Why does 項 signify both 'item' and 'neck'? I hope it's obvious why, but I don't think of "necks" as items. I can't imagine "neck" as as part of a "list, collection or set." Why? Because I'm not trying to separate people's or animals' necks, and most humans don't deal with necks as "an individual article or unit." Items are

An individual article or unit, especially one that is part of a list, collection, or set.

1.1.  A piece of news or information
1.2. An entry in an account.

Oxford Chinese Dictionary (2010) p 819.

项 is originally means nape (back part of the neck), to distinguish from 颈 (front part of the neck). Later, 颈 became to mean neck in general.
Because 颈 is primarily for neck only, 项 later got borrowed into its other meanings.
Your neck holds up your head and supports it, thus the definition is then focused upon the head that is being held up by the neck.
Multiple heads became multiple individuals, and from there, the meaning evolved to become a classifier of items.


Can anyone read Seal Script? I’m completely stuck I have a wonderful print that I inherited that has two seals on it. I am completely at a loss on how to find out what artist they are referring to.

㥁(德)不在遠 (virtue is not far)
陽春煙景 (a warm spring and misty/foggy scenery, meaning beautiful scenery)

I don't believe these are artist names.


What is the use of 色 in color names? I thought that the proper way to use the basic color names is generally with 色, i.e.:

这件衣服是蓝色的

But recently I have come across such a sentence:

我不喜欢黄的，我喜欢白的。

Is the 色 optional, or is the difference in use making 色 disappear in the second example?

If you learn the context, you will notice it is more complicated than the probable duplicate answer links.

  Context 1 : 我不喜欢黄（色）的，我喜欢白（色）的。

This shows a preference for particular stuff with attributes other than the color, color is used to highlight the choice, and that is why 的is used. E.g. there are white and yellow candies in different flavors. Instead of specifying the flavor, one may use their color to indicate the choices.

  Context 2 : 我不喜欢黄色，我喜欢白色。

This shows explicit preference in color. E.g. there are two pairs of pants that look exactly the same, and the person likes the white color.

Though in daily life, both can be used interchangeably in an ambiguous way. However, for a writer, this will give explicit characteristic to the character in their writing.


chinese grammar, 做饺子 or 做饭饺子? 做饺子 and 做饭饺子, second is said grammatically incorrect, by a Chinese person : is that right ? what is the problem with 做饭饺子

wenlin says : 做饭[-飯] zuòfàn* {E} v.o. prepare a meal | Nǐ huì zuòfàn ma? 你会做饭吗? Can you cook ?

The character "饭" itself in the word "做饭" has a literal meaning as "meal". So if you say "做饭饺子", the whole meaning of the sentence would become "prepare 'meal dumplings'", it contains a strange phrase "meal dumplings" (饭饺子) which is not in the regular Chinese vocabulary.

In this sense, "饭" is just a generic character referred to any kind of meal, if you mean to refer to a specific type of food, you should just replace "饭" with that food such as "饺子".


Etymological character reference Is there an authoritative etymological reference for characters?

It looks like all books I'm reading about Chinese characters have their own explanation. To me, all of them seem reliable, but I wonder if a studied, documented and accepted reference exists.

Thanks!

Note (distinction from possible duplicate questions): this question is NOT about the etymology of words (for this, look at What etymology dictionaries are available? ), but of characters; more, I'm not really interested in availability of dictionaries, but about the existence of somehow officially recognized studies about the evolution of characters.

I assume you are talking about the origin and evolution of characters, as opposed to the origin and evolution of the words they represent.  These two are complementary, but not identical.

Analyzing characters and tracing their forms from the oracle bones through Zhou bronzes on into the forms used over 2000+ years of dynastic history is a huge job, and there is no standard work that covers all of this.

Standard dictionaries such as 漢語大字典 are not specialist works, and will have gaps and weaknesses that you must be careful of, just as the OED is not an authoritative source for tracing the indo-european roots of English.

Rather than look for something that gives you random explanations chosen from unspecified sources, I would recommend that you read Qiu Xigui's book 文字學概要. This has been translated into English as Chinese Writing by Mattos and Norman, and is the best book on the subject in English, by far. This will help you to better understand and evaluate the claims you read.

If you get through that and really want to try reading Chinese works, the Shuowen jiezi 說文解字 of Xu Shen 許慎 remains the indispensible work on the origins and analysis of Chinese characters, and the starting point for all studies of Chinese characters.

Qing dynasty studies of the Shuowen are indispensible adjuncts to raeding Shuowen.  The Shuowen jiezi gulin 說文解字詁林　of Ding Fubao 丁福保 is the most convenient compilation of Qing research. This is pure classical Chinese, with a huge number of special terms and idiosyncratic written forms. I don't think there is a version of this in simplified characters. (Correct me if I'm wrong.)  It does not include all Qing dynasty work on the Shuowen.

Analysis of the original forms of characters also demands knowledge of oracle bone, bronze vessel writing, and the bamboo and silk works that are regularly excavated by archaeologists.

There are several dictionaries of the oracle bones and bronze characters, but many of these are simply compilations of forms (organized under Shuowen's classification system!), and don't have the kind of explanations you are looking for.

There is less on the Warring States materials that are now a large and important field of research; there are one or two textbooks I believe, but I'm not familiar enough with this area to recommend anything.

A number of journals, such as 考古 and 中央研究院歷史語言研究所集刊 publish research articles on Chinese characters that try to analyze and identify unfamiliar forms in new works.  These articles regularly overturn long-accepted explanations.

Archaeological document finds are also a major topic for Ph.D. dissertations, both in China and Taiwan.  It generally takes a while for new discoveries and theories from these to work their way into the current literature.

The point of this reply is that character etymology and evolution is a very large area where important work that revises earlier ideas is frequently published.

I don't think there is one work that can be totally relied on to always have the most current information.  In addition, there are many cases where interpretations are still sharply disputed, so any claims about forms, meanings, or readings should specifically state whose views they are following.


How does CJK Decomposition compare to the Wikimedia Commons Chinese characters decomposition data? I found two public databases that describe the composition of Chinese characters.

1 - CJK Decomposition Data

2 - Chinese Characters Decomposition on Wiki Commons

I can see how the formats they use are different, but I don't think they are incompatible. Are these two data sources related or completely independent? Is it known which one is of higher quality?

The reason I'm asking is because I'm working on a tool that makes it easier to look up characters. It allows you to search by radical anywhere in the character, rather than by just the primary radical used in dictionaries.

I would say that the CJK Decomposition Data (your first link; henceforth CJKDD) is better of the two, for most purposes. Some time ago I used the character decomposition data from Wikimedia Commons, and there were quite a few popular characters with missing decompositions. Now I checked a few of these characters, and all of them had decompositions in CJKDD, so it seems more complete.

The Wikimedia database is better than before, but still lacks decompositions of some characters, such as 齒, 風 and 龠. Moreover, some decompositions are incorrect, e.g. 辰 is shown as a component of 脈. And in general, the Wikimedia database doesn't show components that aren't separate characters. CJKDD, conversely, contains all kinds of components, including the ones that don't have their own Unicode code points.

Wenlin with its Character Description Language (CDL) is another source of decomposition data that you may want to look at. Even CJKDD has inconsistent descriptions of some characters, and Wenlin seems a bit better in this regard. For example, even though  is present in the database, it is not shown as a component of 範 (範 is decomposed as 範:d(⺮,38298), which is in turn decomposed as 38298:a(車,㔾). In Wenlin, 範 is correctly decomposed into  and . Wenlin uses Unicode Private Use Areas for encoding components that aren't separate characters.

On the other hand, Wenlin has its peculiarities and, for example, decomposes 齒 into  and 凵. CJKDD splits 齒 into 止 and , which seems much more natural. In the result, Wenlin doesn't see  as a component of 齒. Similarly, 曲 a sub-sub-component of 曹 in CJKDD and Wikimedia, but not in Wenlin.

Another difference between the databases is that CJKDD decompositions are consistently graphical. For example, 條 is decomposed as 條:a(39752,条), which is in turn decomposed as 39752:wr(亻,㇑). In Wikimedia Commons, 條 is decomposed into 攸 and 木, which has more to do with the historical development of the character and its radical (which happens to be 木), but not with its modern form. Wenlin provides both the graphical decomposition (based on the CDL data), and the list of all the sub-components that may be associated with this character (in this case: 攸亻丨条夂木). Another example: because the CJKDD decompositions are purely graphical, the upper right part of 祭 is shown as 卩. Wenlin, more correctly, shows it as a graphical variant of 又.


Is the pronunciation of a heteronym in a given name indeterminable unless we ask the person personally? There are tones of heteronyms in Chinese and when a heteronym is a given name, or a part of a given name, is asking the person (or his friends, relatives, etc.) the only way to find the pronunciation?

For example, do we know for sure if 劉禪 should be pronunciated as ㄕㄢˋor ㄔㄢˊ unless we ask 劉禪 himself?

We don't actually know how to pronounce it.
Usually based on the meaning of the word on the bright side. But, in this case, both the meanings of  ㄕㄢˋand ㄔㄢˊare very good. So, how to pronounce it is up to you.


What do the first 4 letter stand for? Are they company name that made the tool or something else? ( From history ) I was asked if the letters of the image are Japanese or not.

I answered they must be Chinese since Japanese does not have the first letter.

What would the first 4 letters stand for?

Thank you for your help in advance!

Here's a clearer image (taken from http://iantiqueonline.ning.com/group/whadjafind/forum/topics/japanese-kanji-katana-samurai-sword-i-d-help?)

The text is verbatim:

  張武傑 (seal of a person called 張武傑). Maybe this is supposed to suggest that 張武傑 was involved in the manufacturing.

联合刀具

  The name of a company called 联合 cutting tools. 联合 should not be translated into union here, but treated as a proper noun. It might be in imitation of an American company originally called Union Cutlery Co., now called Ka-Bar Knives., Inc; this company's Chinese name is frequently rendered as 联合刀具.

特殊鋼

  Special steel. According to baidu, this is a non-standardised grade of steel, so it doesn't really mean anything.

In terms of orthography,「联」is normally only used in Mainland China, while「鋼」is normally not used in Mainland China. The structure of「联」, simplified from「聯」, is exactly analogous to the simplification of「關」to「関」.「関」is now normally only used in Japan.


The minimal set of characters containing any stroke a Chinese character might have Wondering if there is a set of Chinese characters, some arbitrary set, that demonstrates every possible way a stroke can be used (or just is currently used) in any Chinese character. To put it in a simpler way, say you have these "characters":

               |               |
     _____     |               |
    |     |    |    |  |  |    |
    |     |    |    |     |    |     / \
    |_____|    |    |     |    |
               |               |
               |               |

Then they get would cover characters such as this:

               |               |
     _____     |     _____     |
    |     |    |    |  |  |    |       |
    | / \ |    |    | / \ |    |    | / \ |
    |_____|    |    |_____|    |       _
               |               |
               |               |

...and lots of others, but it wouldn't represent this one, for example:

     _____
    | / \ |
    | \ / |
    |__|__|

because that pattern isn't in the original top 3 characters combined.

Not sure if any list of suitable characters that aggregates all the strokes used in Chinese typography exists but it seems like one might. If not I feel like if you are a native speaker or have a lot of experience this might be straightforward to find at least a small group of characters that covers the vast majority of cases. But ideally I would like something that covers all the edge cases as well. But if I knew that there were thousands of edge cases, meaning that there were actually thousands of characters which are the only instance of a specifically angled and positioned stroke, then phew, that means there's not really a system and that would be good to know instead too.

Your answer should be looked up in calligraphic books.
If I'm right, you're looking for a set of Chinese characters or radicals with all kinds of basic strokes. You may know that basic categories of characters are heng (horizontal), shu (vertical), pie (left-slant), na (right-slant), zhe (curve or turn), dian (point, which may be a subcategory of na). Although there is one character that may cover all these categories (永"eternity", which called "永字八法" or "eight fundamentals in Yong" in calligraphy), it cannot cover all strokes if we divide the categories in detail.  I'll try to construct a set here to satisfy your need.

Let's start by list one character per stroke:
0. basic -- 永
1. heng
simple horizontal -- 四
horizontal with slant -- 习 (as in President Xi Jinping)
horizontal with final hook -- 辽
2. shu
simple vertical -- 四 (included above)
vertical with final curve -- 四 (included above)
3. dian -- 永 (included above)
4. pie
simple left-slant -- 队
left-slant with initial horizontal -- 永 (included above)
5. na
simple right-slant -- 永 (included above)
6. zhe
vertical with final left hook -- 永 (included above)
curved vertical with final hook -- 辽 (included above)
horizontal-vertical turn with hook -- 习 (included above)
vertical with final right hook -- 民
curved stroke with final hook -- 民 (included above)
L-shaped stroke with final hook -- 匕
horizontal-curved turn with final hook -- 飞
3-shaped stroke -- 辽 (included above)
3-shaped stroke with final hook -- 队 (included above)
left-slant-horizontal turn -- 去

Within seven characters, you get all strokes of Chinese characters.


(Cantonese) How to say there are always two sides to a story? I'm talking to a friend about something, and she's only presenting one side. So I want to ask about the other side and say, "there are always two sides to every story." What's the best way to say this in Cantonese?

兩全
兩頭蛇

Those don't seem right.

I think 另有內情 ling6 jau5 noi6 cing4 fits the bill.


Questions about 时量补语 I'm learning about Chinese complement of time-measurement (时量补语). It sounds very tough though, and I'm now stuck on some sentences like:

她学汉语要学一年
我看电影只看了十分钟

My textbook doesn't explain a rule applied to the sentences. If a sentence containing 时量补语 takes adverbs like 只 or an auxiliary verb like 要, do they have to be placed right before the last verb of the sentence? That's just my guess so can anyone tell me if I'm wrong or not?

I also would like to know the meanings of the following sentences:

她学汉语要学一年 (I'm not sure if this means 'she is going to learn Chinese for a year' or something else)
我看电影只看了十分钟 (Does this sentence mean 'I just watched TV for ten minutes'?)
她学汉语能学一年 (I've changed the 要 to 能, but I'm not sure if this makes sense. If this is a valid sentence, what's the meaning?)

Thanks in advance.

Firstly, I will note that it's not quite correct that the 时量补语 must be placed before the "last verb" of the sentence. Rather, in those scenarios, the 时量补语 is placed before the last iteration of the verb it applies to in the clause. For instance:

今年我返乡下只返过一次，因为我太忙了。
(This year I only went back to my hometown once, because I was too busy.)

Moreover, I don't think it's always necessary to repeat the verb twice.1 For example:

为了准备在法国读大学，我学了法文三年。
(To prepare for studying at a French university, I studied French for three years.）

In fact, in some cases (such as that of my first example), it sounds more natural for the verb to only appear once. However, if you indeed repeat the verb, the 时量补语 must indeed be placed before the second appearance, not the first one.

That done, I will move onto the specific sentences you asked about:

她学汉语要学一年

Notice that the 要 is part of 要学一年: this indicates that it's necessary to learn the subject in question for a year. Thus, this sentence does not mean "she is going to learn Chinese for a year", since this English sentence doesn't convey obligation; rather, absent any other context, it means something like "she will have to learn Chinese for a year."

我看电影只看了十分钟

This means "I only watched the television for ten minutes."2 This works because 只 (only) is attached to 看了十分钟.

她学汉语能学一年

Judging from dictionary examples of usage of 能 (e.g. 我能照顾好自己), it is fine to use 能 alone. This phrasing sounds odd to me---I would instead write something like 她能学一年汉语---but I am inclined to assume that this is merely a result of my own preferences.

I am a native Cantonese speaker and have a very intuitive understanding of Chinese grammar in general. It's possible that I am missing something, or that my vocabulary isn't completely standard. I have tried to double-check the key uncertainties I had.

I am not sure what sense of "just" you are using. If you mean that I finished watching the television for ten minutes just now, your translation isn't correct. If you are using "just" in the sense of "only", your translation is fine.


过道/走廊 what's the difference? It seems to me that these two are pretty interchangeable for 'hallway' - at least in the writing I've read before.

My question is, though, is there any difference in meaning?

Any difference when to use one over the other?!

For buildings, according to 住宅设计规范(Design code for residential buildings) GB50096-2011,

2．0．13 过道 passage
　　住宅套内使用的水平通道。
2．0．20 走廊 gallery
　　住宅套外使用的水平通道。

So the internal transport space, such as the passageway inside the cinema or train, can be said as "过道".
And the transport space which is outside the building, independent, covered, can be said as "走廊".
Except for buildings, "走廊" can also be used for a narrow strip(corridor) connects two areas. Such as "河西走廊".


Is there a common way to translate ajhumma/ajumma into Chinese? Is there a common way to translate ajhumma/ajumma into Chinese? I've been looking but haven't seen a word in Chinese that carries the meaning the ajhumma has.

For example, ajhumma can mean:

Married woman (or woman old enough to be married)
Older woman
Unfashionable woman (implied)

I am looking specifically for the way one would address an 'older lady' (with that meaning in mind) but not be rude.

As one can understand from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajumma an ajumma (아줌마) is a respectful word for a married or aged married woman, or for any middle-aged or elderly woman, but not a granny, nor a young woman. It is an aunt.

An ajumma is often a housewife, restaurant worker. Ajumma can be used pejoratively.

In Chinese, 阿姨 would fit the description rather well. It is an aunt, or an elderly woman, family nurse or babysitter. Pejoratively, it means concubine.


Why is 的 used in 你想要什么喝的吗? 你想要什么喝的吗?

I've seen 的 used after a verb like this in other sentences. The only thing I could find about 的 after a verb was when it's used with 是.

Here, you could think that "的" converts a verb (i.e. "喝"/drink) into a noun, i.e. something for drinking.

But notice the "的" after "是" is different, it is more of an interjection, and does not have additional meaning.


What's the original Chinese to “To one who has seen too little of the world, everything is strange.”? In the English translation of Slapping the Table in Amazement there's an interesting phrase that shows up:

Preface [1628 Edition]
As the saying goes, “To one who has seen too little of the world, everything is strange.”

ctext & Wikisource both only start at "chapter" one. There doesn't seem to be a preface.
What's the original Chinese for: “To one who has seen too little of the world, everything is strange.”?

中国古典文学 has the preface.
Here's the first paragraph:

初刻拍案惊奇
凌濛初
序
语有之：“少所见，多所怪。”今之人，但知耳目之外，牛鬼蛇神之为奇，而不知耳目之内，日用起居，其为谲诡幻怪非可以常理测者固多也。昔华人至异域，异域咤以牛粪金；随诘华之异者，则曰：“有虫蠕蠕，而吐为彩缯锦绮，衣被天下。”彼舌挢而不信，乃华人未之或奇也。则所谓必向耳目之外索谲诡幻怪以为奇，赘矣。

The translation of “To one who has seen too little of the world, everything is strange.” is:

少所见，多所怪

There is also an entry for this in ABC Proverbs which says:

Lit [Things (which are)] seldom seen [are felt to be] strange.
Note Cf. the preface to Chū Kè Pāi'àn Jīngqì; now more commonly said shǎo jiàn, duō guài; see also the preceding entry.

Like the definition mentions the more, modern, common variant of this phrase is 少见多怪 which ABC defines as:

The less one has seen, the more one marvels.

ABC Proverbs also contains the old phrase with an added sentence:

少所见多见怪，睹橐驼谓马肿背。
Lit [One who has] seen little regards many things as strange; [(s)he] sees a camel [and] calls [it a] horse with a hunchback.


Practicing pronunciation via app I'm wondering what ways there are too practice permission without a teacher, e.g. with software. I often will speak into pleco and Google translate to see if it can recognize my Chinese. I think this has helped me identify some errors in my pronunciation already.

Are there other methods? Does anyone have an opinion or info on how accurate pleco or google translate may be. I.e. if they correctly interpret my speech, how confidant can I be in my pronunciation?

Also, what about other apps such as Hello Chinese or Chinese Skill? They seem to be pretty forgiving with pronunciation, much more so than Google translate or pleco.

One thing you could do is use Middlebury. It allows you to speak into a device and it'll recognize your pronunciation and help with tones, etc. Also, on Middlebury, you can have an audio chat with a tutor if you wanted.


翻译这个传统的中国地图 －－坤輿萬國全圖－－ 我最近对这个古代世界地图产生了特别浓厚的兴趣。但因为都是文言文，没有断句，非常难懂。

我想请问有没有谁知道这幅由利玛窦原创的地图曾经被学者翻译过么？ 在哪里可以找到全部文字的翻译呢？

它在这里。

I am very interested in these old Chinese maps, such as the 坤輿萬國全圖.  They are so advanced, and highly accurate for their time.   I hope someone out there can read the traditional Chinese.  I can recognise only a few characters, and what I really want is to get a feel for what the cartographer thought about Australia, and the Pacific.  Unfortunately with my limited Chinese literacy, I cannot get the full picture.  If someone would please translate for me the big blocks of text in the Pacific Ocean, and Australia, I would be so thankful.

I hope this doesn't get flagged.  I'm only posting here because this site is the best, and I feel like perhaps this could be of historical or educational significance to those studying Traditional Chinese, and who want to know more about the history of the Chinese people.

Many of the names have Japanese katakana so if you (learn to) read katakana, that will help you. E.g., in Europe, Italy 意大利亞 has イタリア (i-ta-ri-a), and in the Pacific, Solomon Islands 沙蠟門島 has サラモん (sa-ra-mon).

Some katakana and Chinese don't match though, like Madagascar, which katana is マダカスカ (ma-da-ka-su-ka) but the Chinese is 仙勞冷祖島 (with a Chinese approximation of Madagascar as an also-known-as, "一名XXXXX").

Australia looks totally wrong.


How to interpret 本质 here? When I look up 本质 I get English meanings like 'essence, nature， innate character', esoteric stuff like that.

学习必须讲究方法，而改进学习方法的本质目的，就是要提高学习效率。

I think 本质 here actually means 主要， 最初 and 本质目的 is 'primary aim'.

Could I use 主要 here instead of 本质 and not affect the original meaning?

本质 here means root; ultimate.

本质目的 = end goal. You can also say 根本目的.

Your sentence sounds fine but isn't the best example to demonstrate usage, because it's kind of obvious. A better example might be:

  商业活动的本质目的是盈利。The end goal for any commercial activity is making profit.


How to translate “穷则变，变则通，通则久” to English? Is there any elegant and succinct way to translate “穷则变，变则通，通则久” to English? I felt the translation could be quite lengthy when I tried to explain every single character. Thank you very much.

穷则变，变则通

ABC

  Impasse is followed by change, and change will lead to a solution.

Grand Ricci

  (provr.) Quand on est à bout, on change, dès que l’on a changé, on aboutit : dès qu’un changement s’est amorçé, une solution peut voir le jour. De tout s’avise à qui pain faut; nécessité est mère d’industrie, d’invention.

The last part is quite sums it up in quite a nice succienct way: necessity is the mother of invention.


Gigolo translated as 基哥儿龙（音）? There was some HK movie that translated (read: transliterated) gigolo as something like 基哥儿龙（音）.

I cannot find anything online with different combinations of characters for ji-ger-long.

Any ideas what the phrase was?

If it is a Hong Kong movie, it is likely in Cantonese

  基 is transliteration of 'gay'

  /gei1/

  [5] (Cantonese slang only) phonetic translation of "gay" i.e. male homosexual e.g. 搞基,

~

  哥

  /go1/

  It is common to address a man with a  suffix  "哥", e.g. 晶哥 [zing1 go1*4], 叻哥 [lek1 go1*4].*

  remember 犀利哥?

~

  牛郎

  /ngau4 long4 /

  a gigolo, a male sex worker

牛郎 is a male sex worker (serving older female mostly)

基哥牛郎 most likely refers to 'male sex worker (specialized in serving male clients)'


Criteria of making an acceptable word/character in Chinese In the English language, the dictionaries are updated yearly to include new words and modifications of current spellings that have been accepted due to common usage. For example, the internet age saw the explosion of words and meaning that have been previously unheard of before. New words can range from a street slang that comes into prominence, or a new spelling to entirely new made-up words.
Is it the same in Chinese? For example, if there is a group of (say, influential) people who mistakenly wrote a word with one stroke less than current standard/correct form. Since they are the influential group and were able to purvey this to the group, is it possible that this 'wrong' word becomes the standard in the future?
As far as some slang words are concerned, they are usually combinations of existing words, or use words with multiple meanings. But is it possible that people have created entirely new characters to denote something? What might be recent/popular examples of these?

There is a yearly contest in Japan for creating new kanji. Last year, the winner was a new character for "social distancing"

A clever play on the character 座, meaning "to sit", where the two 人 "people" are moved apart.
Some other interesting ones:

"Sign language", taking the character for "sound" 音 and replacing the 日 with 目, which means "eye".

Taking the character 会, which means "meeting" and replacing the bottom part with a Z, to mean "online meeting".
You can see all the entries and their meanings (in Japanese) on their website.


What is the Chinese word for a Chinese lantern? What is the Chinese word (/ what are the Chinese words if more than one) used to describe the Chinese lanterns which the Chinese use to celebrate (Chinese) New Year (those that go flying up in the air once they are lit and the fire inside them starts to burn) and which have become so popular throughout the world and commonly used virtually everywhere to celebrate such an event?

Is it 灯笼, the common Chinese word for lantern found in Chinese dictionaries, or is it something else?

Thanks.

灯笼 means lantern in the general sense, that is, a portable lighting device or mounted light fixture used to illuminate broad areas.

The hot air balloon you described is 'sky lantern', which is called 天灯 (sky lantern) or 孔明灯 (Kongming Lantern) in Chinese.


Why does 三八 mean gossip? I've heard in 广东 (guangdong) the term 三八 to mean "gossip", particularly for a woman who gossips.

Is this common throughout China,
and why does it have this meaning?

I believe it is understood throughout China, but it may sound 'Southern' to Northerners and it wouldn't be their word of choice when they want to express the same meaning.

There are two possible origins:

According to Baidu Baike, 三八 means 三八妇女节 (International Women's Day on March 8th), which is extended to refer to women in a derogatory sense, most commonly used against women who appear crazy or maliciously gossiping or interfering with other's business.

Wikipedia says it's because when China first opened trade with foreigners, the foreigners were permitted into the city on 8th, 18th and 28th of every month, locals call seeing the foreigners 三八 (the three eight's), extending to anyone who's overly interested in fresh things, peeking secrets or gossiping.

I am from Beijing. People around me all share the first explanation, but maybe people from the south find the seconds one more sensible.


Can you help translate the scroll seal (Characters identified: 神龍圖 嘯天) I believe this dragon is about shinlong but I would like to know the artist as I cannot make up any of the symbols

神龍圖 must be the title of the scroll which means 'paint of the sacred dragon'.
And 嘯天 must be the signature of the artist for the red stamp is also 嘯天, which is simply the name of the artist. Translating it by the word, it could be 'roar towards the sky'.


水平 VS 程度 in the context of language proficiency Recently I explained to my aunt (from Taiwan) that I could not attend the class in 台灣閩南語 in the past because my Chinese was very basic and the class was taught in Chinese. In this context I used a sentence like

我的中文水平不夠了。

My aunt remarked I should not use 水平，but 程度。 I searched the internet and found countless examples of 英語水平：

有私人教育集團今日（15日）公布本年度全球成人英語水平報告。(source)
香港人的英语水平为何不如上海？ (source)
测试您的英语水平，让您脱颖而出 (source)

Why to opt for 程度 in the aforementioned context?

I think there are differences regarding the terminology usage from different regions.

To me, 我的中文水平不夠 sounds more natural. I guess 我中文程度不够 could be more natural to folks from Taiwan. If you add a modifier for 程度: 我中文理解程度不够, then it would be more natural to me。

水平 means 'level' and it's typically measured by 高（high） and 低（low）. For example, you could say 我中文水平不高, 我中文水平比较低.

程度 means 'extent', it's typically measured by 深（deep） and 浅(shallow) . For example, 我对中文理解程度不深, 我对中文理解的很浅.

There are also some other alternatives to express 我中文水准不够: 我中文水平不行， 我中文不行，我中文水准不行， 我中文水准不够, 我中文不够水准.


Change- and unchange-of-state 了: During which time in a person's life is it correct for them to say 我三岁了 (I am 3 years old)? 我三岁了
  I [am] three years of age

This breaks apart as follows:

我 (wǒ) = me
三 (sān) = three
岁 = years of age
了: I understand 了 here is the change-of-state 了: prior to turning 3, I was not 3, so that state has changed.

I have two points of confusion regarding when it's correct to say 我三岁了:

Two years old: 我三岁了 is incorrect because... (why?).  It seems correct to say e.g. 明年我三岁了.  It seems theoretically possible that 我三岁了 could refer to a future change of state (although surely none would use it because it's misleading).
Three years old: 我三岁了 is correct: I turned 3 (change of state).  [more about this in point 2.]
Four years old: 我三岁了 is grammatically incorrect: my best guess as to why is because while I turned 3 (change of state), I subsequently also turned 4 (unchange of state). With this reasoning, 我去年三岁了 is self-contradictory (maybe?).  And Baidu indicates it's correct to say

  我去年三岁
  Last year, I was three years of age

without the change-of-state 了.

When I'm three years of age, for that full year, I'm not sure if it's okay say 我三岁了.  For example, I wonder if it's okay to say

  我三岁了，明天我四岁了.
  I [am] three years of age, tomorrow I [become] four years of age

The change of state happened a long time ago, so I'm unsure if it still counts as a change of state (but maybe a change of state has no expiry).

Question: During which time in a person's life is it correct for them to say 我三岁了 (I am 3 years old)?

Correct for "change".

Usually say 我三岁了 on the birthday of three. That's the day of change.
When four years old, remove 了 as past not change.
On the birthday of four, we usually say 我三岁，明天我四岁了, as there is no change for the first part.
Any other cases for "change" during the year of 3? Yes. When someone asks the little cute toddler that "r u 2 years old", the cute will reply nooooo, 我三岁了 proudly, to indicate the "change".


Use of 了 - when is it necessary? 我走到海滩边，看到一幢房子前有一块写着“旅馆”的牌子.
I went to the seaside and saw a building with sign in front of it which said 'hotel'.

Authentic Chinese with my translation. This is in the past. But there is no 了. Is this a bit like the English historical present? Or is there an explanation to do with aspect? Is my translation using the past a mistranslation?

Tense in Chinese is inferred from context, there are no grammatical constructs for it.

了 indicates completion, not past time per se.


The Middle-earth - how to translate? I'm newbie. I know “中国“ means "the country on the Earth's center", so, "the Middle-earth" = ”中国“？ I mean John Tolkien's universe.

维拉

Translation based on Vala rather than middle-earth.

Wikipedia: Vala (Middle-earth)

  The Valar [ˈvalar] (singular Vala) are characters in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium. They are "gods" or "angelic beings"1 subordinate to the one God (Eru Ilúvatar); they are the most powerful of the Ainur who chose to go into the World (Arda) and complete its material development after its form was determined by the Music of the Ainur (Ainulindalë). They are mentioned in The Lord of the Rings, but were developed earlier in material published posthumously in The Silmarillion and The History of Middle-earth.

where the Chinese article translates to:

维拉：维基百科

  维拉 Valar，是英国作家约翰·罗纳德·鲁埃尔·托尔金的史诗式奇幻小说《精灵宝钻》中的种族，意思是“阿尔达大有力量者” Powers of Arda，女性的维拉则被称为维丽 Valier。维拉是精灵和人类眼中的诸神，他们是伊露维塔的意念创造出来的埃努，其中十五位力量最强大的埃努，协助伊露维塔统治阿尔达，被人类和精灵称为维拉。后来其中一名维拉被除名，成为了天魔王。

中土大陸

Wikipedia: Middle Earth

  Middle-earth is the fictional setting of much of British writer J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium. The term is equivalent to the term Midgard of Norse mythology, describing the human-inhabited world,1 i.e. the central continent of the Earth in Tolkien's imagined mythological past. Tolkien's most widely read works, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, take place entirely in Middle-earth, and Middle-earth has also become a short-hand to refer to the legendarium or its fictional universe.

and Chinese equivalent

中土大陸：维基百科

  中土大陆或中土世界（英语：Middle-earth），又译为中洲1，是出现在J.R.R.托尔金小说著作中的一块架空世界中的大陆和世界，这名称来自于古英语中的“middangeard”，字面含义是“中间的土地”，意指“人类居住的陆地”。在中土大陆发生的故事，有《霍比特人》、《魔戒》和《精灵宝钻》等。

alternatives to 中土大陸 include: 中土世界 and 中洲.

The History of Middle-earth is translated as 中土世界的历史

The Peoples of Middle-earth is translated as 中土世界的民族

see wikipedia's: 中土世界的歷史


Are there any differences between these Chinese terms for "French fries" / (hot) "chips"? I just felt like some French fries for the first time since I've been in China so I bought some from a Dico's here in Zhangjiakou.

I ordered by pointing at the menu becuase I'm just beginning at Mandarin and don't know the Chinese word yet. But when I took note of the characters on the menu and then pulled out my phrasebook when I sat down to eat, I noticed the terms were totally different. When I got home and looked on Wiktionary I found there were even more terms. Here's just the simplified character spellings of the terms I found so far:

马铃薯条 (mǎlíngshǔtiáo)
薯条 (shǔtiáo)
土豆条 (tǔdòutiáo)
炸薯条 (zhàshǔtiáo)
炸土豆条 (zhátǔdòutiáo)

I'd like to know if any have subtle differences in meaning, are old fashioned, are used in some places but not others, etc. Or are they all totally interchangeable?

马铃薯 (commonly known as 土豆 in Northeastern China) is the general term
for potato.
(炸/马铃)薯条 is commonly understood as French fries (hot chips). By default, both 炸
and 马铃 are redundant.

土豆条 and 炸土豆条 are the less common terms for French fries.

Other related terms:

薯片 - potato chips / potato crisps / packet chips
薯泥 - mashed potato
薯餅 - hash brown
烤马铃薯 - baked potato
薯角 - potato wedges
土豆丝 - shredded potato


"Seems to [...]": how to express tha indirect object? I am planning to translate all of Sappho to Chinese. I wanted to start from Sappho Campbell 31 / Edmonds 2 (which is fragment theta there as well as here, theta being the Greek way of writing 9), and that requires me to translate "that man seems to me". As far as "that man seems", I can get:

  那个人看起来 | Nà ge rén kànqǐlái,

or with 仿佛 | fǎngfú or even 显得 | xiânde (or other similar verbs like 似乎 | sìhu). But "to me"? The only thing I could think of was:

  我觉得那个人看起来 | Wô juéde nà ge rén kànqîlái,

but for some reason I don't like this. So how do I translate that indirect object into Chinese?

"那个人看起来"(that man seems) is perfectly fine
You can omit "看起来"  in "我觉得那个人看起来" and just write "我觉得那个人"

There are other choices:

對我來說，那個人 ( to me, that man)
在我看來，那個人 ( from my point of view, that man)
我看那個人 ( I see that man/ that man, to me)


What does this 落实 mean here? This is from an interview with a sports teacher.

记者： 王老师，您怎么好像在说我呢？ 我就不想虐待自己，所以很难坚持。
王老师： 怎么会是虐待呢？ 您以后联系我，我带你锻炼。 咱们有计划，有落实。

It looks to me like '咱们有计划，有落实。' means 'We have a plan and (we have) practical experience.'
Literally, 落实 says 'lower into reality'. It is a very succinct expression.

zdic.net has for 落实： （1） 使计划、措施、政策等得以实现 or (4) 实行

These don't really correspond to 'practical experience' which might be ‘实践经验’.

Maybe it should be 'We have a plan and (we have) the ability to see it through' or 'make it happen'.

Then 落实 translates 'the ability to see it through' which fits with (1) I suppose.
Or am I totally wrong here? Is there some other meaning for '有落实‘ which fits?

In 落实
落 = to implement
实 = actually / solidly

落实 (v): to (actually) implement; to (solidly) put into effect;

'咱们有计划，有落实'

'有计划' means 'have plans (which need to be implemented)'
'有落实' means 'have implementation'
We can interpret this sentence as :

"(first,) we'll have plans , (then) we'll have implementation (of these plans)."

using the verb 落实 (implement) as a noun: 'implementation'
or

"(first,) we'll have plans , (then) we'll have these plans/ implemented."

More example sentence:

到最后，这计划并没有落实 (At the end, this plan had not been implemented.)


Pewter tea container seal character translation (Characters identified: 榮製) Can someone please help me translate this I've literally spent five or six hours and can't find anything thank you so much in advance!

Should be "榮製", reading from right.
Meaning might be "Produced honorably" or "Qualified produced"(a bit extended meaning)


Is there a better word than 生存 for uses such as "I survived the typhoon"? When I looked up the Chinese word for "survive" so far I only came up with "生存"?

But the glosses into English 生存 cover "live", "exist", "subsist".

This seems to be quite different from the common English meaning og getting through dangerous event unscathed.

Is there a better Chinese word that has that meaning?

I think it's better to say:"幸存"。That means someone go through some bad things such as disaster or serious illness, and still be alive.


Is there a way to say "I respectfully thank you" to familiar elders? From here.

Honorific Verbs
Like nouns and proper nouns, some Chinese verbs can also be complemented with an honorific modifier. For example, the verbs 告gào ("to tell"), 还huán ("to return")，陪péi ("to accompany"), 劝quàn ("to urge")，送sòng ("to gift") can be complemented by the honorific prefix 奉fèng~ (Lit. to offer respectfully) to form the more polite versions 奉告 (I respectfully tell you), 奉还 (I respectfully return to you), 奉陪 (I respectfully accompany you), 奉劝 (I respectfully urge you), and 奉送 (I respectfully gift you). Another example is the honorific prefix 恭gōng~ (Lit. "look forward to respectfully"), e.g., 恭贺 (I respectfully congratulate you), 恭候 (I respectfully await you), 恭请 (I respectfully invite you)，恭迎 (I respectfully welcome you). The addition of the honorific prefix turns these verbs into a politer version. Unlike adverbs, the prefixes are often verbs themselves, and the compounded honorific verb functions as a single language unit (i.e., a single verb). Other common prefixes for verbs and verb examples are summarized in the verb complements section below.

Is there a way to say "I respectfully thank you"? I've always feared that 谢谢你 was too casual for elders. And 我感谢你 too awkward to say to elders that are "basically family"?

You could say 谢谢您 instead.
When you really want to be super respectful, especially to some respected person who you are not quite familar with, you could go with the following

承蒙关照，不胜感激。
厚情盛意，应接不遑，切谢切谢
感荷高情，非言语所能鸣谢

There are many more here which you can check out.


How can I express "14 less than the result of 2 times y" in Chinese? I am translating a high school math quiz for an English Language Learning student whose native language is Chinese. One of the sections on this quiz involves writing algebraic expressions for English statements. I have been able to use basic web translation tools for some of the questions, but I am having issues with the statement "14 less than the result of 2 times y," which would have the answer 2y-14.


How to say "thank you for ..."? In order to say "thank you", I can say 谢谢 or 谢谢你. What if I want to be more specific and say "thank you for (something)"?

As an example, suppose I was invited for dinner at someone's place, and I want to write a card to the host on which I say "thank you for inviting me for dinner", how would I say that? Or how would I say "thank you for the gift"?

Same as English just without the for.

谢谢 + what.

"thank you for the gift" = 谢谢 + 礼物 － maybe you would say 你送给我的礼物 or just 你的礼物

"you for inviting me for dinner" = 谢谢 + 邀请 + 晚餐 - so altogether you would say 谢谢你那天邀请我吃晚饭 (which is for what already happened - seeing as you're writing a card, so obviously you're thanking for the dinner you've already eaten and not just for the invitation for an upcoming dinner)


What computer games provide practice? What On-line, for download or for purchase software-based games provide fun language practice for learners of Chinese? What level of learner are they best suited for? What platform do they run on?

One game I suggest you check out is Enter Zon - an MMORPG specifically for learning Mandarin.

Essentially you run around in a game environment and have all sorts of dialogues about different things, with the end goal of improving your Mandarin. It's pretty neat.


Is there a difference between 非常 and 很? This is probably a stupid question, but I'm just curious. Does 非常 express something to a greater degree than 很？ That's probably not the way to word it, but like let's say you use 非常好。Would that be "good" to a greater degree than 很好？

They are different, of course.

非常 literally means 'not common/uncommon', thus extraordinary ("out of ordinary, un-ordinary", just like 非常), exceptional, very, etc.

很 means 'very, quite'.

Usually, 非常 is stronger in the meaning than the simple 很. Just like you wrote, 非常好 is above 很好 in degree. One of the reasons perhaps is that 很 does not always mean very is that sometimes it is only inserted before an adjective to make it "predicate-capable". In such cases 很好 simply means "good", not "very good". This has just just been discussed a day ago. Check this question for details.

Also, there is a related question about answering to 你好吗？ with 很好。


What are the most common Mandarin words for each pinyin syllable? I've been practicing my pronunciation by reciting the different pinyin syllables described in my book.
My book lists some examples of common words for some syllables. I was wondering where I could find a more complete list of words for each phonetic?

After a bit of searching I could not find a proper resource to answer this question, so I started compiling compiled a comprehensive list by hand.
Since you say that the most common character for each initial+final+tone combination is enough for you, the answer is rather easy: we can cross-reference the pinyin and tone combinations with a list of character frequency in Chinese.
Character frequency source: hanzicraft.com
How to read this table:

Each row comes in the form <pinyin syllable> <1st tone char> <2nd tone char> <3rd tone char> <4th tone char> <neuter tone char, if applicable>

If a particular pinyin syllable and tone combination has no corresponding character, I add a note in place of the character. Other bracketed comments refer to the preceding character.

note that some of these characters are not common relative to the others, but are the most common for a particular pinyin+tone combination. Again, the source is the character frequency table. For example, the most common character for weng3 appears to be 蓊 but I bet you're not going to find it any time soon in your studies. Nevertheless, it's the most common one for that pronunciation, so I still list it for completeness.

some characters have alternate pronunciations, e.g. 差别的「差」and 差评的「差」. The frequency list is based on the total frequency of the character, regardless of the pronunciation. So the most common character for cha1 is 差别的「差」 or something else (插、叉、etc.)? I try to disambiguate based on my personal knowledge of the language. Feel free to correct me.

an argument can be made that a character's frequency is absolute, therefore a character like「差」should appear both for cha1 and cha4.

in the title of your question, you ask for words. A word is a single distinct meaningful element of speech or writing. Since Chinese is an isolating language, words often overlap with characters. Furthermore, a combination of pinyin+tone applies to a character. So this is a list of characters. Some of them may also be words, some may be not.

Pinyin
阴平
阳平
上声
去声
轻声

a
阿
啊
啊
啊

ba
八
拔
把
爸
吧

pa
趴
爬
(no pa3)
怕

ma
妈
麻
马
骂
吗

fa
发
罚
法
发 (hair)

da
答
达
打
大

ta
他
(no ta2)
塔
踏

na
那 (surname)
拿
哪
那

la
拉
旯
喇
辣

ga
旮
嘎
尕
尬

ka
咖
(no ka2)
卡
(no ka4)

ha
哈
蛤
哈 (same as 1)
(no ha4)

zha
扎
炸 (to fry)
眨
炸 (to explode)

cha
插
查
叉
差

sha
杀
啥
傻
厦

za
匝
杂
咋
(no za4)

ca
擦
(no ca2)
礤
(no ca4)

sa
撒
(no sa2)
撒 (same as 1)
萨

ai
埃
癌
矮
爱

bai
掰
白
百
败

pai
拍
排
(no pai3)
派

mai
(no mai1)
埋
买
卖

dai
呆
(no dai2)
逮
代

tai
胎
台
(no tai3)
太

nai
(no nai1)
(no nai2)
乃
耐

lai
(no lai1)
来
(no lai3)
赖

gai
该
(no gai2)
改
概

kai
开
(no kai2)
凯
忾

hai
咳
还
海
害

zhai
摘
宅
窄
债

chai
差
柴
茝
虿

shai
筛
(no shai2)
色
晒

zai
灾
(no zai2)
宰
在  (to stay)

cai
猜
才
采
菜

sai
塞
(no sai2)
(no sai3)
赛

an
安
啽
俺 (topolect)
案

ban
般
(no ban2)
版
办

pan
番
盘
(no pan3)
判

man
颟
蛮
满
慢

fan
翻
凡
反
范

dan
单
(no dan2)
胆
但

tan
贪
谈
坦
探

nan
囡
难
腩
难 (disaster)

lan
(no lan1)
兰
览
烂

gan
干 (dry)
(no gan2)
感
干 (to do)

kan
刊
(no kan2)
砍
看

han
酣
含
喊
汉

zhan
粘
(no zhan2)
展
战

chan
搀
缠
产
颤

shan
山
(no shan2)
闪
善

ran
(no ran1)
然
染
(no ran4)

zan
簪
咱
攒
暂

can
参
残
惨
灿

san
三
(no san2)
散
散

ang
肮
昂
(no ang3)
盎

bang
帮
(no bang2)
膀
棒

pang
膀 (or 乓)
旁
耪
胖

mang
牤
忙
莽
(no mang4)

fang
方
房
访
放

dang
当
(no dang2)
党
当

tang
汤
唐
躺
趟

nang
囔
囊
馕
齉

lang
啷
郎
朗
浪

gang
刚
(no gang2)
港
杠

kang
康
扛
(no kang3)
抗

hang
夯
行
(no hang3)
沆

zhang
张
(no zhang2)
长
帐

chang
昌
长
场
唱

shang
商
(no shang2)
赏
上

rang
(no rang1)
瓤
嚷
让

zang
脏
(no zang2)
驵
藏

cang
苍
藏
(no cang3)
(no cang4)

sang
桑
(no sang2)
嗓
丧

ao
凹
熬
袄
奥

bao
包
薄
保
报

pao
抛
袍
跑
炮

mao
猫
毛
卯
冒

dao
刀
(no dao2)
导
到

tao
涛
逃
讨
套

nao
孬
挠
脑
闹

lao
捞
劳
老
酪

gao
高
(no gao2)
搞
告

kao
尻
(no kao2)
考
靠

hao
蒿
毫
好
号

zhao
招
着
找
照

chao
超
朝
吵
(no chao4)

shao
烧
勺
少 (few)
少 (young)

rao
(no rao1)
饶
扰
绕

zao
遭
凿
早
造

cao
操
曹
草
操

sao
骚
(no sao2)
扫 (to sweep)
扫 (broom)

e
婀
额
恶
饿

me
(no me1)
(no me2)
(no me3)
(no me4)
么

de
嘚
德
(no de3)
(no de4)
的

te
(no te1)
(no te2)
(no te3)
特

ne
(no ne1)
(no ne2)
(no ne3)
讷
呢

le
(no le1)
(no le2)
(no le3)
乐
了 (particle)

ge
哥
革
葛
个

ke
科
咳
可
克

he
喝
和
(no he3)
赫

zhe
遮
哲
者
这

che
车
(no che2)
扯
彻

she
奢
蛇
舍
社

re
(no re1)
(no re2)
惹
热

ze
(no ze1)
则
(no ze3)
仄

ce
(no ce1)
(no ce2)
(no ce3)
策

se
(no se1)
(no se2)
(no se3)
色

ei
诶
诶
诶
诶

bei
悲
(no bei2)
北
被

pei
胚
培
(no pei3)
配

mei
(no mei1）
没
美
妹

fei
非
肥
菲
费

dei
(no dei1)
(no dei2)
得
(no dei4)

nei
(no nei1)
(no nei2)
(nei3 dubious)
内

lei
勒
雷
累
类

gei
(gei1 dubious)
(no gei2)
给
(no gei4)

kei
剋
(no kei2)
(no kei3)
(no kei4)

hei
黑
(no hei2)
(no hei3)
(no hei4)

shei
(no shei1)
谁
(no shei3)
(no shei4)

zei
(no zei1)
贼
(no zei3)
(no zei4)

en
恩
(no en2)
(no en3)
嗯

ben
奔
(no ben2)
本
笨

pen
喷
盆
(no pen3)
喷

men
闷 (stuffy)
门
(no men3)
闷 (depressed)
们

fen
分 (divide)
坟
粉
分 (part)

den
(no den1)
(no den2)
(no den3)
扽

nen
(no nen1)
(no nen2)
(no nen3)
嫩

gen
根
哏
艮
亘

ken
(no ken1)
(no ken2)
肯
裉

hen
(no hen1)
痕
很
恨

zhen
真
(no zhen2)
诊
阵

chen
琛
陈
碜
趁

shen
身
什
审
慎

ren
(no ren1)
人
忍
任

zen
(no zen1)
(no zen2)
怎
谮

cen
㟥
岑
(no cen3)
(no cen4)

sen
森
(no sen2)
(no sen3)
(no sen4)

eng
鞥
(no eng2)
(no eng3)
(no eng4)

beng
崩
甭
(not in the first 9000)
蹦

peng
烹
朋
捧
碰

meng
蒙
蒙
猛
梦

feng
风
冯
讽
奉

deng
登
(no deng2)
等
邓

teng
(no teng1)
腾
(no teng3)
(no teng4)

neng
(no neng1)
能
(no neng3)
(no neng4)

leng
(no leng1)
棱
冷
愣

geng
更 (to change)
(no geng2)
耿
更 (more)

keng
坑
(no keng2)
(no keng3)
(no keng4)

heng
哼
横 (across)
(no heng3)
横 (perverse)

zheng
争
(no zheng2)
整
正

cheng
称
成
逞
秤

sheng
生
绳
省
胜

reng
扔
仍
(no reng3)
芿

zeng
增
鄫
(no zeng3)
赠

ceng
噌
曾
(no ceng3)
蹭

seng
僧
(no seng2)
(no seng3)
(no seng4)

er
(no er1)
而
尔
二

yi
一 (one)
疑
以
意

bi
逼
鼻
比
必

pi
批
皮
匹
辟

mi
眯
迷
米
密

di
低
敌
底
第

ti
梯
提
体
替

ni
妮
尼
你
逆

li
(no li1)
离
里
力

ji
机
及
己
计

qi
期
其
起
气

xi
西
习
喜
系

zhi
之
直
指
制

chi
吃
持
尺
赤

shi
师
时
使
是 (to be)

ri
(no ri1)
(no ri2)
(no ri3)
日

zi
资
（zi2 not in first 9000)
子
自

ci
疵
词
此
次

si
斯
(no si2)
死
四

ya
压
牙
雅
亚

bia
吧 (dubious)
(no bia2)
(no bia3)
(no bia4)

dia
(no dia1)
(no dia2)
嗲
(no dia4)

lia
(no lia1)
(no lia2)
俩
(no lia4)

jia
家
夹
假
价

qia
掐
(no qia2)
卡
恰

xia
瞎
侠
(no xia3)
下

yan
烟
言
眼
验

bian
边
(no bian2)
扁
变

pian
片 (sheet)
便 (cheap)
谝
片 (slice)

mian
(no mian1)
棉
免
面

dian
颠
(no dian2)
点
电

tian
天
田
舔
瑱

nian
拈
年
捻
念

lian
(no lian1)
联
脸
练

jian
间
(no jian2)
简
见

qian
千
前
浅
欠

xian
先
闲
显
现

yang
央
阳
养
样

niang
(no niang1)
娘
(no niang3)
酿

liang
(no liang1)
良
两
量

jiang
将
(no jiang2)
讲
降

qiang
枪
强
抢
呛

xiang
相
详
想
向

yao
要 (require)
摇
咬
要 (want)

biao
标
嫑
表
鳔

piao
飘
朴
漂
票

miao
喵
描
秒
妙

diao
雕
(no diao2)
(diao3 dubious)
掉

tiao
挑 (choose)
条
挑 (provoke)
跳

niao
(no niao1)
(no niao2)
鸟
尿

liao
撩
疗
了
料

jiao
教
矫 (jiao2)
角
叫

qiao
悄
桥
巧
翘

xiao
消
淆
小
笑

ye
耶
爷
也
业

bie
憋
别 (other)
瘪
别 (as in 别扭)

pie
瞥
(no pie2)
撇
(no pie4)

mie
咩
(no mie2)
(no mie3)
灭

die
跌
叠
(no die3)
(no die4)

tie
贴
(no tie2)
铁
餮

nie
捏
苶
(no nie3)
涅

lie
咧
(no lie2)
咧
列

jie
接
结
解
界

qie
切
茄
且
切

xie
些
协
写
谢

yin
因
银
引
印

bin
宾
(no bin2)
(no bin3)
鬓

pin
拼
贫
品
聘

min
(no min1)
民
敏
(no min4)

nin
(no nin1)
您
(no nin3)
(no nin4)

lin
拎
林
凛
赁

jin
金
(no jin2)
尽
进

qin
亲
秦
寝
沁

xin
心
镡
伈
信

ying
应
营
影
应

bing
兵
(no bing2)
饼
并

ping
乒
平
(no ping3)
(no ping4)

ming
(no ming1)
明
酩
命

ding
丁
(no ding2)
顶
定

ting
听
停
艇
听(tw.)

ning
(no ning1)
宁
拧
宁

ling
昤
灵
领
令

jing
经
(no jing2)
警
境

qing
清
情
请
庆

xing
兴
行
醒
性

yo
哟
(no yo2)
(no yo3)
(no yo4)

yong
拥
喁
永
用

jiong
扃
(no jiong2)
炯
(no jiong4)

qiong
銎
穷
(no qiong3)
(no qiong4)

xiong
兄
雄
(no xiong3)
诇

you
优
由
有
又

miu
(no miu1)
(no miu2)
(no miu3)
谬

diu
丢
(no diu2)
(no diu3)
(no diu4)

niu
妞
牛
纽
拗

liu
溜
流
柳
六

jiu
究
(no jiu2)
九
就

qiu
秋
求
糗
(no qiu4)

xiu
修
(no xiu2)
朽
秀

o
噢
哦
嚄
哦 (same as 2)

bo
波
伯
簸
(bo4 dubious)

po
坡
婆
叵
破

mo
摸
模
抹
莫

fo
(no fo1)
佛
(no fo3)
(no fo4)

lo
(no lo1)
(no lo2)
(no lo3)
(no lo4)
咯

weng
翁
(no weng2)
蓊
瓮

dong
东
(no dong2)
懂
动

tong
通
同
统
痛

nong
(no nong1)
农
(no nong3)
弄

long
隆 (sound of drums)
龙
笼
弄 (alley)

gong
公
(no gong2)
巩
共

kong
空
(no kong2)
恐
控

hong
轰
红
哄
哄

zhong
中
(no zhong2)
种
重

chong
充
重
宠
冲

rong
(no rong1)
容
冗
(no rong4)

zong
宗
(no zong2)
总
纵

cong
匆
从
(no cong3)
(no cong4)

song
松
怂 (colloq.)
耸
送

ou
欧
(no ou2)
偶
沤

pou
剖
掊
掊
(no pou4)

mou
哞
谋
某
(no mou4)

fou
(no fou1)
(no fou2)
否
(no fou4)

dou
都
(no dou2)
斗
豆

tou
偷
头
钭
透

nou
(no nou1)
(no nou2)
(no nou3)
耨

lou
搂
楼
搂
漏

gou
沟
(no gou2)
狗
构

kou
抠
(no kou2)
口
扣

hou
齁
侯
吼
后

zhou
周
轴
肘
宙

chou
抽
仇
丑
臭

shou
收
熟
手
受

rou
(no rou1)
柔
(no rou3)
肉

zou
邹
(no zou2)
走
奏

cou
(no cou1)
(no cou2)
(no cou3)
凑

sou
艘
(no sou2)
叟
嗽

wu
屋
无
五
物

bu
哺
醭
补
不 (no)

pu
扑
葡
普
铺

mu
(no mu1)
模
母
目

fu
夫
服
府
复

du
都
独
赌
度

tu
突
图
土
吐

nu
(no nu1)
奴
努
怒

lu
撸
卢
鲁
路

gu
姑
(no gu2)
古
故

ku
哭
(no ku2)
苦
库

hu
乎
胡
虎
护

zhu
朱
逐
主
住

chu
出
除
处
处

shu
书
熟
属
数

ru
(no ru1)
如
乳
入

zu
租
足
组
(no zu4)

cu
粗
徂
皻
促

su
苏
俗
(no su3)
诉

wa
挖
娃
瓦
袜

gua
瓜
(no gua2)
寡
挂

kua
夸
(no kua2)
垮
跨

hua
花
华
(no hua3)
话

zhua
抓
(no zhua2)
爪
(no zhua4)

chua
欻
(no chua2)
(no chua3)
(no chua4)

shua
刷
(no shua2)
耍
刷

wai
歪
(no wai2)
歪
外

guai
乖
(no guai2)
拐
怪

kuai
(no kuai1)
(no kuai2)
蒯
快

huai
(no huai1)
怀
(no huai3)
坏

zhuai
拽
(no zhuai2)
跩
拽

chuai
揣
膗
揣 (same as 1)
踹

shuai
衰
(no shuai2)
甩
帅

wan
湾
完
晚
万

duan
端
(no duan2)
短
断

tuan
湍
团
疃
彖

nuan
(no nuan1)
(no nuan2)
暖
(no nuan4)

luan
(no luan1)
峦
卵
乱

guan
关
(no guan2)
管
惯

kuan
宽
(no kuan2)
款
(no kuan4)

huan
欢
环
缓
换

zhuan
专
(no zhuan2)
转
赚

chuan
穿
传
喘
串

shuan
栓
(no shuan2)
(no shuan3)
涮

ruan
(no ruan1)
(not in first 9000)
软
(no ruan4)

zuan
钻
(no zuan2)
纂
钻

cuan
蹿
攒
(no cuan3)
窜

suan
酸
(no suan2)
(not in first 9000)
算

wang
汪
王
往
望

guang
光
(no guang2)
广
逛

kuang
匡
狂
夼
况

huang
荒
黄
晃
晃

zhuang
装
(no zhuang2)
奘
状

chuang
窗
床
闯
创

shuang
双
(no shuang2)
爽
(no shuang4)

yue
约
(no yue2)
哕
月

nüe
(no nüe1)
(no nüe2)
(no nüe3)
虐

lüe
(no lüe1)
(no lüe2)
(no lüe3)
略

jue
撅
决
蹶
(no jue4)

que
缺
瘸
(no que3)
却

xue
薛
学
雪
血

wei
威
为
委
位

dui
堆
(no dui2)
㨃
对

tui
推
颓
腿
退

gui
规
(no gui2)
鬼
贵

kui
亏
魁
傀
愧

hui
挥
回
毁
会

zhui
追
(no zhui2)
(no zhui3)
坠

chui
吹
垂
(no chui3)
(no chui4)

shui
(no shui1)
谁
水
税

rui
(no rui1)
蕤
蕊
瑞

zui
(not in the first 9000)
(no zui2)
嘴
最

cui
催
(no cui2)
璀
粹

sui
虽
随
髓
岁

wen
温
文
稳
问

dun
吨
(no dun2)
盹
顿

tun
吞
囤
氽
褪

nun
(no nun1)
黁
(no nun3)
(no nun4)

lun
抡
伦
(no lun3)
论

gun
(no gun1)
(no gun2)
滚
棍

kun
昆
(no kun2)
捆
困

hun
婚
混
(no hun3)
混

zhun
屯
(no zhun2)
准
(no zhun4)

chun
春
纯
蠢
(no chun4)

shun
(no shun1)
(no shun2)
吮
顺

run
(no run1)
犉
(no run3)
润

zun
尊
(no zun2)
噂
(zun4 dubious)

cun
村
存
忖
寸

sun
孙
(no sun2)
损
(no sun4)

wo
窝
(no wo2)
我
握

duo
多
夺
朵
堕

tuo
托
驼
妥
拓

nuo
(no nuo1)
挪
㛂
诺

luo
啰
罗
裸
落

guo
郭
国
果
过

kuo
(no kuo1)
(no kuo2)
(no kuo3)
扩

huo
豁
活
火
或

zhuo
桌
着
(no zhuo3)
(no zhuo4)

chuo
戳
（no chuo2)
(no chuo3)
绰

shuo
说
（no shuo2)
(no shuo3)
硕

ruo
(no ruo1)
挼
(no ruo3)
若

zuo
作 (troublesome)
昨
左
作

cuo
搓
痤
脞
错

suo
缩
(no suo2)
所
(no suo4)

yu
迂
于
与
育

nü
(no nü1)
(no nü2)
女
衄

lü
(no lü1)
驴
旅
律

ju
居
局
举
据

qu
区
渠
取
去

xu
需
徐
许
续

yuan
渊
原
远
院

juan
捐
(no juan2)
卷
卷

quan
圈
全
犬
券

xuan
宣
玄
选
炫

yun
晕
云
允
运

jun
军
(no jun2)
(no jun3)
俊

qun
逡
群
(no qun3)
(no qun4)

xun
勋
寻
(no xun3)
训


How to correctly use 恐怕 According to Pleco, 恐怕 has 2 definitions

  fear; dread; be afraid of
  perhaps; probably; maybe

The second definition is what I am struggling with. I was taught that it is similar to 也许, but in using 恐怕 other reasons must first be stated. For example, in a conversation between two people, person A states some causes for a certain event, then person B may say 恐怕，［another reason]. Is this accurate?

Even if not, I'm not too confident in my understanding of it. Could someone please give a comprehensive explanation? Also is 恐怕 used more in certain parts of China?

As a native Chinese speaker, I would say "恐怕" is used most frequently in the context where the speaker expresses his belief that something he does not wish to happen might happen. For example, the coach of L.A. Lakers may say "恐怕 Kobe 不能再打籃球了", i.e. "I am afraid Kobe will not be able to play basketball anymore".

Nevertheless, like in English, "恐怕" sometimes can be used to express conceding attitude. For instance, we may say "恐怕你在這點上是錯的", i.e. "I am afraid you are wrong in this point".


Chinese phrases to encourage better 关系 关系

It appears that building strong relationships or guān xì (关系) is very important in Chinese society. Would readers be able to share some scenarios or phrases that would help build such 关系？

Similar relationships exist for English speakers and take time to build. Some of the most important ideas one needs to express include:

Trust (信任, 凭信, etc.)
Confidence (信心, et. al.)
Reliability (可靠, etc.)
Dependability (可靠, etc.)
Hard-working (勤奋, etc.)
Honesty (诚实, etc.)

What are some Chinese phrases, fragments, or words that a student would need in order to begin building a network of guān xì (关系) ?

For example, one general  sentence I have found is:

  néng qǐng nǐ bāng gè máng mǎ
  能请你帮个忙吗?
  Could you do me a favor?

Reference

Kwintessential, Ltd. (n.d.). Guanxi: The Chinese Cultural Concept. Retrieved June 2, 2014 from, http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/etiquette/china-guanxi.html

关系 has very little to do with language because it works more on a 礼尚往来-system, much like everything in China does.

If you want to "earn" some 关系 you must make people feel like they owe you.

The 礼 in 礼尚往来 originally stood for 礼节 - looking at it you might even think of 礼貌 or 礼仪 but most people today take this as 礼物.

If you want to earn 关系 then you really need to take the initiative and give some gifts, presents or even money.

If you want to keep 关系 you better make sure you "reciprocate" on every possible occasion, especially: birthdays, births, funerals, weddings, promotions, house warnings. Reciprocation means that whatever you were given before you better give something with greater or (in the absolute least) equal value (but something of equal value will probably be looked upon as somewhat disrespectful and perhaps as an indicator that you're not willing to 'sustain' this 关系 relationship).

(On a side note: this explains China's problem with corruption - too many people owe people favors...)

If someone invites you to dinner - you better invite them back, if someone gives you a "gift" you better give one back (at the appropriate time, of course) - unless you don't care about "keeping up" the relationship.

If you recieve some stuff you can say something like:
破费了！

When you give stuff you can say something like:
一点心意


Learning how to use measure / count words properly Chinese has measure (or count) words like “个” (一个人), “部” (三部车), etc.

These always get me confused, and there way too many of them. Are there any general rules that can help me memorize them?

Also, I've been told it's generally acceptable to use the general count word "个" for everything, although it makes it more clear that you don't know Chinese. Is that true?

Here has been my (I think successful) strategy:

Use measure words for mass nouns accurately. This is exactly like English:

  一杯水 = a cup of water

  一瓶可乐 = a bottle of cola

  一斤青菜 = a half-kilo of cabbage

You really have to use these in all languages, because you can refer to really different quantities depending on the measure word (a tank of water vs a drop of water).
Learn the measure words that are based on shape. This is really different from English, but in spite of being challenging, they're rather important. Chinese people use them relatively consistently and might have trouble understanding you if you don't use them properly (or at least will find it annoying if you don't). Also, they're not that hard to learn, and you quickly develop an intuition for what kind of objects take what kind of measure words:

  条 -- long, thin, windy things

    一条路 = a road

    一条裤子 = a pair of pants

    一条蛇 = a snake

  支 and 根 -- stick-like things, generally stubbier than 条 things, and not flexible

    一支笔 = a pen

    一根香烟 = a cigarette

    一根灯管 = a fluorescent tube (lightbulb)

  张 -- flat, broad, thin things

    一张桌子 = a table

    一张纸 = a sheet of paper

    一张光盘 = a DVD (or CD)

  颗 -- pebbly, kernely, small-and-round things

    一颗牙齿 = a tooth

    一颗星 = a star

    一颗心 = a heart

Use 个 for everything else until you've been corrected a few times. There are a lot of weird measure words that are only ever used with one or two nouns. Even a lot of Chinese people use 个 in those circumstances. There's no point learning these if you don't have to, so let experience be your guide for which other measure words to learn.

EDIT: Just to be clear, I'm not advocating only learning 4 measure words. I just think that the less common ones should be learned through real life experience rather than memorizing word lists. Also, I should point out that sometimes different measure words can be used on the same noun, but they mean different things. When confusion arises, learn the distinction:

  一门课

    A subject or course (as in "I have 3 classes this semester")

  一次课

    A meeting-time or occurrence of class (as in "When's the next class? Next Monday.")

  一节课/一堂课

    Classes often have a 10 minute break in the middle. The first and second halves can be referred to this way. ("When does the next section start? In 15 minutes.") I think that 节 and 堂 sometimes overlap with the meaning of 次 when they're not being used contrastively. Correct me if I'm wrong.


What studios produce dubbed TV shows? To improve my listening skills, I often watch television shows. Many Chinese-produced television shows, however, are difficult to understand due to context (for e.g. the setting, situation, and characters are too far outside of my schema).

However, when watching American or British TV shows, dubbed into Chinese, I can usually follow the conversations much more easily, either because I am already familiar with the series or can make guesses based on the context.

I'm trying to compile a list of English and Chinese names of US or UK TV shows which have been dubbed into Chinese. Do you know of any studios which frequently makes Chinese-language dubs for TV? Such information might be a good place to start in finding which shows have been dubbed.

I found this post, "What popular science fiction TV shows are available with Chinese dubbing?", which provides links to various services. I am not advocating these services as most of them are illegal, however it will provide you with good information and many examples of movies and series that have been dubbed.

Examples are verycd.com which now no longer provides links to illegally stream, but will provide you with info of different series that have been dubbed.

NORMTEAM, e.g. http://www.normteam.com/thread-33919-1-8.html

And PPTV.

These should provide you with plenty of examples. However you will need to dig a bit to find what you are looking for and I personally wouldn't attempt to view anything from these sites because the software is so damn dodgy.

The problem is there are literally thousands of shows that have been dubbed in Chinese. If I was after this information and it was just for personal use I would just go to my local Chinese video store and ask them what dubbed series that have on offer.


How has "素以为绚" be rendered into English? I came across a sentence with the fragment:

  叫作‘素以为绚’，这是见诸《论语》的

in it.

Although, 素以为绚, is from Analects it doesn't seem to appear in any English dictionaries that I have.

Ideas?

You asked a hard question.

The original text of Analects is as following.

子夏曰、巧笑倩兮、美目盼兮、素以為絢兮、何謂也。
子曰、繪事後素。
曰、禮後乎。
子曰、起予者商也、始可與言詩已矣。

There is a wide range of opinions in the interpretation of 素以為絢.

子夏 was a discipline of Confucius. He asked Confucius the meaning of an ode 碩人 in "The Book of Song" (詩經). The ode praises a noble lady 莊姜, who was the wife of the Duke of Dukedom 衞.

Unfortunately, the known version of 碩人 contains only 巧笑倩兮 and 美目盼兮, but 素以為絢兮 is missing. This breeds speculations and opinions from Han Dynasty to nowadays.

Confucius did not explain 巧笑倩兮 and 美目盼兮. They are too obvious. He explained 素以為絢 with 繪事後素.

James Legge translated 素以為絢 as "The plain ground for the colors" and 繪事後素 as "The business of laying on the colors follows (the preparation of) the plain ground". This is what the majority of scholars interpret it.

  For simplicity, before you draw or paint, you need a plain ground. On
  a plain ground you could draw and paint anything colourful.
  This is what 素以為絢 means.

The story does not end here. After the explanation of Confucius, 子夏 connected it with 禮, namely ceremonies, which is the core theme in Confucius study. (If a person with qualities of plain ground, namely, honest and trustful, he would learn 禮 well.)

Confucius commented that 子夏 got what his mean and then he had the qualification to discuss the odes in "The Book of Song".

The odes are full of allusions and metaphors. They requires a learner not only understanding the literal meaning of the words, but also getting the underlying meaning of odes and connecting them to life.

The story of 素以為絢兮 in the Analects illustrates how to learn and use "The Book of Song".  It is more than the words 素以為絢.


Difference between 盖，修，建 We probably all know these three (盖，修，建) can be used when we want to say "build a house" like:

盖房子
建房子
修房子

But is there any difference between them?

(if possible please also explain the difference below... too many words meaning "build" in Chinese!)

兴建, 兴修，建造，建筑，建设，修建

盖 literally means "to cover" something (e.g., put a roof over). This character is often heard used in an oral context to describe building something, and is used in a more colloquial manner. Note that you typically use this character to onky refer to the construction of buildings or houses.

建 (to build/establish/found) and in particular 修建 (to build/construct/erect), is used in more formal contexts (e.g., writing a letter/article). The meaning is synonymous to the above. You can use 建 to refer to building more than just buildings or houses, like tunnels or bridges. After all it makes not much sense to "cover" a tunnel or bridge like you would a house, right?

While 修 by itself can mean build, it can also mean to repair/mend/decorate, depending on the context it is used in.

兴建 refers to the construction or founding of something.

兴修 refers to the act of starting a construction

For 建筑\建设\修建\建造 the specific nuances can be tricky to explain, but they can all mean to build or construct and are synonymous to one another and can be used interchangeably as nouns (except for 建造) or verbs depending on the context.

Some examples: You can use 建筑 as a noun to refer to an a building/establishment, the architecture/structure of the installation. 建设 can be used to refer to the new establishment of something, like a layout, setting, or even a new business or facility.

There's really not much to say about 修建 and 建造. It might be worth noting that 建设 is more generalised compared 建造 to the others and has a larger range of use (I.e., abstract nouns/concepts, like 建设性).


Usage of 能骗就骗 (if you can cheat, then cheat) There is a Youtube video by a popular Youtube blogger who lives in China and is married to a Chinese woman, and he says in that video that the Chinese language has the idiom 能骗就骗 ("if you can cheat, then cheat"). The blogger explicitly calls this phrase by the word "idiom." Here is the link that brings you to the corresponding moment of that Youtube video: Link. The video is quite popular and has almost 3 million views and 40+ thousand likes.

I talked with a few native Chinese speakers about that phrase and got conflicting opinions about its role in the Chinese language. Two people said that depending on the situation, this phrase is used in two different ways - as a negative characteristic (e.g., "he is such a hardcore cheater and scammer that he will ruthlessly cheat whenever he can and no matter what") or as an encouragement to cheat a bit where it is relatively appropriate (e.g., "just cheat on your school test if you can" or "just cheat a bit on your taxes if it is safe to do so"). Another native speaker said that he had never seen this phrase being used in the second way and that the phrase is simply a name for cheaters. Another Chinese said that this is not an idiom, but rather merely a grammatically correct phrase.

In an attempt to find out the truth about that phrase, I decided to ask here.

Please note that I am not going to make any negative judgement about the Chinese or their culture based on the usage of this phrase, so please do not sugarcoat things. Every language has expressions of all kinds, and every nation consists of people of all kinds. For example, the English language has the idiomatic phrase "Never give a sucker an even break." This phrase means that one should take advantage of those who are not well informed if given the chance. The German language has the idiom "Der Ehrliche ist immer der Dumme" ("the honest one will always turn out to be the dumb one"). The Russian language has the idiom "Не наебешь - не прoживешь" ("if you don't f*ck people over, you won't survive"). Everyone chooses his own strategy and principles. So my question is purely linguistic and is purely about that the use of 能骗就骗 from the linguistic standpoint.

My question is this: Is the phrase 能骗就骗 idiomatic or just a random grammatically correct phrase, and how is this phrase used in the Chinese language? In particular, is it sometimes used as an encouragement to trick or cheat? Any examples are very welcome.

能骗就骗 is a direct translation from a Cantonese expression "呃得就呃" (scam just because you can/ scam whenever you can)

It is a negative remark on someone's behavior; There's no encouragement of swindling

Example sentence:

"戴條手鍊可以防癌? 仲要賣成千蚊? 唔好呃得就呃噃!" (Wearing a bracelet can prevent cancer? And it costs a thousand dollar? Don't scam people just because you can)

"條友呃得就呃, 千祈咪上當!" (this guy scam people whenever he can, don't fall for it)

  呃得就呃 is commonly used in Cantonese, but 能骗就骗 may not be as popular in Mandarin

As  AnnieFromTaiwan pointed out 能X就X is a common sentence pattern, so is X得就X in Cantonese. However, the instances you can apply "呃得就呃" to are so numerous, it stands out among all other similarly structured phrases and has became a 'common expression'


Informal ways of beginning/ending an e-mail I have been writing quite a few e-mails recently and I feel that I want to expand my vocabulary regarding acceptable phrases to use both at the beginning and end of an e-mail. When I say informal, I don't mean that I'm writing to a close friend (in which case no-one cares what words I use anyway), but rather to acquaintances, teachers I'm familiar with, staff at the university and so on. So, what I'm after are Chinese phrases such as "dear xxx", "best regards" and so on.

I have searched for this online, but I find it very hard to gauge the formality level of the phrases I've found. Most of them seem way too formal and being overly polite is sometimes a way of being impolite. Therefore, I'd be grateful if people who might answer my question also include some kind of information about when and with whom they would use a specific phrase. Thank you!

In Chinese culture, politeness is never too much only except for between really intimate friends or lovers. Especially when getting along with an elderly person, it's a good idea to keep being formal and polite until you're completely certain that it's not necessary.
This link explains the conventions very well. To cite the essence of it,

2 ．问候语
　　第二行开头空两格写问候语。
　　运用礼貌语言，使收信人感到亲切，受到尊敬。
　　长者多问候身体，中年人多问候事业和家庭，青年人多问候爱情和学业，少年儿童多祝愿健康成长。
4 ．结尾
　　要根据收信人的身份，写表示祝愿的话，以示礼貌。
　　一般性的祝词“此致”“敬礼”，格式是另起一行空两格写“此致”，“敬礼”下一行顶格写。
　　给长者的信往往写“祝您健康长寿”，给朋友写“祝工作顺利”，给晚辈写“祝你学习进步”。

When in doubt, be as polite as possible. When I feel obligated by the culture, I would simply use formulaic 您好 as 问候语 and 此致敬礼 as 结尾.
Edit:
Adding translation for the citation with my editorial in parenthesis. The translation is done in a kinda verbatim way in order to preserve the sense of the culture, although it may sound unnatural in English.

2 . Greetings
Greetings should be placed on the second line ( the first line is a title) with an indentation of two spaces.
Use polite language to make the recipient feel warm and respected.
For elderly recipients, send regards to health; for middle-aged people, career and family; for a young person, love life (only appropriate if the sender is an elder to the recipient) and studying; for children, health and striving.
4 . Ending
To show politeness, use some blessing words based on who the recipient is (social status and relationship to the sender).
A general one is “此致”“敬礼” (usage similar to "best regards" in English, literal translation should be "hereby, salute"). The format convention is to put "此致" on a new line with an indentation of two spaces and "敬礼" on the next line without indentation.
People usually say "祝您健康长寿” (wish you health and longevity) to elderly people, "祝工作顺利" (wish you a successful career) to friends and "祝学习进步" (wish you good progress in studies) to the younger generation.


the meaning of "grass dogs (dogs of grass)" 天地不仁，以萬物為芻狗 that's Dao De Jing Chapter 5,
I give a try: heaven and earth are not benevolent (I understand)
萬物 all the creatures 為 act  芻狗 grass dogs? dogs playing on grass? dogs made of grass?
What to you think?
is my translation of the second line in the right direction?

刍狗, is made of grass and used as sacrificial offering, metaphor for humble or useless things.

天地不仁，以万物为刍狗, means heaven and earth, i.e. the nature, is not benevolent and partial, it treats all things on the earth the same and fairly.

It just reflects the ideology of 道家(taoists); 顺其自然(let nature take its course, don't intervene too much).

http://baike.haosou.com/doc/6641911-6855725.html
http://baike.haosou.com/doc/5377628-5613764.html


Pronunciation of 妨碍 (fáng'ài) For any pronunciation the tone is on the vowel in sequence of a, e, i, o,u which appears first.If it is a two character  word, there will not be any symbol between two characters.
But in 妨碍 (fáng'ài), what is the character between fáng and ài. What differentiation it makes with this character “'”?

It is called 隔音符號 (lit. symbol for sound segregation). When you group pinyin syllables by word, sometimes confusion may arise. With fángài, do you mean fán gài or fáng ài?

An apostrophe is needed before syllables that begin with a, o, or e to avoid confusion (because they have a silent initial, i.e. 零聲母). So if you write fángài, you only mean fán gài (there is no word for this), but if you write fáng'ài, you mean fáng ài 妨礙.

Other examples include: Xī'ān 西安 vs xiān 先, pí'ǎo 皮襖 vs the syllable piao.

Reference: 漢語拼音方案


Differences in reading difficulty between Taiwan and Hong Kong newspapers? I have read both 星岛日报 (published in Hong Kong) and 世界日报 (published in the US, but with an apparent focus on Taiwan) in print and online. Both papers are written in Traditional Chinese, but I notice that the Hong Kong paper is significantly more difficult to read. I notice a few Cantonese expressions scattered throughout, but this isn't enough to explain the increased difficulty. My impression is that 世界日报 uses more colloquial Mandarin expressions whereas 星岛日报 uses more conservative language harking back to Classical Chinese. Has anyone else noticed any pattern of differences in word choice or turns of phrase that would explain why Taiwanese newspapers are easier to read for Mandarin speakers than Hong Kong papers?

A historical reason,maybe.
There's a lot of immigrants from the Chinese mainland in Taiwan, those immigrants speak Mandarin.
Hong Kong people speak Cantonese,same as Guangdong,which is different from Mandarin.


Chinese for "rebirth" I am translating a text about a man who got divorced and after many days of desperation, he eventually starts accepting his situation and so he totally changes himself and starts a new life and a new way of being. This is described as "the Phoenix process", a rebirth, and he came to be a "new born" and a new man. How can I say all those things in few Chinese words? I thought about 重生 but I am not sure about its use. I was also wondering if there is a chengyu that can better explain it.

重新振作 ↓

换了个人↓

走出阴影↓

获得新生

重生一般

脱胎换骨(chengyu)

浴火重生 (chengyu)

凤凰涅磐 (chengyu)

羽化登仙(metamorphosis from human being to heavenly being)


Is zai4 + ... + li3 really a mistake? In my textbook there's an exercise in which I must decide if a sentence is correct. There's this: 在客厅里坐着一位老人. In the answers they say it's incorrect because "zai4" shouldn't be there. Is it really a mistake? I always thought "zai4" was optional in sentences like (zai4) + somewhere + li3/ shang4/ xia4/ zuo3 bian/ you4 bian/ qian2/ hou4.

在客厅里坐着一位老人.

The 在 is redundant because of the 里, as 客厅里 already says "In the living room..." and adding the 在 would be saying "in the living room" twice.

So, 在客厅里坐着一位老人 would be saying -- "At the living room in which sits an old man"


What's the difference between a han character and a chinese character? I was looking for the definitions of 夬 which appears in several languages (4 languages at least apparently) and there is an entry with definitions for it as "Han character" (where one of its meanings it's fork, for example) and another entry with definitions for it as "Chinese" (where one of its meanings it's resolute, for example). I thought han characters and chinese characters were the same thing.
What's the difference between a han character and a chinese character?

Han here refers to 漢(or 汉 in simplified Chinese).
The concept of the country "China" was formed through gradual integration. Qin(秦) Dynasty unified the six kingdoms, but it was too short and only existed for ~15 years.  After that, Han Dynasty was established and inherited many traditions of the Qin dynasty and carried it forward. Han Dynasty became a famous Dynasty in Chinese history and China's territory was determined at this time.
Han(漢) and Tang(唐) are often referred together as the most powerful and influential dynasties in Chinese history.
Due to the strong influence of Han and Tang at that time, their culture and characters were exported to Japan and Korea, therefore they just started calling these characters as (han character)漢字 since then.
Chinese languages have not been truly unified since ancient times. There are still various dialects. But overall we all call the modern Han language(現代漢語) as Chinese(中文/中國語). There is still difference between Han and Chinese. For instance, the Han(漢) culture had integrated into Japanese/Korean culture a long time ago, but the "China" nowadays to them is a different nation. So you wouldn't hear Japanese people calling the Chinese characters in their language 中國字 but only Kanji(漢字), because they are totally different now. Japanese also still refers the Classical Chinese(文言文) as 漢文
Taiwan and Hong Kong still use traditional Chinese characters, but you can still see some differences in characters when comparing with the Japanese Kanji(漢字) because most of the Japanese Kanji have retained the same writing since they were exported from Tang Dynasty to Japan, or perhaps evolved locally in their own ways.
Some of the details above I took the information from here and translated to English, but feel free to have a read if interested.


What does 惟覺 mean here? While lying in the hospital, I am thinking about 唐詩。 Particularly about this one:

   多情卻似總無情，
　　惟覺樽前笑不成。
　　蠟燭有心還惜別，
　　替人垂淚到天明

I think I can more or less understand it, but I have no idea what 惟覺 means. My incomplete and ugly translation (only for showing I don't come here without trying) is:

Full of, affection, yet appearing unconcerned,
.... Laughter does not come out, in front of the wine cups
Candles, too, have a heart and grieve in parting,
They cry till dusk in people's stead.

Is there a word play with 燈芯?

I think  無情 is not "unconcerned", especially with the 總 there; more like "as if there had never been anything between us" (好像我們彼此從來沒有過半分戀情)

惟覺 = 只覺，但覺 etc.

It's a little bit like German doch, indicates an attitude, very hard to express in English. a little bit 無奈, perhaps? resigned sorrow; but put that in a translation and its spoiled.

"Now that we're sitting with wine glasses in front of us, I find that I can't even manage a smile."  Just a sentence, not poetry.

I agree that 心/芯 is the pun intended.  But since wick and heart are not homonyms in English, I'm stuck.  A truly tough poem to translate.


"一块" versus "一块儿" in Beijing From some experience in Beijing, some on CCTV 9, and some reading, I begin to suspect that in Beijing the pronunciation "一块" is more often used for the count noun, and "一块儿" is more often used to mean "together."  Could that be right?

In Beijing dialect/Northern China dialects, 一块儿 is the idiomatic pronunciation of 一块 for all its meanings. E.g.

缺了一块儿 (a piece is missing)
一块儿蛋糕 (a piece of cake)
一块儿玩儿 (playing together)
在一块儿 (be together)
块儿状物 (blocks; lumps)

Note the special usage of 块 in 一块钱 (one RMB Yuan) should not be pronounced as 一块儿钱. 一块儿钱 makes no sense.

Having said that, your impression of 一块儿 is often used to mean "together" is also right. This is because the usage of 一块 (even without 儿) to mean "together" itself is a Northern China idiom; In Southern China, 一起/一齐 is more common. In other word, people who choose 一块 over 一起 will also tend to use 儿话音. On the other hand 一块 as a count word is the preferred word to mean "one piece" across all Chinese speaking regions.


Trying to Write a Short Photo Caption and Description I am trying to translate this caption and description. However, I am not entirely sure if my translation is correct.

Caption: "When I was in San Francisco's Chinatown"
Translation: 当我在旧金山的唐人街

Description: Last year, my cousin and I went to San Francisco's Chinatown. We ate Chinese food and drank boba milk tea. It was a great day!
Translation: 去年我和我表姐一起去了旧金山的唐人街。我们吃了中国早餐，也喝了波霸奶茶。那天真不错！

You did very well translating it.

Some minor suggestion:

  "Caption: When I was in San Francisco's Chinatown" Translation: 当我在旧金山的唐人街

"When" indicates 'time', therefore, your translation should be
"当我在旧金山唐人街的时候" (you can omit 当)

  Description: Last year, my cousin and I went to San Francisco's Chinatown. We ate Chinese food and drank boba milk tea. It was a great day! Translation: 去年我和我表姐一起去了旧金山的唐人街。我们吃了中国早餐，也喝了波霸奶茶。那天真不错！

"去年我和表姐一起去了旧金山的唐人街。我们在那里吃了中式早餐，还喝了波霸奶茶。真是不错的一天！"

the second 我 in 去年我和我表姐 can be omitted
我们(在那里)吃了中式早餐
I suggest using 还(also) instead of 也(also/ too) in  "吃了中式早餐，还喝了波霸奶茶"。to indicate Boba milk tea is in addition of having Chinese breakfast (which is the main event).
中国早餐  could mean "breakfast from China",  you should use 中式早餐  (Chinese breakfast) here, because you are in Chinatown, not in China
那天真不错！(sound too matter of fact, the day was good, but how good?) --> 真是愉快的一天！(describe your feeling about that specific day)


香皂 vs. 肥皂: What's the difference? 香皂
KEY

scented soap, toilet soap

肥皂
KEY

soap

What's difference though?

The difference is exactly as the definitions say. 香皂 is "scented soaps", while 肥皂 is just generic "soaps". That is the only difference. 香皂 is abbreviated from 香肥皂, meaning soap with added scents.

You can use either for washing face, body, hand, or clothes, but normally people use 洗衣粉/精 for the latter.


Seal marks on a little pot (Characters identified: 吳祥君) Can I have help reading what these two marks say? Thank you.

祥
　　　吳
君

Teapot maker called 吳祥君, born in 1966 in Yixing. You can Google image search this name to get more images of teapots.


Chinese words for "everything can be viewed from a positive side" What Chinese idioms or sayings (哪条成语或者俗语) can be used to express the following?

Everything can be appreciated, when its own context is taken in consideration.

凡事多往好的方面想。

by Zedong Mao （毛泽东）


Result complement plus 过 I know that both of these follow the verb, but which order do they go in?

Do you say 你看过完那部小说没有 or 你看完过那部小说没有？

Normally, it is either:

你[看过]那部小说没有? = [Had] you [read] that novel?

or

你[看完]那部小说没有? = [Have] you [finished] reading that novel?

看(verb) + 过(verb particle) marking 'experiential' aspect = "had read"
看(verb) + 完(result complement) marking 'complete or finish' aspect = "finish reading"

  in "你看过完那部小说没有?" (had you read finish that novel?), '看过'(had read) already indicated you finished reading the book in the past, '完' is redundant here.

~

  in "你看完过那部小说没有？" (had you ever finish reading the novel?) '看完'(finish reading) already indicated you had finish reading it,  '过' is also redundant
  here. This implies  'you had tried to read that novel before, but had never been successful in finish it.'

This question only make sense if someone pick up a novel and only read half of it, then few weeks later pick it up again, read it from the start and stop at the middle again. Kind of weird, right?

~

A more sensible examples of [V] +[result complement]+ [过 (verb particle)]:

看见过 (had seen)

看(verb- to see)
见 (result complement- and successfully seen)
过 (verb particle) - marking 'experiential' aspect- had experienced

conclusion:

[Verb + 过] cannot be followed by '完'(redundant)

[Verb + 完 + 过] indicate "had finished (verb) before"


Can " 天空一片蔚藍 " also be "一片蔚藍天空"? And translation please? Can " 天空一片蔚藍 " also be  "一片蔚藍天空"? And what's the reason?

Could "天空是一片蔚藍" be correct too?

Also can someone give a good translation? I just translate it as "An azure blue sky".

I might be over thinking it but I really want to know. Thanks.

Just want to add another thing. Another sentence I encounter is "天空一片蔚藍，很漂亮吧".

Can we say both "一片蔚藍天空，很漂亮吧" and "天空是一片蔚藍，很漂亮吧"?

天空一片蔚藍 or 天空是一片蔚藍 is sentence, which means The sky is all blue.

一片蔚藍天空 is a phrase, as you said, it means An azure blue sky.


What does this tattoo character mean? Tattoo symbol, what does it mean?

The character is 安 (safe; secure; content).  By itself, it is innocent enough.

However, "安" is also the last character in the name of a notorious Hong Kong Triad gang "新義安"

In short, this  tattoo reminds me of this particular crime syndicate, consider it is on a bicep-- a body part that represents power and strength...

If the owner of this tattoo is a Hong Kong Chinese, I would stay clear of him, just in case.


What's the difference between 好 and 完？ These two sentences should mean the same thing, so what exactly is the difference between them, and when should we use 好 VS 完？

我吃好了： I finished eating

我吃完了： I finished eating

[V + 完 ] simply means to end, to complete or to finish an action
[V + 好 ] means to accomplish an action, that imply the action itself is an requirement,
Example :

'Finish (complete) eating then launch the attack'- '吃完了飯便出擊'
It simply describes the time line --  first, finish eating, then launch the attack

~

'Finish (accomplish) eating then launch the attack' - '吃好了飯便出擊'
Since the soldiers need strength to fight, 吃飯 would be an order (requirement) that needs to be accomplished,

You can say 吃完飯再看電視 (finish eating, then watch tv.) but you cannot say 吃好飯再看電視 (accomplish eating, then watch tv.) if 'finishing eating' is not a requirement for watching TV.
[V + 好 ] can also means  [V + adequately]
Example:

做完準備 (finish the preparation)
做好準備 (adequately do the preparation/ accomplish the preparation)'
磨完刀 (finish sharpen the knife)
磨好刀 (adequately sharpen the knife / accomplish sharpen the knife)


Polite noun to refer to a colleague who is departing a company? What is a polite noun to refer to a colleague who is departing a company?
For example, in English I might simply refer to them as a "leaver". (So someone who is leaving.) This is simple and non-offensive.  Is there a Chinese equivalent?

离职员工 or 离职同事 is what we will use when referring to a leaving colleague, but this is very official and so only used when the audience is the general public.

Usually we only call their names and say they are leaving.

Ex: 志明不在这里工作了。


How should I deal with 产生 in this sentence? I have this sentence below, but I don't really know how to deal with 产生。Any suggestions? I have basically ignored it. 1. was my first attempt, then I wrote 2., which I prefer. Does that agree with the sense of the Chinese sentence?

求职者一定要先确认自己签订的劳动合同是否具备产生法律约束力的条件。

The job seeker should definitely first check for himself, whether or not the employment contract he is about to sign has legally binding conditions.
The job seeker should definitely first check for himself, whether or not the employment contract he is about to sign is legally binding.

求职者一定要先确认自己签订的劳动合同是否具备产生法律约束力的条件。Let us first simplify the latter half of the sentence.

求职者一定要先确认自己签订的劳动合同是否具备条件。What kind of 条件 does it 具备？产生法律约束力的条件 - the condition that leads to legally binding

If you literally translate "产生", it means produce. Which would make sense to extend its meaning to lead to. So if I am translating your sentence, I will do it this way:

Job seekers should definitely first check for themselves, whether or not the employment contract he is about to sign leads to the condition of legally binding.


How to translate "coming along?" I was recently writing a letter to a Chinese colleague and wanted to wish her luck on a book she is writing. In essence, I wanted to say

  I hope your book is coming along well.

Unfortunately, I wasn't sure how to translate this. Perhaps one might say

  我希望你的书进展得很好。

but this doesn't have the same meaning.

How might one translate this sentence?

希望你的书能顺利出版。
希望能早日在书店等候你签名售书。。


What is the meaning of 让? Could anyone tell me the meaning of the word 让 (ràng) in sentences like this one: 爸爸让我学开车.

I am not sure of the exact meaning; is it to wish?

I've looked it up on a dictionary but I couldn't figure out the exact meaning.

Thank you very much.

Clara

The sentence '爸爸让我学开车' is too short to be certain which meaning of 让 should be assigned here.

'我恳求了很多次爸爸才让我学开车.' - 'I pleaded with my father many times  before he allowed me to learn to drive.' (让 = allow/let)
'父亲认为驾驶是一种有用的技能，因此他让我学开车.' - 'Father thinks driving is a useful skill, so he lets me learn to drive.' (让 = let/ allow/ ask/ make)

Consider learning to drive cost money, and often require permission from the parent, "LET" is the most likely meaning of '让' here.
*ongusbongus' answer suggested  '让' means 'ask to'. But in reality, '要' is the more common word for the meaning of 'ask to' compare to '让'.
Even '叫' carrying the meaning of 'ask to' better than '让'


Why is 去 ("to go") in 也不去考虑以后会是怎样 ("...and don't think about how it will be in the future")? In the book 活着 (audio book, around 6 minutes 55 seconds into 第01集), we have:

  我只是感到和她在一起身心愉快，也不去考虑以后会是怎样。

Google Translate gives:

  I [我] just [只是] feel [感到] happy [身心愉快] with her [和她在一起], and [也] I don't [不] think about [考虑] what it will be [会是怎样] in the future [以后].

It mostly makes sense, but I don't understand why there's a 去 ("to go") in there.  Maybe it combines as 不去 ("to not go"), but it still doesn't make much sense to me.

Question: Why is 去 ("to go") in 也不去考虑以后会是怎样 ("...and don't think about how it will be in the future")?

It's an interesting question.

It's worth to know that "(不)去 + verb" can be considered as a fixed expression in Chinese. For example, （不）去做，（不）去想， （不）去听， （不）去玩， （不）去说，... ...

The literal meaning of （不）去 is "（not） to go". Let's say 我去看你， meaning I go see you.

Its literal meaning can be extended when the following verb doesn't require you to go literally, such as the verb 想, 听，说 and etc. It implies that you would get another place or take another time to do something. I found this dictionary definition can help:

  用在另一个动词前， 表示要做某事.

  你去问一问：please go and ask.

  我们自己去想办法： We'll find a way out ourselves.

For more detailed explanation, 我去考虑一下 vs 我考虑一下, 我去考虑一下 means I will go offline to think about it or I will take another time to think about it. Well, 我考虑一下 doesn't specify when I will think about it and it could mean to think about it right now or I will think about later on(offline).

Hope this can help.


How did 零 come to mean zero? I understand that 零 originally meant rain, however for some reason it eventually became fragments and then also zero. How did the meaning of this character shift to become fragments (rain drops, maybe?) as well as zero?

零 originally meant rain

Not just rain, but specifically gentle rain.

  《說文・雨部》：＂零，徐雨也。＂

Semantic extension:

Gentle rain > scattered/fragmentary > small/fractional > zero.


What is the meaning of 咬人猫 I was looking up the meaning of 咬人猫 on google translate. 咬人猫 translated to

Bite the cat

I know a little bit of kanji and know that 人 means person/human/man ... and 猫 means cat. So "Bite the cat" surprised me as there is nothing related to "person/human ... ".

Unconvinced, I tried 咬猫 which also translated to

Bite the cat

Now I realised Google is just messing me with, LOL. Anyway, jokes aside, I tried the 人猫 next, which translated to

Human cat

This made more sense to me.

Looking up further, I got the following

咬 yǎo
    （指用牙）bite

   被狗/蛇咬了一口
     get bitten by a dog/snake

So after all this, I was pretty sure it is thing related to "bite" and "human cat". So, I believe 咬人猫 should be something like

biting human cat

So what is the actual meaning?

PS: No idea of Chinese language and sub-par knowledge of kanji. Was just curious, so ended up here :)

Well, in Taiwan, "咬人猫" is the local name of  urtica thunbergiana (蕁麻).

It's a poisonous plant.

The moral is: don't rely on google translate solely :)


What does "Why is C++ used at all now that a faster language (Go) has been created?" really mean? It is translated into Chinese as "現在為什麼C ++使用了更快的語言（Go）？"。

For me, it seems not close. I feel its Chinese translation should be "現在有更快的語言 (Go)，為什麼還要用C++?"
Or, I feel in English, it's close to "Now, since there is faster language (Go)， why is C++ still used?"

Could anyone rewrite this sentence into simpler English or translate it into Chinese?

as a native chinese,I prefere your translation is correct.


Please help translate my Chinese seal chop (Characters identified: 詩思妮) While on a recent trip to Shenzhen, China, I came across a booth selling Chinese Chops.  I had one made for me.

The artist asked me to write my name down, CECILE, and he made me this chop.  Since he didn't speak English and I don't speak Chinese, he was unable to tell me the meaning of my chop.

Please, can you translate it for me?  Thank you!!

The characters are

  詩思妮

You can hear them at Google translate (ignore the translation).


What does 七年之痒 mean? I looked it up and something about the Seven Year Itch but I'm kind confused. Does it have any deep meaning in Chinese culture?

It means seven years after marriage, both husband and wife would face numerous temptations that would harm their relationship. The seven years is a vague expression, sometimes a couple gets trouble earlier, sometimes later.

There is a movie about this. Wikipedia has some hints too. Its Baidu page tells that it's borrowed from foreign country.

Case Study

There is a perfect case: 潘粵明 與 董潔, matching the definition pretty well.


Word for developing and refining a product: Choppa - dowa? and thank you for making time to help me with this question.

I met with a supplier recently, and they told me that in China there was a word for the process of developing and refining a product.

The concept as explained to me was pronounced choppa-dowa.

What is the correct spelling/pronunciation/interpretation of that concept?

Thank you so much again - Norman Lutes

Closest I can think of is 产品开发, or chanpin-kaifa (product development).

Where in China did you hear this? Sounds southern.


When do I have to use 做/当 instead of 是? I know 做/当 in some contexts may mean "to be", as in:

  他现在做老师了。 He is a teacher now.
  她愿意做我女朋友。 She accepted to be my girlfriend.
  我毕业后想做经理。 After I graduate I want to be a manager.

I have a hard time explaining to my students when they have to use 做/当 and can't use 是. Any ideas?

In my opinion, 是 expresses a state 一种状态 and it's used to state a fact，while 做/当 denotes an act 一种动作, meaning 充当，担任.  For example, 我是老师 clarified the fact you are a teacher, while 我做/当老师 denotes you want to act as a teacher even if sometimes it's not really your job.


Phrase said thirty seconds to mars from yesterday What phrase is said at the beginning of this music video?
There are no subtitles https://youtu.be/RpG7FzXrNSs?t=41s and here
https://youtu.be/RpG7FzXrNSs?t=49s

It sounds like he says mi shong ying but I don't speak chinese.

The phrase has been identified as 明天的声音 which means "tomorrow's voice" I think.  Not sure what it means by "tomorrow's voice."

He says 明天的声音 (Míngtiān de shēngyīn), which literally means "the voice of tomorrow". I think it's a symbolic answer. The two mandarins ask to the emperor what he desires, whether the fire of the sun (太阳的火, tàiyáng de huǒ) or the ice of the stars (星星的冰, xīngxīng de bīng), and he answers "the voice of tomorrow" (明天的声音). I think it represents innovation: the emperor wants a new, dynamic kind of music.


Why is 到 necessary here? I think I have ever asked this question once but not in a detailed way.

Sentence :

  今天的考试要((用到))词典，请大家把词典也放在桌子上

I wonder why they put 到 after 用... I know 到 is used as a result complement BUTTT what kind of result does it try to indicate here?

Combination of a verb with 到 generally implies some sort of "finished" state, in an sense it's similar to some sort of perfect tense:

我 走到 公園 / I walked to the park
我 吃到 炸雞了 / I finally ate that fried chicken
在字典裡 查到 這個字了 I found this word in a dictionary

Without the suffix "到", the verb along could be "unfinished"

我 走去 公園 / I walk to the park
我 吃 炸雞了 / I ate fried chicken
我在字典裡 查 這個字了 I looked this word up in a dictionary

Now back to your example:

  今天的考试要用到词典，请大家把词典也放在桌子上

Notice that "今天的考试" is not the subject of the verb "用到" -- since the "exam" would not be the user of a dictionary. The user of that dictionary is "大家". Alternatively that sentence can be rephrased to be:

  今天的考试，大家要用到词典，请把词典也放在桌子上

I'd translated this to

  Each one of you will be using a dictionary in the exam today, please also put it on the table.

Now if we remove "到"

  今天的考试，大家要用词典，请把词典也放在桌子上

IMHO it can be translated into something like any of these:

Everyone intends to use a dictionary...(omit)
Everyone is asked to use a dictionary...(omit)
Everyone must use a dictionary...(omit)

In a sense, adding "到" disambiguates from these different contexts -- well, usually appending more modifiers disambiguates better... :)

Now that was a different example then whan you provided, and I admit that it is a bit of a streatch. Let's revisit this one without the "到":

  今天的考試要用词典

If I must not insert an auxiliary subject into the sentence for translating, it is almost tempting to come up with something like:

The exam today will use a dictionary
Today's exam will use a dictionary

(Translating word-by-word. A pretty common thing being done by many English learners)

Overall the call-to-action is not differ and pretty clear -- dictionary on the table! -- but that's because the options are pretty limited.