inscriptions, by 士陵

referring to the script style of the seal being bronze inscription shapes.


Why is it suggested to "范畴论" translated with "general nonsense"? "范畴论" seems to be the correct term for "Category Theory", a relatively modern and popular branch of mathematics. Therefore I find the suggested translation "general nonsense", I checked various dictionaries and platforms, a bit troublesome or maybe undiplomatic.

Is there a reason for this  suggestion of translation?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_nonsense

  In mathematics, abstract nonsense, general abstract nonsense, and general nonsense are terms used by mathematicians to describe abstract methods related to category theory and homological algebra. More generally, “abstract nonsense” may refer to a proof that relies on category-theoretic methods, or even to the study of category theory itself.


What’s the correct character for the act of showing your teeth? The word to show your teeth in Chinese is 呲牙 or 龇牙? I have seen 龇牙 in dictionaries but 呲牙 in like Wechat and other places. So do they have any differences or are they the same?

They are same meaning, just has different written words in some ancient books.
Check the Chinese sentences below:

齜牙咧嘴 教育部重編國語辭典修訂本
呲牙裂嘴 教育部重編國語辭典修訂本


Translate a calligraphic painting to identify the artist and when it was painted Please help translate this painting to identify the artist and when it was painted.

not too sure but my guess is:

路轉影峯環
林泉溪畔
湖山繞翠色
遠大前程
千里盡秋之月
寫於海外草屋
成森