What difference(s) does it make to use the citation tone instead of the neutral tone, for the tail character in these words? Here’s my list: 队伍, 成分, 身分, 才力, 呼噜, 亮堂, 好处, 种子, 妥当, 爽快, 痛快, 记性, 出息, 佩服, 分析, 哈欠, 寒毛, 活泼, 鼻涕, 道理, 滑稽, 考究, 讲究, 打算, 正经, 裁缝, 得罪, 意识 (and also意识 形态), 熟识, 见识, 体谅, 兴趣, [东/西/南/前/后/那/上/下/头/里/外/左/右]边, 知道, 父亲 and 困难.

This list is made up of two-character words, for which I have found that different dictionaries disagree with each other on the pronunciation of the tail character: one or more dictionaries may give the neutral tone, whereas one or more other dictionaries may give a different tone (almost always, the “citation” tone for the character). I would be inclined to believe that, given the difference between dictionaries, it may not matter a great deal if the neutral tone is used or not for these words. Could anyone confirm this? Or else give a detailed answer to the question in the title above?

The list also contains a few words (痛快, 呼噜, 出息, 知道, 父亲 and 正经) for which a dictionary has said that both using the neutral tone, and not using it, are possible.

The dictionaries used are those I have installed on a smartphone Android app called Pleco. They are: Pleco C-E, CC-CEDICT and Adso. I’ve noticed that often (but by no means always) Adso gives the citation tone whereas the other two give the neutral tone.

By the way, this question is a follow-up to words where it is important to distinguish between the neutral tone and the citation tone, which I asked a few months ago. I was a little disappointed that it didn’t get more answers or comments, so I decided to follow up with this question which is more specific. I believe around 75% of the words are fairly common, standard terms. Sorry if there are too many unusual or abstruse words, and if the list is a bit long.

PS I just noticed some other related (but not duplicate) questions with useful info on this topic.

Mandarin Neutral Tone: Tone Value?

Where does the 4th tone go on wan3shang (evening)?

The difference would be the degree of correctness. Certain words must have no citation. Certain words must have.  And certain words are in between.

If you come to China, you will hear correct version and wrong version as well based on what province, what city you are. The reason is 1/ oral language is free style. 2/ dialect influence.

Based on what you give, I'll give you a reference to what Beijing people are speaking:

  队伍, 成分4, 身分4, 才力4, 亮堂, 好处4, 种子, 妥当4, 爽快4, 痛快4, 记性, 出息4, 佩服, 分析1, 哈欠,
  寒毛2*, 活泼1, 鼻涕4, 道理3, 滑稽, 考究4, 讲究4, 打算4, 正经3*, 裁缝, 得罪4, 意识 (and also意识
  形态4), 熟识2, 见识2, 体谅4, 兴趣4, [东/西/南/前/后/那/上/下/头/里/外/左/右]边1, 知道4, 父亲1 and
  困难4.

Only number - it's ok to have that citation
With * - It must have the citation

Take 正经 for example, I would never ignore the citation on the tail. I won't understand it if the tail is not in 3rd tone. The 3rd citation tone must apply here. It means "serious, gentleman, not-fooling-around".

Take 成分 for example, it's ok if you give no tone to the tail but even you say you give no tone, there is still a bit of 4th tone, just not quite as strong as normal. So does all the so-called neutral tone at tail like "好吧，吃了，没了，呆着"


要 to indicate "will [verb]" vs "need" Consider the sentence:

我要去北京。

This means "I will go to Beijing". But 要 also means "need". So could this sentence also be translated as "I need to go to Beijing"? How would you make the distinction between the two intended meanings in Chinese?

要 goes for 将要 or 需要, which indicates will or need.

Normally, 将要 + verb and 需要 + noun.

For distinction, the sentence 我要去北京 goes like this:

我(将)要去北京(了), which indicates 去北京 an action
我(需)要去北京(一趟), which indicates 去北京 an adj and 去北京一趟 a noun

If the tone or the circumstances indicate "I need to go to Beijing (to)", that is only half of the sentence in Chinese, I will ask "to do what". While if it is "I will go to Beijing", the question I will ask is "When". But it is ambiguous indeed without explanation.

Anyway, to be honest, if someone literally says 我要去北京
The point is 北京, not 要, as all roads lead to Rome.


Translation: "So much for..." How to translate so much for.... into Chinese?

For instance:

If you were going to go to a restaurant that you really like to eat and when you get there it is close. so much for eating here today

If someone says that the weather is going to be really good the next day & then it rains. so much for the good weather

Is there a good equivalent for for so much for.... in these situations?!

This one puzzled me for quite some time. My high school ESL teacher used to say "So much for today" when she finished a class, then I always took it literally and thought to my self "Yeah, you really taught so much today. I see." Then one day I saw from somewhere that it means "Today's class is over." Now it looks like it's not the proper usage, is it?
Then I googled and I found Japanese teachers say "So much for today" as well. So much for the proper usage of "so much for".

It's difficult to get it right for east Asians because there is no equivalent in Chinese or Japanese. You will need workarounds.

so much for eating here today. 今天在这里吃不成了。
so much for the good weather. 好天气泡汤了。/好天气就到此为止了。

No, no, no. These translations doesn't work at all. You can do the Chinese with a disgruntled or sarcastic voice if you say it. On paper it's just plain dull.
English, you win again.


不得不, 必须, 只好, 应该: what's the difference? This is what I'm thinking:

  不得不

pm. "cannot but, have to" this seems colloquial, and the fact that dictionaries think of this as a set phrase/fixed expression makes me think so. Also feels like the "can't help but" of 忍不住.

  必须

adv. "must, have to" this feels to me like it might be formal, is that right?

  只好

adv. "have to, have no choice but, be forced to" this sounds begrudging, like you have to or must, but don't really want to.

  应该

aux. "should, ought to, must" I think I usually hear this more often to mean "should, ought to" and not really as must, but I'm not that sure.

Can anybody clarify where I'm right and where I'm wrong in my thinking?

Thanks muchly

不…不… is more likely a language structure. There are 不能不，不想不，不好不 as well，they all mean have to do sth. and all of them are emphasizing that I originally not mean to do but under the circumstance I must do.

  我不得不离开我的家乡去打拼。
  （I have to leave my hometown to make a living)

  不能不说他的作品非常好。
  （We have to say his work is fantastic)

  谁做生意不想不赚钱？
  （Anyone who is a businessman doesn't want to make money?)

  他是我的老师，我不好不答应他.
  （As he is my teacher，it seemed not so well to refuse him）

必须，adverb.
（1）It's reasonable for you have to do sth.

  学习～刻苦钻研（(I/We) must study hard)

(2)Stress the imperative mood.

  明天你～来（You must come here tomorrow)

应该 is a auxiliary verb.
(1)take for granted.

  ~爱护公共财产。
  (We should protect public property.)

（2）estimate sth. must be...

  今天出门早，～不会迟到。
  Leaving home so early today, I won't be late.

只好，adverb. have no choice but.

  我等了他半天他还没回来，～留个条子就走了。
  （Waited for him for such a long time, I had no choice but to leave a note and then walk away）

Some parts maybe confusing to understand, this is a common issue for starter. The more usage you know about a word or phrase, the easier for you to know about the whole system and how it works.


Usage and Grammar of 看我这脑子 Came across this phrase in episode 35 of Growing up with Chinese on CCTV. The father is having trouble sending an email and he says to his son,

  咳，看我这脑子，我怎么把这事忘了。

Usage: I feel like 看我这脑子 would be roughly translated as "Where's my head" in the sense of forgetting something obvious, but I only think that from the context of the passage since I can't find much information on the phrase as is. Is there a more accurate English equivalent to this phrase? Does it have any other implications than forgetting something obvious? And is it commonly heard beyond the Beijing dialect they use in the above-mentioned TV show?

Grammar: The placement of 我 and 这 next to each other confuses me because I (probably wrongfully) translate them both to be articles for the noun 脑子. Alternatively, I'm thinking I ought to seperate 看我 as "Look after me" and  这脑子 as "This brain" and the rough translation I came to makes some sense, but I know 这 can sometimes mean "now," so I'm not sure. Which, if either, 我 or 这 is the article for 脑子?

看我这脑子

看： see or look;
我： here means 我的，mine;
这： such;
脑子： head;

As a whole, "Look, (that is) such a head of mine!" or "See, (that is) such a head of mine!" It means I am not that intelligent or brainy. In this context, it is specifically referring to one of the functionalities of a head, memorizing things, and it's just like to say "oh, my bad memory" or "look, my bad memory".


Reduplication in 五六十年代年代 I know that classifiers, verbs, and adjectives can be duplicated. However, the expression 五六十年代年代 seems to contain a duplicated noun instead. The meaning is clearly "the decades of the 50s and the 60s", but what's the grammar behind this construction? Google does not seem to find any further instance of 年代年代.

It’s just a typo.

We have the, original, English for comparison:

  This energy-efficient mode of long-distance rail connectivity stands in sharp contrast to the carbon-intensive US interstate highway system created for motor vehicles in the 1950s and 1960s.

Along with the Chinese translation:

  这种节能高效的长距离连通模式，同上世纪五六十年代年代美国州际公路系统，形成了鲜明的对比。

The original text contains zero hints of duplication for 年代. It seems to just be a straight up mistake.

It is also clearly marked as a translation on the Chinese page:

  Translated by Congyi Shi

So we know it's not original text from the writer themselves.

The only real time you’d see double nouns is when talking to a baby or an infant:

(吃)饭饭
(喝)水水

I doubt the translators intent was to patronize a young one.


Does Cantonese have a falling tone? In all Cantonese romanization systems I could find, tone 4 is labelled the falling tone.  However according to http://www.freehongkong.net/cantonese-pronunciation-cantonese-tones/ Cantonese does not have a falling tone.  The author of that page has renumbered the tones so his tone 6 corresponds to tone 4.  He describes this tone as "bottom flat".

When listening to people pronounce words in tone 4, I can clearly hear it as falling.  Is there any truth to the author's claim?

Standard Cantonese's 陽平 tone is definitely pronounced with a falling contour (21). Modern Cantonese Phonology by Robert S. Bauer, p. 144 appears to acknowledge, but did not find, a low-level contour for this tone though:

  For the Mid-Low Falling tone both Yuan (1983:181) and Zhan (1985:168) also recognized a variant low level contour of ˩11 in addition to the mid-low to low falling contour of ˨˩21. However, analysis of the Mid-Low Falling tone contours produced by speakers in this study has not found such a low level variant contour.

"Perceptual learning of Cantonese lexical tones by tone and non-tone language speakers" by Francis et al. (2008) also measured the contours of the fundamental frequencies of each tone, and a definite falling contour was seen. This figure from Wikipedia reproduces the contours found in that paper (refer to the line for tone 4, 時):

I would try to avoid using the romanization scheme advocated in your link. It appears to reorganize the tones to make them appear more systematic than how they are actually pronounced. While that may help with learning the tones, it may introduce more confusion later, especially since it goes against the numbering scheme that all of the other Cantonese romanization schemes use.


Different given names in Chinese and English Chinese business persons often have a different given name in English than in Chinese. For example, Tencent founder Ma Huateng is internationally known as Pony Ma while his co-founder Zhang Zhidong is known as Tony Zhang. I have seen the same phenomenon in actors from Hong Kong (e.g. Jackie Chan).

Is there a system to (some of) these "translations"? Does a specific Chinese given name have a specific English corresponding given name? Or are they completely made up, and by whom?

There's no system; English names can be chosen essentially randomly, and the reasoning (if any) behind the choice may not be obvious unless the person explicitly tells the backstory behind the name.

Ma Huateng's (馬化騰) name Pony comes from the Chinese practice of adding the prefix 小 in front of the family name to indicate informality or affection for young people as the addressee, which becomes 小馬 (Xiǎo Mǎ), as 馬 (Mǎ) is his last name. 小馬, as a Chinese word, literally means Pony.
Zhang Zhidong's (張志東) name Tony doesn't seem to be explicitly explained, although one can infer that it might have been chosen for one or more of the following reasons:

Tony sounds similar to 東 (Dōng), the last character of his first name;
Tony was chosen to rhyme with Pony.

Jackie Chan's name came about because he worked under a construction worker named Jack; he was known as Little Jack due to his apprentice role, which later changed to Jackie.


Etymology of 'go dutch' So I just learned about the etymology of 'AA' from

The origins of "AA制"

I wonder if anyone has a similar response for the phrase 'go dutch'.

It is hard to believe this originated from the Netherlands, seeing that it is quite commonly used in Hong Kong and Mainland China.

I first heard it in a Mainland Chinese TV drama in the English subtitles.

Bonus points if anyone could provide me the traditional and simplified characters for 'go dutch'?

《懶蟲簡明英漢詞典》

  go Dutch
  verb
  各人付自己的帳

Usually, we simply say 各付各的 or 各出各的 in both TC and SC.

Others:
    各付各的帳
    各付一半帳
    各付一半賬
    各付帳
    各人付自己的帳
    各人自付錢
    各人自己付錢
    各自付錢
    各自付帳
    各自負擔自己費用

According to the legend of the Anglo-Dutch scramble for colonies and competition for the international trade market, because of the frequent conflict and dislike of the two countries, such usage appeared in English, contrary to the "generous" image of an English gentleman.


Is this correct usage of the word 天资? I have tried to find example sentences using 天资 tian zi (talent) online with no luck. I f I were to write 'he is a very talented pianist' or something of the sort, would it be correct to say

弹钢琴他有很多天资

?

For talent in a specific area, the word 天份 is better choice than 天资, which can also means 'talent' but in a more general sense. When you say someone has 天份(talent), you need to specify in what subject the talent applies; When you say someone has 天资, it means that person has a nature ability to learn, doesn't matter what is the subject.

We don't measure 天份' with '多 and 少',  We measure '天资 or 天份' with '有 and 沒有' ; '高 and 低'

有天份; 沒有天份 (have talent/ talented; have no talent)
天份高: 天份低 (highly talented; low in talent/ not very talented)

  弹钢琴他有很多天资 should be written as "弹钢琴他很有天份" which is a [topic]+[comment] sentence structure with "弹钢琴" as the topic and " 他很有天份" as the comment.

For a more common [S+V+O] structure, the sentence should be written as " 他很有弹钢琴的天份"

  Is this correct usage of the word 天资?

Example of correct usage of the word 天资:

"他天资过人，學一年就能弹钢琴" - His talent is extraordinary, can play piano after only a year of learning.

"凭他的天资，考上多伦多大学不成问题" - With his talent, be admitted to the University of Toronto is not a problem.


Derogatory usage of 靈 in old Chinese? I am currently reading about the reign of 漢靈帝。 He appears a horrible ruler indeed. Yet Wikipedia states:

  Emperor Ling died in 189 at the age of 34, after reigning for 21 years. After his death the power fell into the hands of Dong Zhuo, who despised him. Emperor Ling was one of the rare examples of history in which an emperor whose throne was inherited by a son received a highly derogatory (but accurate) posthumous name.

Is there indeed such a bad meaning of 靈？ Or was there? I know 靈 to mean "clever " or "effective " when it is an adjective!

for 諡號 (posthumous name), they're fixed, have special implications. treat the character used in posthumous name as a "code", you need to decipher it's meaning by looking up 諡法解.

this wiki page listed all 183

or, if you can read literary chinese, the internet archive has the "bible of posthumous name": 明諡紀彙編


What is the meaning of 相声? Today I read a blog post talking about a Canadian guy called Mark Rowswell (aka 大山) that appears on Chinese TV shows and who is able to do 相声. This 相声 is referred to as "the art of language".

What does 相声 exactly mean?

相声 is a form of Chinese traditional stand-up comedy where two two performers talk back and forth to each other, telling a funny story or just chatting about a humorous topic. Because it's a traditional Chinese art form and originates in northern China, it has a higher political status than other Chinese art forms. This means that it gets broadcasted across the country on CCTV a lot, and sinophiles like Mark Roswell get introduced to it when they are studying Chinese.

相声 performers who become make a name for themselves can establish their own styles and take on students to pass on their skills. Mr Roswell/Dashan's mentor was a performer named  姜昆. Dashan is not the only foreigner to have studied under a famous artist -- another name that I remember off the top of my head is Julien Gaudfroy (朱力安), a French student of Chinese who also studied 相声.

Probably the best way to get a better feel for 相声 would be to search for the term on Youtube, or if you're in China then search on Youku. Combine it with 大山 or 朱力安 to find videos of these talented performers.


Translation of "you either speak too quickly or too slowly." without repeating 说 This answer gives an example sentence meaning "you speak too quickly" to illustrate the usage of 得 (·de).

1) 你说得太快了。

In order to say "you either speak too quickly or too slowly", I'm pretty sure it's possible to say (2). Although (2) might be analyzed as two separate clauses: a clause with an explicit subject and a clause with a null subject.

2) 你说得太快了或者说得太慢了。

I'm pretty sure sentence (3) is wrong. Is there another conjunction that can be used instead of或者 that makes the sentence grammatical with the intended meaning of "you either speak too quickly or too slowly"? I added spaces to (3) for emphasis only.

*3) 你说得太快了 或者 得太慢了。

Is there another conjunction that can be used instead of或者

[不是(A)就是(B)] = [If not (A) would then (B)] = [Either (A) or (B)]

"不是(A: 說得太快),就是(B: 說得太慢)"

"你不是說得太快, 就是說得太慢"  = "you either speaking too fast or speaking too slow"

"你不是說得太快, 就是太慢" = "you either speaking too fast or too slow"
(omit the repeating verb)

~

[有時(A),有時(B)] = [sometimes (A), sometimes (B)]

"有時(A:說得太快), 有時 (B:說得太慢)

"你有時說得太快, 有時說得太慢" = "you sometimes speaking too fast, something speaking too slow"

The final particle 了 is optional


Which pronunciation of “kun” is correct or what’s the difference? There are two audio recordings that I am listening to both have different pronunciations of the pinyin “kun”.

One is from here.
And another is from a pinyin audio chart.

Which pronunciation should I be following or which is more standard for stuff like HSK?

In my opinion, the Chinese pinyin "kun" sounds like "kwen".

If you like to take a further look at the the pronunciation, you can see Zhuyin(Bopomofo), which we often use it in Taiwan: ㄎㄨㄣ

ㄎ / ㄨ / ㄣ

k / wu / en

BTW, I think those two audio sounds familiar.


When should I use "很" before an adjective? Very early in the process of learning Chinese as a foreign language we are taught:

我是好 is incorrect because 是 is only used before nouns and 好 is not a noun.
我很好 is the correct way to say the former
很 literally means "very" but in this type of usage doesn't have this literal meaning.
很 isn't always used between a noun and an adjective

(This naturally results in some foreign learners thinking of 很 as some kind of special equivalent to "to be".)

But when should we use 很 and when should we omit it? In some other places in Chinese grammar we use some character with monosyllabic words and omit it with bisyllabic words. I'm not sure if that's the case here though since I'm sure I've seen 很 used with both monosyllabic and bisyllabic words.

Yes.It is common for "很" to be used before both monosyllabic and disyllabic adj. But when these types of adj./adv. are used, the front "是"are always omitted. For example，我很优秀（I am excelent）, 我的国家很强大（My country is powerful). This mechanism covers most  of the context. But you may use 我是很优秀，or 我的国家是很强大。It is not grammatically incorrect,but you will hold a tone of sarcasm (or at least a serious tone),so there's smaller chance to use this format .

When the speaker uses 我是很好,我是很优秀 or 我的国家是很强大。He/She wants to express the determined tone to the recipient,in which he/she consolidates his/her authority,or against others' questioning for the most of the cases. In other words,he/she is boasting or even be conceited about the advantages of his/her or his/her contry.


What does 如此 mean in 表示显然如此或确实? In the following sentence that explains the usage of 明明:

  表示显然如此或确实，下文的意思往往转折。

The meaning would be something like the following:

  It shows obviousness or such, or certainity. After the word usually comes the turnover's meaning.

But I don't understand why it needs 如此 here, and what it works for.

In my understanding, 如此 is used to emphasize an adjective or adverb, and put before the adjective or adverb to mean "so" (equal to 很). But in this case it is put after the word.

Does it have any difference on the meaning with or without 如此? What nuances does it carry?

Literally, 如 means "like" and 此 means "this".

如此 as a verb means 是这样, (something) to be the case.


How is the meaning of 不得已 formed? I am under the impression that Chinese multi-character words form their meaning from that of the characters that form these words. (Let me know if I am mistaken!)

I know that 不得已 means "to have to".
But consider each character, as described on wiki:

  不, "not"
  得, "particle to connect verb with modifying clause/to have to"
  已, "already/then/to stop"

How do these three characters form the meaning of the whole expression? Or is there no rule to this?

Also, my understanding is that 得 (dė) is a particle, yet 得 (děi) means "to have to". That said, would the pronunciation of 得 in this expression be děi?

Thanks in advance!

the usage is classical and shows up at least as far back as mencius: 吾豈好辨哉？吾不得已也。Here the meaning is quite literally "I cannot (不) achieve/obtain (得) an end (已)" to my argumentativeness. In other words, i have no choice but to argue. You might compare it with the much more colloquial 不得不.

By the way be careful about the whole multi-character words thing. Some (not I) would insist that they are mere syllables, the characters accidental byproducts of the spoken language. Better comparison would be with a language composed entirely of words like "counterproductive".


What is the 'correct' way to pronunce 人? I've heard some people pronunce it zhen and some pronunced it ren (spoken like "you had a hot potato in your mouth") and because of this I am very confused what is the correct pronunciation.

The place of articulation varies connsiderably from the approximant /ɹ/ sound of the English phonem usually transcribed as /r/. Eng. RP (received pronunciation) is a true retroflex /r/ (like Slavonic pron.) and is also a distinct from what I would here as the initial in 人, or 日 for example. I've lived in several areas and have been exposed to a number of Mandarin and other Chinese dialects. With Chinese pron. I tend to think of what is the most widely understood, rather than correct or incorrect.
"Similar to s in pleasure in English, but with a retroflex articulation. Otherwise, some speakers pronounce it as an English R, but lips are unrounded."
Denti-alveolar and retroflex series
"The retroflex consonants (like those of Polish) are actually apical rather than subapical, and so are considered by some authors not to be truly retroflex; they may be more accurately called post-alveolar.[2][3] Some speakers not from Beijing may lack the retroflexes in their native dialects, and may thus replace them with dentals.[1]:26"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese_phonology
This is true in my experience.


Is 不 A 不 B a grammatical structure like 又 A 又 B? I ran across 不知不觉 the other day.  If I use MDBG to look up c:不*不* I see there are many idioms with that format.  Can I use it with any verbs (?) or is it only part of fixed expressions?

Is 不 A 不 B a grammatical structure like 又 A 又 B?

They are different. Most [不 A 不 B] terms are either idiom or four characters idiomatic phrase that you have to memorize individually.
The A and B in [又 A 又 B] can be a single character word, a compound word or even an entire phrase. e.g. 又高又瘦，又高又瘦削，又想高大又想瘦削
Below are the common [不 A 不 B] terms:
[A complement B ]
不慌不忙: (not panic, not hurry) stay calm
不聞不問: (not listening, not inquire) ignore
不知不覺: (not know, not feel) not notice
不經不覺: (not experience, not feel) not notice (of time passing)
不瞅不睬: (not looking, not pay attention) ignore
不明不白: (not understandable, not clear) unclear
不倫不類: (not any type or kind) ridiculous
不慍不火: (not angry, not enrage) calm; mild
不痛不癢: (not hurt, not itchy) insignificant attack/ lost
不飲不食: (not eat, not drink) not eat nor drink
不眠不休: (not sleep, not rest) tirelessly;  relentlessly, persistently
不忠不孝: disloyal, not filial (no virtue)
不仁不義: unkind, unjust (no honor)
不過不失: (not considered a wrong doing, not considered a mistake) average/ mediocre
不折不扣: (no discount, no rebate) truly; definitely
不離不棄: (not leaving, not abandon) never abandon
不盡不實: (not detailed, not true) not telling the truth
不驕不躁: (not prideful, not irritated) stay calm and focused
不屈不撓: (not bending, not yielding) Never give up
不三不四: (not this, not that) dubious
不依不饒: (not agree with, not forgive) pestering/ not let things go
不聲不響: (Silent, not make a sound) silently/ be silent
[A contradict B ]
不卑不亢: (not too humble, not too excited) proper demeanor
不偏不倚: (not lend away , not lean onto) right on/ Objective (opinion)
不緩不迭: (not slow, not swift) steady normal pace
不男不女: (not a man, nor a woman) sex unknown
不上不下: (not up, not down) struct in the middle
不大不小: (not big, not small) the right size
不冷不熱: (not hot not cold) mild reception; right temperature
不高不低; (not high, not low) middle position (of rank or level)
不胖不瘦: (not fat, not thin) average body type
不咸不淡: (not salty not bland) unremarkable taste/ mediocre
[B until/ unless A]
不死不休: not stopping until one is dead
不吐不快: not happy until saying (something)
不時不食: do not eat unless it is in-season
不見不散: not leaving until we meet
I would update this list when I think up more.


What's the difference between 周 and 星期? From a dictionary lookup, it seems that both 周 and 星期 can mean "a week"—is there any difference in usage?

Dividing a year into 52 weeks was a new concept to Chinese people at the time. Since 星期(指七夕，就是牛郎织女鹊桥相会之日) a common term already existed in China,
https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%98%9F%E6%9C%9F it was then used to express a "week".

中國古代有七曜这一詞
*The Japanese still use 七曜 for the name of their days in a week - (日曜日, 月曜日, 火曜日 水曜日, 木曜日, 金曜日 and 土曜日)

Meanwhile, there was another common Chinese term 周天 (a circle of) http://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%91%A8%E5%A4%A9/909115 therefore, 周 was also borrowed to describe  "a week"
As for practical usage,  周 and 星期 are interchangeable, but 周 is more formal and 星期 is more colloquial.
Also, the single syllable 周 doesn't take classifier, but 星期 does. We say 一星期 or 一個星期, but we only say 一周, not 一個周
both 周一 and 星期一 mean "Monday", as mentioned before, and they are interchangeable, only 周一 is more formal and 星期一 is more colloquial


餐馆, 饭馆, 酒家, 饭店 - restaurant in Chinese? What's the difference between 餐馆 饭馆 酒家 饭店 and all the other different words that exist to say restaurant??? What's the most common and used and what is the one that could fit in quite every situation?

They all mean restaurant, but a little difference:

餐馆 is normal, not so big, but formal restaurant.

饭馆 is smaller, and casual restaurant.

饭店 is bigger restaurant with higher qualification, be able to perform ceremony such as wedding.

酒家 is an ancient word which means a kind of restaurant providing liquor. Nowadays used for the name of restaurant for antique flavour.


How to use / translate "as well as" in next sentences? How to use "as well as" in these cases:

We go to play football today as well as every sunday morning.
I can see the road every bit as well as you can.
The moon as well as the stars were shining down on them.
As well as I recollect, he was about six feet tall.

Are they translated the same way or there should be used different translation of as well as - 以及 / 及其 / 而?

as well as: 和；以及；如同；像...一樣；既...又...；

Depends on the context, you can choose a suitable one.

We go to play football today as well as every sunday morning.
和每周日上午一樣，我們今天也去踢足球。
我們今天和每周日上午一樣去踢足球。
We go to play football today and every sunday morning.
我們今天和每個星期天早上都去踢足球。

I can see the road every bit as well as you can.
我可以像你一樣看清楚路上的一切。

The moon as well as the stars were shining down on them.
月亮和星星一樣照著他們。
The moon and the stars were shining down on them.
月亮和星星都照著他們。

As well as I recollect, he was about six feet tall.
根據（如同）我的記憶，他身高約六英尺。
如同我記的一樣，他約六英尺高。
依我的記憶，他約六英尺高。
據我回憶，他約六英尺高。


How to translate 实时新闻定制和推送系统 to English? I once worked on a project called 实时新闻定制和推送系统. Now someone translated it to English as Real-time News Ordering and Pushing System. However I feel strange with the word Ordering. I often hear the word subscribe when we refer to news. So my question is how can I translate  this project name into English?

Real-time news subscription and notification system.


Why is 果子 in 煎饼果子 (jiānbǐng guǒzi)? One of my favorite foods in China is 煎饼果子 (jiānbǐng guǒzi), which doesn't really translate well to English.  See Baidu 图片 for images.

One thing that seems strange to me is the use of 果子 (guǒzi) meaning fruit, when there is no fruit in 煎饼果子.

Question: Why is 果子 in 煎饼果子 (jiānbǐng guǒzi)?

"果子" is a regional name for "糖果糕點" - any sugar, rice or wheat flour-based food that is not a staple food. This broad category includes sweet and savoury items, cakes and candy.

The 果子 in 煎饼果子 refers to the 油条 wrapped inside. Of course, regional varieties of the food can have different fillings.


How to emphasize a word in writing? I guess in English maybe this would only be done by italics, I am not sure but here is a sample in English and my bad translation to Chinese, what is the best way to emphasis?

I know for example that in Chinese:

  我太太　vs　我的太太

The first one says "my wife" and the second one emphasizes "She is my wife not your wife"1.

But adding a "de" particle does not really work (in my head) here:

Now I don't want to talk to her. (Declarative sentence)
Now I don't want to talk to her.  (Declarative sentence emphasizing that before the other person did not want to talk to the writer.)

How would that emphasis be implied in:

  现在　我　不要给他说话。

Is the emphasis best added with bold or italics?

1: Taken from Beginner's Chinese Yong Ho

Your example is just an example of possessive elision in Chinese. Both are acceptable and considered equivalent. None of the two has more emphasis than the other.

One thing to note is there are two different types of emphasis, one being the emphasis of tone/mood, the other being the emphasis of meaning. In your case, it's the former. In English, the first type is often represented with italic and the latter with bold.

There are many ways to bring the reader's attention to a particular phrase in a passage in Chinese.

1) The official method, the underdot, as the name suggests, is placed under the characters that need to be emphasized. Sometimes a small circle is used as well:

  那只笔是他拿的.
         .

2) Another method is to use the squiggly underline (same as the one you see in MSWord when you have a spelling error)

3) Yet another method (but much rarer) is to use the normal underline, but this causes confusion in some cases, as it is also used to indicate proper nouns in Chinese in some older texts.

4) The first two methods are good for hand-written materials, but with the advent of typography, people are increasingly inclined towards using bold font to represent semantic emphasis and italic to represent tone/mood emphasis. This method is openly denounced by language purists due to the fact Chinese characters, unlike Western alphabets, look aesthetically displeasing when boldened or italized in a computer font.

My suggestion for you is to express the emphasis in some other way. For example, you can spell things out: “她是我的太太, 不是你的!” Or if you are quoting someone, then: “她是我的太太.”, 他特别强调了‘我’这个字.


Does this box in the movie 妖猫传 (Legend of the Demon Cat) say 鳳栖樓 on its lid and 私人必死 inside, and what do they mean? I'm watching the movie 妖猫传 (yāomāo zhuàn) = Legend of the Demon Cat.  About 10 minutes into the movie, a man secretly enters a room named 御宬 (yùchéng) = "imperial storage" (I think) and searches for a hidden box.  He reaches for the box:

I think this says something like:

  鳳栖樓

meaning "pheonix perch building" (using a mix of traditional and simplified characters).  He opens the box, and takes out a special key:

It looks like it says something like:

私人 = private
必死 = "die the death"

I don't know what this means.  When he uses the key, he's almost killed by a trap.

I want to check I've correctly transcribed these two items, and ask what they mean.  The first simply seems to be simply a fancy name of the room where the key is used.

Question: Does this box say 鳳栖樓 on its lid and 私人必死 inside, and what do they mean?

Never saw the movie.

鳳栖樓 should be the name of the building. You are mentioning there is a key in the box, so it is probably the building where the key is for.

As the note inside the box, you got one character wrong. It is "私入必死", where 入(ru4) means "enter".

Here, 私 means "without permission". So the whole phrase is saying the "(you) will definitely die if enter without permission"

入 and 人 look alike, but are two totally different characters.


What does 前後鼓吹 mean? can anyone tell me what 前後鼓吹 means?

In context: 賜以秬鬯一卣。寵以前後鼓吹。知悉。

I grant you one vessel of black millet herb-flavoured liquor, and I proclaim my favour for you. Let it be known.

Something like this?

The emperor is conferring honours on one of his generals...前後鼓吹 seems to have something to do with court music...?

鼓 = (beat) Drum
吹 = blow (trumpet)

"Beating the drum and blowing the trumpet around the person"

Similar terms: 前后部鼓吹，两部鼓吹


What does 赔着 mean in this sentence? 赔： compensate, pay for

I can't really get '赔着笑脸' Maybe 'it cost him his smile to leave' i.e. he was sad to leave???

Or is there some other meaning in 赔？

八戒偷眼一看，那三个女儿美如天仙，不由得想入非非，赔着笑脸走了过去。

賠
(1)compensate; indemnify
(2) apologize

賠笑 = smile apologetically
[赔着]笑脸 = [serve up] a smiling face (apologetically)
八戒 had naughty thoughts about the three girls. His subconscious guilty feeling was showing on his face with an apologetic smile


Are there any short prose or poetry works in classical or modern Chinese designed specifically to teach the names of the 64 hexagrams? For a while I have wanted to learn to match the character names of the 64 hexagrams to the hexagrams themselves.

Unfortunately, as for the names and hexagrams, none of them really stick in my memory.

Sure, the hexagrams all look alike at first.

But it's not so much that the characters themselves are hard to remember, or that the meanings are hard to remember. It's just that there are 64 of them.

What I usually do when absorbing a list-based piece of knowledge like this is to simply learn one half of the list in one big chunk, then go back and match the 'domain' to the 'range'.

With that in mind, I want to tackle the character names of the 64 hexagrams.

So, are there any short prose or poetry works in classical or modern Chinese designed specifically to teach the names of the 64 hexagrams?

I am thinking in particular of the 千字文, a work of poetry that was mainly designed to teach calligraphy, versions of the work being available in a variety of calligraphic styles. Didactic literature like this has played a useful part in my own study of Chinese.

The 百家姓 is another example.

Such a work, translated into English, might go something like,

"Sixty-three, the ox has already forded the stream,
But, sixty-four, the stag is still on the other side."

and would use the actual character names in the 'story', like 既济 for 'already forded.'

I found this link. It's mainly focused on methods to quickly memorize the meaning and pattern of 64 hexagrams. Hope it helps.


What does 泉 mean in 道具泉, in the context of a handbill? At 33:41, the Chinese Univ. HK Philosophy student below asks Dr Samson Kwok Pak-nin (in Cantonese) to hand  him Dr Kwok's placard. He calls it 道具泉.

I know 道具 means prop, but how does 泉 - Wiktionary fit?

Why not just say  '道具'?

Definitions

spring; fountain
an ancient type of coin
Short for 泉州 (Quánzhōu, “Quanzhou”).

Obviously it was referring to the host 關灝泉 Kwan Ho Chuen（香港中文大學哲學系博士生）

In Hong Kong, people often nickname someone by his job. For example. 李先生 is a 經紀, people who mainly know him as a 經紀 might nickname him 經紀李

More examples:

張家強 is a 豆腐店店主，people who order tofu from him might nickname him 豆腐強

黃國興 is a 律師， people might nickname him 律師黃

In the video the guy asked 關灝泉 to hand him the placard, jokingly called him 道具泉 because he was responsible for the prop (jokingly referred him as 名字中有個泉字的道具部員工- An employee of the props department with a word 泉 in his name)

It is a casual way to nickname people. For someone with high status, it is considered disrespectful to nickname him this way. You should never call 黃律師 as 律師黃 in his present.


Can I say 在..住? Why do we say 我住在..？ As far as I know in Chinese sentences we should use adverb after subject and before the verb. For example: 我在上网聊天儿。

So can I say 我(S)在北京(adverb)住(verb)？ Why do we say 我住在北京？

Generally speaking, the two structures

我在ＬＶ
我Ｖ在Ｌ

where「Ｌ」is a location and「Ｖ」is a verb done at「Ｌ」are used for different purposes.

我Ｖ在Ｌ is normally used for stative verbs, that is, verbs which describe a state of being rather than an action. For example:

我藏在冰箱裏 (I'm hiding in the fridge)
我站在椅子上 (I'm standing on the chair)
我坐在沙發上 (I'm sitting on the couch)
我躺在牀上 (I'm lying in bed)
我活在世界上 (I'm living in this world)

我在ＬＶ can be used for other kinds of verbs, including stative verbs, so 我住在北京 and 我在北京住 are both acceptable.

  Dynamic verbs are not normally of the structure 我Ｖ在Ｌ, so e.g. expressing I'm eating at home as 我吃飯在家裏 is non-standard.


What is "singleton set" in Chinese? In set theory, a singleton set is a set with just one element.
The term is not in any of my dictionaries, and the only online source I found is one page of zh.wikipedia which just transliterates it as 辛格尔顿.  A search on line shows this is hardly ever used.
A friend who is not a set theorist suggests 单元 for singleton.  I wonder what Chinese set theorists usually use.

单元素集合 is the correct and exact word for singleton set in Chinese, confirmed by a Chinese friend of my who is a mathematician.

There is a Baidu encyclopaedia entry for 单元素集合, where it is defined as "由唯一一个元素组成的集合", i.e. a set containing a single element, followed by an example {0}.


Why there is "不” in “太极不是未有天地之先有个浑成之物，是天地万物之理总名否？” There is this sentence from the opening of the fist chapterof 语类 by Zhu Xi:

  太极不是未有天地之先有个浑成之物，是天地万物之理总名否？

Baihua version seems to treat the "不是" part as if it ment "是不是" So the sentence would mean something like:

"Does Tai Ji mean that before Heaven and Earth there was a certain mixture of things and is it [i.e. tai ji] a general name for li of Heaven Earth and all things"

But I do not understand why "不是" should have such meaning? Is it a feature of classical Chinese?  Why shouldn't it mean:

"Tai Ji is not (不是) a mixture of things that existed before Heaven and Earth, is it [then] a general name for Li of Heaven earth and all things?"

or soemthing like that???

the text from 朱子語類 卷一 理氣上 has the structure: a is not b, [because] a is c; isn’t it?

  問﹒太極不是未有天地之先﹒有箇渾成之物﹒是天地萬物之理總名﹒否

it would be interpreted as:

[someone] asked (問): “tai chi (太極) is not (不是) [exist] before the universe (未有天地之先), as a (有箇) turbid (渾成) thing (之物),  [tai chi] is (是) the name (名) of the set (總) of principles (理) of everything (萬物) in the universe (天地); isn’t it (否)?

the logic of the second verse is:

thing-1 in the universe has the principle 1 (p1), thing-2 in the universe has the principle 2 (p2), . . . thing-n in the universe has the principle n (pn).

so, the set (mathematics) of these principles is the collection of each principle; a pantheism view.

back to the question, the quoted explanation of baidu is incorrect

have fun :)


How to translate "你给我滚" properly? In a sentence like:

“你给我拿一杯水” You would translate it something like: Get me a glass of water.

How is the "给我" in the sentence “你给我滚” supposed to be translated?

Should it just be "Get lost / Piss off" and just ignore the "给我" part?

Adding to Ciaocibai's answer:

"你给我滚" could be same to "给我滚" and then further reduced to "滚".

In both "你给我滚" and "给我滚", personally, I think the "给我" part is used to make emphasis on strong emotions, such as contempt or strong anger. It will therefore depends on the tune/context to translate it.

E.g. "给我滚一边去", can be used by a gangster head to someone else who is not important, to show his/her contempt and therefore show his/her superiority in the gang.

Or when a father is really angry at his son who commit a crime, he is furious and shouts out loud "给我滚!"


Why so many variations for traditional 只 zhǐ (衹/祇/秖/隻)? 只 zhǐ is just simply 只 zhǐ in simplified writing.

As far as I can tell the most common traditional form is 衹.

Why so many variations for traditional 只 zhǐ (衹/祇/秖/隻)?

To clarify:

只 has two meanings and pronunciations, zhī (single) and zhǐ (only)
隻 is pronounced zhī and has the same meaning as 只 (zhī)
衹, 祇, 秖 all can mean zhǐ (only), but also had other meanings:

衹 has the same meaning, but could also mean 緹 (a reddish colour used in textiles) - hence the 衣 (clothing) radical
祇 also has the pronunciation of qí meanin 地祇, or earth spirits in Chinese folk religion, hence the 示 (divine) radical
秖 is supposed to mean "谷始熟", hence the 禾 (grain) radical

So what you're really asking can be split into multiple questions:

Why are there multiple zhǐ (only) characters?

衹 is the correct one, but due to close similarity with the other characters, they have often been confused for each other. Over time the other forms have become accepted as also having the same meaning.

Just to demonstrate how confusing this can be, the character 祗 is also mistakenly used; it even has a similar pronunciation (zhī). If you haven't noticed, the only difference is a dot below the right part: 氐

One of the goals of simplification had been to eliminate multiple characters meaning the same thing, so it's easy to see why these three were merged into 只 (zhǐ). According to 說文解字, 只 emerged as an alternate form of 衹 as far back as the Song dynasty ("宋人詩用只爲衹字"), explaining why 只 was chosen. But this leads to the next question:

Why did 隻, unrelated and pronounced differently, also get merged into 只?

That's harder to answer as it's one of the controversial aspects of simplified Chinese: 一简对多繁. For whatever reason, in 《通用规范汉字表》 只 was listed as "low risk" (低风险多音字). Probably because the two meanings have different pronunciations and have different grammatical functions, and therefore were unlikely to be mixed up. This is unlike the "high risk" characters like the infamous 干, which has confused computer translators into translating it as "fuck" on many Chinglish menus.

My guess is that they wanted to simplify 隻, a very commonly used character, but there were no good options - e.g. they could have used 支 but it is already a different measure word, which could cause confusion.


What is a non-gender specific way to specify a group of people when writing Chinese If you write 'they' (tāmen) in Chinese characters, you have to be specific about the gender: 他们 / 她们 / 它们
All of them mean 'they' but what do you use if you mean a group mixed with men and women?

他们 - "they" (men / men and women )

她们 - "they" (women )

它们 - "they" (objects)

*The term "它们" is rarely used. Most of the time, people would use "这些" (these)+ object or "那些"(those)+ object when referring a group of objects.


Are both these stroke orders for 里 and 再 correct in mainland China? I've encountered two different stroke orders for writing 里:

They disagree at the fifth stroke.  The first one is on Wiktionary and Visual Mandarin, while the second I encountered on TOFU Learn (link to website) and Arch Chinese (and on a Japanese site).

Similarly for 再：

They disagree at the fourth stroke.  The first one is on Visual Mandarin and Chinese Hideout, while the second one is on Wikipedia.

Question: Are both these stroke orders for 里 and 再 correct in mainland China?

I'm interested in mainland China in particular, since that's where I'm located (Tianjin, specifically).

I usually look up this dictionary for stroke orders. There could be some other useful sites like this one.

I personally apply the second order for 再 and 里 as you quoted. In practice, the stroke order doesn't really matter and you can develop your own stylish based on the standard one. For native speakers, we would only be taught and tested the standard orders in primary school. It becomes meaningless when we grow up. We almost forget the standard orders for certain characters. When we teach our kids, sometimes we have to look up those authoritative resources online.

I think the reason why we still need to learn the stroke order is that we need understand the conventions on how to write a Chinese character.


How to translate "暧昧" into English? Many dictionaries translate it to "ambiguity",but it looks so indefinitely.

I'm looking for more expressive answer.

Depending on context, 暧昧[pronounced as ài mèi] can take on a few meanings. The following is quoted from Baidu with some explanations in English:

（态度、用意）含糊；不明白。(attitude or intent is unclear or incomprehensible)
（行为）不光明；不可告人。(behavior is dishonorable or secretive, like having an illicit affair)
男女或同性肉体关系还处于想象段。(at the non-physical stage of a relationship, that is, in between friendship and intimate relationship)
男女或同性关系还未发展到恋人关系，但是行为举止和恋人关系差不多。(same as 3)

暧昧 is usually used to describe a kind of ambiguous relationship that is neither here nor there. It is not necessarily a negative word.


is there a way to know which words are grouped? sample sentence:

在这个项目的研究上

the words that could be ambiguous are

项目: the project

目的: the goal, purpose, aim, intent

how can this be resolved?

在这个项目的研究上

If you treat 目的 as a noun, then 项 has to be a classifier. But there's already a classifier 个 before it, (项 is not the right classifier for 目的 anyway), therefore, we can eliminate the possibility of "目的" in this sentence being a noun. Which mean 项 is not a classifier but a part of the compound word 项目 (item)

It  all make sense, because we know "个" is a classifier for "项目" (item)

"项" itself is a classifier, but it doesn't work with "目的"(goal) (the classifier of 目的 is 个)

  在这个项目(的)研究上 = about the study on this item

的 is an adjective marker that turn 这个项目 into an adjective phrase "这个项目的" for the noun 研究 (study) - what study? this item's study

Lenny wrote:

  is there a more ambiguous kind of sentence? surely there must be, that's more of what I'm trying to get at

Yes, for example, the following sentence can be interpreted differently depend on where you slight pause between words

"是個 人用的 工具" = "是個 (is a)  人用的 (for human use) 工具 (tool)" = "is a tool for human use"

"是 個人用的 工具" = "是" (is) 個人用的 (for personal use) 工具 (tool)" = "is a personal used tool"

Both examples are grammatically correct,  you have to listen to how it is read to determine it is "是個 . 人用的" or "是 . 個人用的"

Or you can look for hints in the context to determine the correct interpretation

One fun one, but it has to do with punctuation marks:

  下雨天留客天留人不留

1. 下雨天留客, 天留人不留 (It is raining as if the heaven wanted to keep the guest here, but the host doesn't keep the guest even the heaven does)

2. 下雨天, 留客天, 留人不? 留! ("It is a rainy day, it is a day to keep the guest, do you keep the guest?" "Yes I do!"


How to translate 師資培訓授竹典禮 into English? My question is how to translate

  師資培訓授竹典禮

into English?

In particular, I do not know how to translate

  授竹

The context is an infomercial from a Buddhist university.

http://tw.tzuchi.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&catid=92%3Aeducation-project&id=6432%3A2011-06-22-07-54-55&Itemid=385&lang=zh

  「師者，傳道、授業、解惑也。」實習老師的授竹，取「竹」閔南語諧音「德」之意，期許老師為人師表要「高風亮節」，傳授品德教育。

「竹」(bamboo) in Minnan language pronounced the same as 「德」(virtue)

Giving the graduated teachers- in- training a piece of bamboo symbolically giving them 'virtue' (a high moral standard) -- to reminder them to live a virtuous life and teach moral lessons to their own students.

  師資培訓授竹典禮 = Teacher qualifications training 'bamboo award' ceremony


How is 住 used as a suffix in a verb phrase What meaning does 住 have when used as part of a verb phrase?

她把花盆送到他面前。
哈利愣住了，大家都看着他。

It's clear from the meaning of 愣 that Harry didn't know what to do with the flower pot and was staring off blanking into space (发呆了). Could 着 also be used after 愣?  What would the difference in meaning be?

when "住" is used as a suffix of a verb. It has two possible meanings:

To express that something would be secured, under your control.
To express that the motion stops, or pauses, to be stationary.

In your case, “住" is used with the second meaning.We have words "愣住","呆住","怔住",etc..They mean the same: [someone] gets surprised, or astonished, or bewildered [so he stops other actions and just stay there like a statue].

"着" is a word to show the progress tense, that the action of the verb is going on.You could say "他一直在那儿愣着(He is standing there all the time)",but "着" doesn't show the transformation between "to be in action" and "stop to be stationary".

I also want to show you an example for the first meaning. Imagine that you are a policeman, and your boss asks you to moniter a suspect.You boss would say,

  你的任务就是看(kān)住他。 Your task is to watch over him[make sure he won't escape]. Here "住" shows that your boss requires you to keep him in your sight securely.

Unfortunately, the suspect escaped. You report this to your boss:

  我一整天都在 看着 他，但还是没 看住。 I was wathing over him all the day, but I still failed.


“The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.” This quote is imputed to John Maynard Keynes (1883 - 1946). How do I translate it to Chinese?

My attempt with Google Translate: 股市保持非理性的時間, 要比保持破產的時間長。

  Keynes was thus able to scrape together the money he needed to continue trading. He had learned a valuable but painful lesson – markets can act perversely in the short-term. Of this, he later famously commented:

  “The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.”

The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.
  股市保持非理性的時間, 要比保持破產的時間長。

The first part is okay (although there is no Chinese word meaning "can" or "able to"), but in the second part 保持破產 = "maintain bankruptcy" = "remain bankrupt" is the opposite of what the quote says.  (Also, it might not be a Keynes quote.)

The grammar structure 比...长 is also not the closest possible match to the English, so I wouldn't use it (even though it's correct).

Anyway, let's see how it's translated online:

  市场保持非理性的时间可以长到令你破产。
  -- 凯恩斯
  克纳普，理性的股票投资, 2013；Google Books (screenshot)

The last part above 长到令你破产 is something like "extends until you go bankrupt".  I think 市场 = "market" is more general than 股市 = "stock market" (I believe shorthand for 股票市场); maybe 股市 is more precise.

  基本面保持非理性的时间可能会超过你能够保持清偿能力的时间。
  财富, 2009; Google Books

Here 超过 = "exceed" and 清偿能力 = "solvency" are suitable.  However, I feel the 可能 = "possibly" feels wrong (the quote does not say "possibly longer", just "longer").  Also, having both 能够 and 能力 seems excessive.  [I'm not sure what 基本面 is doing at the start here.]

  市场保持非理性状态的时间可能超过你保持清偿能力的时间。
  CReaders.net

Here 状态 is used to mean "state" (as in "a state of irrationality").  I don't think it's needed.

Combining these ideas, I suggest:

  股市能保持非理性的时间超过你保持清偿能力的时间。
  My direct translation: The stock market can maintain irrationality time exceeds your maintain solvency time.
  Google Translate: The stock market can remain irrational longer than you can maintain solvency.


What is the difference in usage between 势必， 必定 and 必然? 势必 be bound to; certainly will

必定 to be bound to; to be sure to

必然 inevitable; certain; necessity

势必 be bound to; certainly will

势必 = 形势必然 (situation will certainly be)

势必(compound word):bound to

Example: 决赛:德国对巴西, 到時势必有一场恶斗
(Final match: Germany vs. Brazil, when the time comes, there will certainly be a tough fight)

emphasize on:'the situation dictate a certain outcome' (the situation of Germany vs. Brazil ensure a tough fight)

  必定 to be bound to; to be sure to

必= certain; 定= 肯定 = sure

必定 (compound word):certainly; surely

Example: 每次德国遇上巴西, 都必定有一场恶斗
(Whenever Germany runs into Brazil,  they would certainly have a tough fight)

emphasize on 'an absolute certainty' (The fact that 'Germany vs. Brazil is always a tough fight' is an absolute certainty)

  必然 inevitable; certain; necessity

必= certainly; 然= naturally

必然 (compound word):certainly

Example: 如果德国遇上巴西,那必然是一场恶斗
(If Germany ran into Brazil, then it would certainly be a tough fight)

emphasize on 'a natural outcome of certainty' (the nature outcome of Germany vs. Brazil is a tough fight)


Sichuanese : any tips to learn some vocabulary? 大家好，

我想学四川话。我已经会普通话但是我迫不及待学四川话。
除了要得意外，我不太熟悉其他词汇儿。在哪里可以找到四川话的词汇？
你们四川人一般还有什么很有用的？
请原谅我的中文，我尽力写得很好。 ：）
I also wanna mention that I already know how to pronounce the Ch->c, Sh->s ...etc Just looking for great expressions or vocabulary
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Thanks

You can start by watching some TV shows, for instance:

下课了，要雄起
戳锅漏
傻儿司令
耙耳朵的幸福生活

Most of them are subtitled but more dialectical words will be translated into Mandarin in the subtitles.

There are also many books

四川方言日历(2019)
漫画四川方言
老成都漫画系列:成都话
Chinese Lessons For First Year Students in West China by Kilborn, Omar L. (Omar Leslie), 1867-1920
Western Mandarin or, The Spoken Language of Western China; with Syllabic and English Indexes by Grainger, Adam

and dictionaries:

四川方言词典
四川方言词源
成都方言词汇
成都方言

Nothing, though, beats spending time with actual native speakers and interacting with them.

Some of the most common words include:

巴适 = 很棒
安逸 = 舒服
牙尖 = 八卦
雄起 = 加油
洋盘 = 洋气
子 = 干嘛
将就 = 凑合
摆龙门阵 = 聊天儿
宝器 = 傻瓜
耳朵 = 妻管严

There are many lists online too like:

标准四川话300句
四川话怎么说，经典四川话，常用四川话大全


What methods are available for looking up a character? Some dictionaries provide a radical lookup for finding characters. Are there other systems available besides radical lookup for finding the meaning of a word when one only has the character?

This question could probably best be answered by Wikipedia as there are many, many methods.

One relatively common one is to look up the character by stroke count, then by stroke order. In this system, there are five types of strokes and each is assigned a number.

+--------+------------------------------+
| Number | Stroke type                  |
+--------+------------------------------+
|      1 | Horizontal, or rising        |
|      2 | Vertical                     |
|      3 | Falling to the Left          |
|      4 | Dot, or Falling to the Right |
|      5 | Turning                      |
+--------+------------------------------+

This is the method used to look up characters in 现代汉语通用字笔顺规范, the official character stroke order reference in mainland China. For example, below is the character 永 in this book:

If you want to look up this character, you will first go to the page with the 5-strokes characters, then you would search for the dot stroke (4), then the hook (5), etc. Basically, its code would be 45534.


What does 照你的意思 mean in this dialogue? As an exercise, I’m attempting to translate Chinese subtitles to English, but stumped on this dialogue, that’s available online at https://youtu.be/iwbiyfBXkc0?t=16m16s [my translation in brackets]:

Female worker praising the work of a policeman:
人家可是天天賣命 [They sacrifice themselves everyday]
Male colleague replies:
照你的意思 [As you wish/According to your meaning/?? ]
Then (Spoken in Taiwanese Hokkien)
你不就去煞到他的頂八卦 [You’re not attracted to him?]
She responds with a smack to his head and:
你胡說什麼少囉嗦 [What nonsense are you talking? Stop going on!]

The translation for statement 3 resulted from the explanation in the last paragraph of the article at:

http://blog.xuite.net/rich_mtw/twblog/127173654-『煞到頂八卦』

This explanation seems plausible, given her response. But I cannot translate statement 2 in any way that makes sense.

Any ideas?

EDIT: Looking for a translation that makes sense in this context, so an answer that explains why a particular translation makes sense in this context would be more helpful.

意思 could mean: meaning; ; intention; idea; thinking

"照你的意思" in this context means "According to your idea /thinking"

(意思 synonym 想法)


Understand 憎人富貴厭人貧(窮) The Cantonese expression 憎人富貴厭人貧/窮 (hate the rich, discriminate the poor) illustrated a mentality that is considered unhealthy. I am trying to find a simple description of this attitude
I came up with
小人心態 (petty-minded/ small-minded)
自大自卑 (arrogant and with low self-esteem)
So, the detailed description of 憎人富貴厭人貧/窮 would be 自大自卑的小人心態 (a pretty-minded, arrogant and low self-esteem mindset)
自大自卑的小人心態 sounds very wordy. is there a simpler term for it in Chinese or English?
Notice: 憎人富貴厭人貧/窮 doesn't limit to discriminate the rich and the poor, it also applies to discriminate the successful ones and the failed ones
Edit:
Just think up 受害者心態 (victim mentality) -- everything bad happens to me is other people's fault

I think it depends on what you mean by a "description of this expression". The deeper you go, the more you'll have to explain it, and it will have to touch on sociological and psychological research, for which Psychology & Neuroscience StackExchange might be better.
The Chinese expression itself is fairly transparent, with no words that are particularly difficult for native speakers.
In English, finding an equivalent translation is simple. But for the sake of literary expression, something more balanced would be more native-sounding. E.g.

to detest the rich and despise the poor
to have contempt for both rich and poor
to hate on rich and poor alike

I have even seen:

He who hates wealth hates poverty.

... but I'm not convinced that this is an accurate interpretation.
Explaining that it is a type of 小人心態 "a petty-minded attitude / the mindset of a villain" or 受害者心態 start to touch on what the original expression "means", and this requires a bit more context on what kind of explanation is needed.


What does 会 mean in 为什么我会觉得历史课很无聊？ “为什么我((会))觉得历史课很无聊？”. The translation of the sentence is "Why do I think history lessons are boring?". I don't get why 会 is used since 会 means "to be able to" or is used to indicate future tense.

会 has many meanings
in this context, "会" functions as  "would"

Would: modal verb (INTENTION/ POSSIBILITY)
"为什么我(会)觉得历史课很无聊?" = "why (would) I think history class is boring?"
If there's no explanation following the question,  it is a rhetorical question

Example of 'would' as a modal verb :
"If it doesn't rain, I would go"  (INTENTION)
"One of them would die if they fight each other" (POSSIBILITY)


Which decomposition option of the Chinese character 天 tiān ‘sky’ is correct? Decomposition of the Chinese Character 天 tiān ‘sky’ Poll

二 èr, 人 rén
一 yī, 大 dà
一 yī, 大 dà, 一 yī, 人 rén

大 is just a person standing, see the old forms of 大 http://www.zdic.net/z/17/zy/5927.htm

Old forms of 人 show a person with his back bent, maybe working in the fields or praying or bowing.

儿 shows 2 legs, draw them together and you have 人。

If you put a line on 2 legs, 儿 you get 丌， which is a pedestal or some kind of small table, not 'heaven'.

More interesting is what the ancients thought of when they wrote 天。

Perhaps they thought 'the one, 一 that is above and bigger than mortals 大' which neatly uses the senses of big and person in 1 character.


How can I say "I have translation background" in Chinese? How can I say "x background" like "I have translation background" in Chinese?

"背景" in Chinese can also be used to refer to people's background. Therefore it is okay to say "我有翻译背景". "经历" is also fine but it is "experience" in English. If you think your "background" means "experience" exactly, it is fine.

In universities we often say "你有计算机（专业）背景吗？" ("Do you have background in Computer Science?") If you have a degree in Computer Science then you definitely do. However, we probably don't think a degree in Computer Science counts as experience.


Translations of 主编 and 总编 in French 大家好，

我想翻译这些词。背景是一个杂志社的。
我知道 总编 就是 rédacteur en chef 可是 关于 主编 我莫名其妙。我早想到把它翻译成 éditeur 或者 éditeur en chef 不过我不太肯定。原来，对记者的专业词汇不太熟悉。因此，我需要你们的帮助。
若有人知道，就告诉我啊。
多谢！

主编

Grand Ricci

  Rédacteur en chef (d'un ouvrage collectif).

KEF

  1 rédacteur en chef, compilateur en chef
  2 éditer (une publication)

FLTRP

  rédacteur en chef

CFDICT

  1 rédacteur en chef
  2 diriger la rédaction

总编

CFDICT

  rédacteur en chef (de journal)

Also:

Wikipedia's page for 总编辑 mirrors to the french page for Rédacteur en chef. But the original Chinese page does also mention:

  总编辑，也称总编、主编

So it looks like the Chinese terms are quite interchangeable amongst themselves. 主编 also redirects to the page for 总编辑. I would try not to get too caught up in the semantics of the words.

This seems to be quite a complicated question actually. It's quite a hard one to translate properly and it depends on the context. You can see here for more info here. According to the article one way of translating these back into English is:

主编 = Managing editor
总编 = Executive editor

So 主编 might be something like Chef d'édition.


A Word A Day for Chinese Does anyone know of any Chinese service that sends or publishes a regular A Word A Day for native Chinese speakers to expand their own vocabulary? I'm having trouble finding one, even though these are really easy to find for English (e.g. Merriam-Webster, Oxford English Dictionary).

Transparent Language ® offers Mandarin Chinese Word of the Day
which can be retrieved in multiple ways:

visit web page
daily email (subscribe form via link above)
RSS feed
Twitter

Contains: Character, Pinyin, Translation, Example Sentence (all with audio pronunciation, slow and fast)


How do you say "probably''? How do you say "probably" in Chinese as in: "probably we will start having lessons next month"......can you use 可能 or 有可能? Can you give me an example of where these are placed in a sentence and how they are used?

我们下个月肯定开始上课. 100%

我们下个月开始上课. 90%  as the base.

我们下个月很可能开始上课. 80%

我们下个月有可能开始上课. 70%

我们下个月可能开始上课. 50% as a middle base for not sure.

我们下个月好像不能开始上课. 40%

我们下个月不太可能开始上课. 30%

我们下个月不可能开始上课. 20%

我们下个月肯定不能开始上课. 0%

Sorry, the Chinese is really messy, isn't it? Those numbers are just for reference, please do not take it too much seriously.


Writing a resume - traditional vs. simplified chinese I'd like to know which criteria do chinese use when writing a resume. I know that in Taiwan most people use simplified chinese, but what about the rest of China? Is it common to find both simplified and traditional characters mixed in a resume? The election of one type of writing depends on the education level the person has?
Thanks for your help

Simply depends on region. Put it this way: you use British English when you write resumes in Great Britain (and related regions/countries) and American English in the US. Nothing more than that. As you would not mix British and American English in an English resume, you would neither do so in a Chinese resume.

The places that use traditional Chinese are: Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau.

The places that use simplified Chinese together with traditional Chinese: Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand(See this). However using traditional Chinese in such regions can't go wrong.

The place that uses simplified Chinese only: mainland China.


What does 素 mean in 素数? Composite number is translated as 合数, which do make sense;
Prime number is called 素数, what does 素 means here?

Is it possible to trace the source of such translation?

「素」generically means basal, essential, intrinsic, primal. Hence you have vocabulary like

元素 (atom), the fundamental constituent of matter (well, the name was given before they discovered subatomic particles)
詞素 (morpheme), the fundamental constituent of words
要素 (essential factor)


来 去 depending on location Imagine I am in Beijing, and I just returned from a trip to Shanghai. A friend in Shanghai calls me and asks "你回北京去了吗?" I can't really say 对 or 没错 or 是的 to confirm his question, because I did not 回去, I 回来ed.

Is it acceptable to respond with "我回去了" or must I say "我回来了?"

Please read this previously asked question : Are both 回了 and 回来了 correct responses to 你回天津了吗 (have you returned to Tianjin)?

Since you are currently in Beijing, the answer should be ' Yes I have came back to Beijing' (我回北京来了 or simply 回来了 or even 回了)

The answer is in your own perspective

~

If you replied: "Yes, I have gone back to Beijing" (我回北京去了) Then you are pretending you are in Shanghai with your friend, because your voice is heard in Shanghai via the telephone.

The answer  would be in your friend's perspective

In conclusion: both 回来了 ( your perspective) and 回去了 (your friend's perspective) are acceptable over the phone.
If you omit 来 or 去 and just say : "回了" then it can be interpreted either way.
It would be much simpler if both you and your friend were in the same location.


Why does 往前走 have a repetitive meaning? 往前 means "to move forward" and 走 means "to walk", "to go". Also, the former and latter characters have their own meanings related to a movement of "go".

There isn't a repetitive meaning in 往前走.

往: towards; in the direction of;

前: forward; ahead;

走: go; walk;

往前走: walk in the direction of 'ahead'

It might not be grammatical English, just to explain Chinese.

往 can be a preposition to mean towards and, as a verb, to go. In 往前走, it's used as a preposition.


Please, help translate the text and stamps on this painted silk screen to identify the artist and date? This is a painted silk screen showing a mongolian mounted archer. I think that the original motif was shown on a 1280 painting, but this is, of course, much later (1900?).

《彎弓騎射圖1》
昔曹將軍畫馬骨肉兼善2，今觀劉貫道之作3，人馬精神皆善，御衣局使4不靈傳矣
乾隆乙丑5吳郡王寵6識7

Outstretched Bow of a Horseriding Marksman
In the past, General Ts'ao was skilled in painting both the bone and flesh of a horse. Now as I peruse the work of Liu Kuan-tao, seeing the spirit of both the man and horse are equally fine makes me lament his skill as a lost art.8
Wu Chong of the Wu Commandery, the year Yichou of Qianlong

啚 is sometimes the variant character of 圖, meaning 'drawing'.
General Ts'ao (曹將軍) refers to Ts'ao Pa (曹霸), a skilled horse painter in the Tang dynasty. This expression alludes to Tu Fu (杜甫)'s poem On Seeing a Horse-painting by Ts’ao Pa in the House of the Recorder Wei Feng (韋諷錄事宅觀曹將軍畫馬圖).
Liu Kuan-tao (劉貫道) was a painter in the early Yuan dynasty. The work this inscription refers to is possibly Kublai Khan Hunting (畫元世祖出獵圖). Specifically, this work bears resemblance to the horse-rider on the left.
Commissioner of the Imperial Wardrobe Bureau (御衣局使) is a title earned by Liu for his portrayal of Emperor Yuzong in 1279. 史 is possibly a phonetic loan character of 使.
The year Yichou of Qianlong (乾隆乙丑) is the tenth year of his reign (or 1745).
Wang Chong (王寵 1494-1533) was a calligrapher in the Ming dynasty. The Wu Commandery (吳郡) was frequently used by Wang to denote his origin, the Wu County of Suzhou (蘇州吳縣). The fundamental contradiction of dynasties between the year and author, together with the fact that Wang was not a painter, makes this painting a possible forgery.
識 is a phonetic loan character of 記 in 款識, or inscription.
This is also likely to be a saying of self-effacement, especially considering the painting is an imitation of Liu Kuan-tao.


Mices and rats: differences between shǔ, lǎo shǔ, Xiǎo lǎo shǔ, etc What is the difference between all the different available kinds of rat and mices, like shǔ, lǎo shǔ, Xiǎo lǎo shǔ?

Can 鼠 be used alone?

Is 小家鼠 the proper word to mean a nice little mouse in a colloquial sentence (e.g. not in a scientific essay)?

Thanks!

In most conditions, Chinese Mandarin doesn't divide "rat" and "mouse", but 鼠 and 老鼠 can mean different creatures. 鼠 means various of mouse-like creatures, like voles, hamsters, guinea pigs and so on, while 老鼠 only means rat, that grey little creature.

Hope it helps, I learned these from an online lesson I was taking, it's the ECL(eChineseLearning), they have got a free trial, and basically that's why I enroll their classes. Just for your consideration if you want to learn Chinese systematically, visit at http://www.echineselearning.com/free-trial/ for a free trial.


How to ask questions using CAN? I know how to ask affirmative-negative questions in Chinese and how to ask questions with 吗。These encompass many questions with English equivalents like "Do you live in China". But I don't know the Chinese equivalent to questions with CAN, like "Can you pour me some water", or "Can you go running tomorrow with me". How do you ask questions like this in Chinese? Is it with 马, affirmative-negative, or a different pattern altogether?

Almost any yes-no question can be formed simply by placing 吗 after a statement.

statement: You can pour me some water. (你可以给我倒些水。)
question: Can you pour me some water? (你可以给我倒些水吗？)
statement: You can go running tomorrow with me. (明天你可以和我去跑步。)
question: Can you go running tomorrow with me? (明天你可以和我去跑步吗？)

Also, when asking someone to do something, you can use the pattern "Do something 好吗？"

给我倒些水好吗？
明天和我去跑步好吗？

Here 好吗 can also be 行吗/可以吗


Can someone help me to read this seal (Characters identified: 江山如此多嬌) Can someone help me to read this seal

Many thanks for your infos about this seal.
Here is the side carving, can you decipher it ?
Seems to be a date and  the name of the carver

江山如此多嬌, The country, the mountains and the rivers, are so overwhelmingly beautiful; 引無數英雄競折腰。It draws numberless heroes bow giving their curtsy.


"That was too Easy." phrase Very simple, the phrase is a sort of mocking one that you would say to someone else, implying that it was no challenge to you at all. Example, a friend challenges you to a game of chess and you win rather easily,

“That was too Easy.”  can simply be translated as "那也太容易了"

However, in a mocking manner, you can say:

不外如是 (It is unimpressive)-- It is a very insulting phrase, saying that is to look down upon someone

這就完了? (just like this, you are finished?) --implying the other guy cannot provide tougher challenge to you


How does 遥望却间隔 translate to "Look at the distance? A lyric from this song:
https://mojim.com/cny111282x11x2.htm

https://translate.google.com/#view=home&op=translate&sl=auto&tl=en&text=%E9%81%A5%E6%9C%9B%E5%8D%B4%E9%97%B4%E9%9A%94

遥望 means to look into the distance?
却 is however?
间隔 is interval or space?

What is the significance of 却 and 间隔？

They seem to have no purpose in this statement

The level of lyric writing is generally bad in Hong Kong compare to the golden era of 70's and 80's.

遥望 - look from afar

却 - but

间隔 - divided. - It should use 相隔 (separated)

The writer wrote "遥望却间隔"  wanted to express "I (can) watch (her) from a distance but we are divided, (therefore I can't get near her) "

"Look at the distance" is the translation of 遥望 only

遥望却间隔 should be translated as "can only look from afar but we are divided" (which is the original meaning, and the phrasing is quite awkward )

A better phrasing is 可望(而)不可即 (can watch but cannot get close)


Book and material to prepare for TOCFL "Test of Chinese as a Foreign Language" 你好, I have hard time finding books and material to prepare specifically for TOCFL "Test of Chinese as a Foreign Language", NOT HSK.

I am interested in the first level and of course traditional characters.

For example, books with:

  detailed grammatical points
  listening comprehension
  list of vocabulary
  exercices

Similar format to what we could find about TOEIC/TOEFL).

Amazon shows practically nothing bout the subject except some general knowledge material and dictionaries.

  I 've visited the site of sc-toporg.tw I 've found only some
  online material, but not books:
  https://www.sc-top.org.tw/english/study.php

Any hints?

谢谢你。

看圖學中文語法系列（2冊）

華語文能力測驗模擬試題2:入門基礎(Band A)

華語文能力測驗模擬試題3:入門基礎(Band A)

Good luck!


Why not include "的" in "传统音乐"? I have found the following two sentences:

他们正在演奏传统音乐。
这是一个传统的玩具。

Why does the former not use 的 but the latter does? I know you can remove 的 if you express family's relation as stated in other question, but this is not the case here...

Is there any other rule to remove 的 in Mandarin?

The words "的" for adjectives or "地" for adverbs are optional. e.g. 快速上升 = 快速地上升 (ascend rapidly), 聪明人 = 聪明的人 (clever man). Ancient Chinese didn't have these conjunctions/sometimes used other conjunctions(e.g. 然). You might treat the version without these conjunctions as a bit more formal/written, but that's not always the case. Either version is perfectly understandable/acceptable to people.


"Weng" syllables rhyme with the fnal -ong According to Wiedenhof's A Grammar of Mandarin, page 44,

  "Weng" syllables rhyme with the fnal -ong [ʊŋ]

However, he'd specified weng as [wʌŋ], to add

  Weng displays the same type of variation as the fnal -un: it may lose
  its rounding toward the end, [wəŋ].

Page 66 reads

  there's free variation between [wʌŋ] and [ʊŋ] for both fnals, with
  complementary distribution

Can somebody please clarify the apparent ambiguities?

In the second paragraph, what does end refer to?

In the second paragraph, what does end refer to?

When I speak, I tends to do something like this /wʊ-ɤŋ/. I have never noticed this behavior before. For the word 老翁 (old man), if you say it either way: /lɑʊ.wʊŋ/, /lɑʊ.wəŋ/, /lɑʊ.wɤŋ/, /lɑʊ.wʊəŋ/, etc, they are all interpreted as the same word, thus "free variations". This depends on the individual accent.

I have never studied rhymes seriously before, so if your book says "weng" rhymes with "tong", then they must be using the /wʊŋ/ way of speaking. For example: 通風 (air circulation) may be pronounced as /tʊŋ.fʊŋ/ or /tʊŋ.fɤŋ/, but never as /tɤŋ.fɤŋ/. I personally say /tʊŋ.fɤŋ/.

As for your last quote, I don't understand how the free variation has complementary distribution.


How do I translate "both medicines and foods have common origin"? I am trying to translate the sentence

  both medicines and foods have common origin

into simplified Chinese using different translation apps etc. and get weirdly different answers.

"both medicines and foods have common origin"

It is called 医食同源, and it is a common expression (more literary).

In colloquial form, it would be "医药与食物有共通的源头"

Medicines can be food; Food can be medicines


Do you use 个 when describing distances/weights？ I'm trying to figure out if you ever use 个 when describing distances or weight. For example, people say "十公里“ NOT "十个公里“ － right？ does the same apply for weights? like 公斤？

No, in general, you shall not use 个 before a unit, no matter what the unit is used for (mass, length,area etc ). 个 is a counter/measure word in Chinese, one of whose functions is to count something, like a unit, so you don't need to put a unit before a unit.
In some weird scenarios, you may use 个 before a unit.for example,

  本文中有几个公斤？ How many occurrences of "kilogram" in the article ?

Here, kilogram itself is treated as a common word instead of a unit.


How did the hedgehog come to mean gather? 词汇 means vocabulary or words and phrases.
In traditional characters (I noticed today) that would be: 詞彙 and 彙 is a word for hedgehog (刺猬）。(詞彙: word hedgehog)
Did the ancient Chinese gather hedgehogs? Did 彙 mean "gather" first and "hedgehog" later?
How are "hedgehog" and "gather" related? As far as I know, hedgehogs are not gregarious little beasts, too spiky!
(I know the British used to catch hedgehogs, cover them in mud and bake them in a fire. Probably still do 'up North'.  Mmmm, delicious!)

彙

2: 類; 4: 聚合

If 彙 in 辭彙 means '類' (type), the explanation would be: 辭彙 = word types
If 彙 in 辭彙 means '聚合' (gather), the explanation would be: 辭彙 = gathering of words

辭彙: 一種語言裡所有語詞和固定詞組等的總稱。除一般語詞外，還包括古語、方言、外來語詞及各科術語。 (A general term for all words and fixed phrases in a language. In addition to general words, it also includes archaic words, dialects, foreign words and terms of various subjects.)

My theory on how the meaning of 'gather' was extended from hedgehog:
When someone got shot by many arrows, it is commonly described as 被射成刺蝟一般 (be shot to look like a hedgehog). Similar to pin cushion gathering pins
We can compare a pin cushion to an empty field and compare the pins as words and particles. A language is like a pin cushion gathered many 'pins' -- like quills gathering on a hedgehog's back
Since '匯' and '彙' sound the same and both contain the meaning of 'gather',  辭匯 had become an accepted variant of 辭彙 in modern Chinese.


What are the seal characters on this white jade pendant? (Characters identified: 龍德) What do these Chinese seal characters mean?

Looks like 龍德, which seems to be the name of various Chinese and Vietnamese kings.


Why should I choose 几乎 over 将近？ I had this 填空。

我国与其他国家_____ 同时起步，在这一项目上有一定的实力。

I could choose  似乎，几乎，将近，曾经

I can't see much difference between 几乎 and 将近， I am told 几乎 is correct.

I there a definite, palpable reason for this?

我国与其他国家_____ 同时起步，在这一项目上有一定的实力。

让我来试试解释一下这道填空题，这几个选项“似乎，几乎，将近，曾经”主要用作修饰同时，如果我们不填任何选项，那么这句话也是完整的，是一个(因为...所以...)句型，

  因为我国与其他国家同时起步，所以在这一项目上有一定的实力。

几乎 - 表示差不多的意思。基本上来讲，'几乎同时'也就是'同时'的意思。所以下面这句话读起来没问题，

  因为我国与其他国家几乎同时起步，所以在这一项目上有一定的实力。

将近 - 表示快要的意思。'将近同时'离'同时'还有一段距离，还未赶上其他国家。所以下面这句话读起来不符合逻辑，还未赶上人家，怎么就有一定的实力了？

  因为我国与其他国家将近同时起步，所以在这一项目上有一定的实力。

似乎 - 表示看起来像的意思。'似乎同时'表示不肯定，所以下面这句话也是有问题的，不肯定是不是同时起步，怎么就有一定的实力了？

  因为我国与其他国家似乎同时起步，所以在这一项目上有一定的实力。

曾经 - 表示以前的意思。'以前同时'起步，也有可能没赶上，所以不一定有实力。下面这句话也是有问题的，

  因为我国与其他国家曾经同时起步，所以在这一项目上有一定的实力。

I will try to add English version later ...


How to say 上蹿下跳 in English? I am learning Chinese idioms.

How to say 上蹿下跳 in English? help me

run around on sinister errands, the only one right answer, can not be used in other scene. It's a term of abuse, I'm chinese, trust me.


Usage of 何 in Buddhist Hybrid Chinese This is from T263, the Lotus Sūtra, eight groups of 4 characters:

如來所詔 常以知時 為其眾生 而行智慧
||  以何方便 而受道法 何因令獲 從佛經教

Does 何, particularly in 以何方便, mean that there is a question being asked here? Or is it simply the word "which"? How does 以 interact with 何 here?

"以何" was used in classical chinese roughly as "by (以) which / what (何)".

eg 禮記﹒問喪

  或問曰﹒杖者﹒以何為也

三國志﹒董昭傳

  問﹒禦以何術

though, it's not 100%, most of this usages were questions.

the verses "以何方便　而受道法　何因令獲　從佛經教" is from 正法華經　卷第七

http://tripitaka.cbeta.org/mobile/index.php?index=T09n0263_007

in which 方便 is upāya-mukha (方便門), since there're many ways to learn buddhism, "以何方便" in this context means by (以) which [one] (何)  of the ways (方便).

about the question mark, it depends on the version of translation. here's one that text are punctuated with dot only.


Why do both 太 (too) and 过于 (excessively) occur in 外国人有时候太过于开放 (foreigners are sometimes too excessively open)? A Mandarin Corner YouTube video describes "3 Things Chinese Like about Foreigners".  One sentence from this dialogue is the following:

  首先我觉得外国人有时候太过于开放。
  Shǒuxiān wǒ juédé wàiguórén yǒu shíhòu tài guòyú kāifàng.

Which I translate (directly) to:

  First, I feel foreigners are sometimes too excessively open.

What's confusing me is the use of both:

太 (tài) = too, and
过于 (guòyú) = excessively

It seems like one of these is redundant.

Question: Why do both 太 and 过于 occur in this sentence?

I'm going to convert my comments into an answer to offer another POV to the already given answer.

太过于 is a set phrase.
KEY defines:

太过于
too...

and KEY French defines it:

trop...

Perhaps this is similar to English usage of  too + overly. It's a phrase we often use in English too. A quick google search gives me results like: too overly complex, too overly dependent and too overly ambitious - seems to be about the same logic.
ICIBA also defines it as:

too much

giving examples:

She's too protective towards her children; she should let them be more independent.

她对孩子太过于爱护, 她应当给他们更多的独立性.

Cheese, like oil, makes too much of itself.

乳酪, 如同石油一样, 太过于引人注目了.

Don't be so quick to judge!

不要太过于武断!

Examples of usage (emphasis is my own):
Sina: 周航：很多时候的焦虑是太过于关注短期的东西

在搜狗CEO王小川、顺为资本投资合伙人周航和腾讯前CTO张志东圆桌论坛上，对于“科技发展与服务用户”的话题讨论上，周航认为，我们很多时候的焦虑，是太过于关注短期的东西了。

Sina: iOS 12加快淘汰速度，iPhone6确实太过于老旧了！！

而今天，还需要给大家再次强调，如今都已经是3月份了，如果按照苹果的更新速度，很快将会在秋季之前发布最新的iOS 12系统，这无疑会加快淘汰的速度，因为iPhone6太过于老旧了。

Google Books: 道解《黄帝内经》（上、下）

味太过于咸

and the kicker:
Google Books: 遇见成功的自己

对有些人来说，改变习惯的确是很难很难的事，因为他们太过于原谅自己，太过于迁就自己，太过于开脱自己，太过于娇纵自己。


Chinese characters to "xn--[....]"? DNS? Sometimes when you directly search some Chinese in certain Chrome browsers you will get something like the following prompt:

Here searching 百度 asks:

Did you mean to go to http://xn--wxtr44c/

What correlation is there between 百度 and "xn--wxtr44c"?
Here's a second example:

新浪 prompts:

xn--efvx5o

What are these codes prompted from Chinese characters?

It's Punycode, used in URLs to encode Unicode as ASCII.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punycode


Why is Zhenya Wang's surname in English "Wang" but sometimes pronounced "Wong"? Australian politician Zhenya Wang, sometimes called Dio Wang, Chinese name 王振亚, has his surname written in English as "Wang", but it's sometimes pronounced in English as "Wong". Another Australian politician used "Wong" in an English sentence, and was accused of getting his name wrong.

From an English speaker's perspective, a name written as "Wang" being pronounced "Wong" seems wrong, even by English's ghoti-y standards. Is there an explanation relating to the Chinese language for this, such as how Chinese speakers describe their name in Chinese with Pinyin?

Ideally, answers to this should be understandable for someone with no prior knowledge about Chinese.

Pronunciation ≠ Spelling!
It's very important to distinguish spellings from pronunciations, so I'm using IPA throughout my answer. I don't know how you pronounce "wang" or "wong", but it's very likely that the closest pronunciation available in your dialect of English is neither of them.
Chinese pronunciations
I'm basing my IPA off of the Wikipedia help pages on IPA for Mandarin and IPA for Cantonese.

The Mandarin pronunciation of 王 (ignoring tones) is /wɑŋ/. I'm assuming this is the correct pronunciation of the politician's name.
The Cantonese pronunciation of 王 (ignoring tones) is /wɔːŋ/.

Chinese transliterations

The Pinyin (standard transliteration for Mandarin) spelling of 王 is "wang".
The Jyutping (standard transliteration for Cantonese) spelling of 王 is "wong".

English pronunciations
There are many dialects of English, and they have wildly divergent pronunciations. I'm basing my IPA choices off of this chart. If you're confused about what the "TRAP vowel" or "CLOTH vowel" mean, see this article on lexical sets. They're by far the easiest way to talk about English vowels.
I give the concrete pronunciations for RP (Received Pronunciation), GA (General American), and AuE (Australian English).

If "wang" is interpreted as having the TRAP vowel (i.e., the same vowel as "bank" or "hang"), then:

RP = /wæŋ/, GA = /wæŋ/, AuE = /wæŋ/
This pronunciation is not the correct pronunciation of the politician's name.

Some people who are more savvy to transliterations and loan words might approach "a"s in unfamiliar foreign words as being the PALM vowel (i.e., same vowel as "father"). Then "wang" becomes:

RP = /wäːŋ/, GA = /wɑŋ/ or /wäŋ/, AuE = /wɑːŋ/
This is the best match to the Mandarin pronunciation available in the given dialects.

Almost certainly, "wong" will be interpreted as the CLOTH vowel (i.e., the same vowel as "long" and "wrong").

RP = /wɒŋ/ or /wɔŋ/ (free variation?), AuE = /wɔŋ/
About half of GA speakers have /wɔŋ/ and half have /wɑŋ/.
Almost all of these are not correct, as they have a rounded vowel. Only the cot-caught merging speakers of GA have a good match to the Mandarin.


"Pixelating" the character 英 I would like to include a Chinese character (英) in a knitting pattern. To do so, I need to "pixelate" the character.

Is this an acceptable representation of the character and is it easily recogniazable, or is there some serious issue with the proportions and readability?

(To clarify, I cannot read/write Chinese.)

Is this an acceptable representation of the character and is it easily
  recogniazable, or is there some serious issue with the proportions and
  readability?

I think it can be better if bottom right stroke(bottom right of 央 part) separate from main structure. And there is a little distance between the "+ +" part.


Was 司马懿 a crossdresser? I'm reading an abridged version of 三国演义。(I don't think I could read the original, too difficult for me.)

（诸葛亮）故意激怒司马懿，派人送了一套女人的衣服，并辱骂他像女人一样，缩头不战。司马懿心里恼怒，但却穿上衣服，文使者：“诸葛亮忙吗？吃饭睡觉情况怎么样？”

Did 司马懿 put on women's clothes to meet 诸葛亮's envoy? Or is this just a bad book?

Did 司马懿 put on women's clothes to meet 诸葛亮's envoy?

I don't think 司马懿 really put on the clothes.

From the original:

(emphasis mine)

  且说孔明自引一军屯于五丈原，累令人搦战，魏兵只不出。孔明乃取巾帼并妇人缟素之服，盛于大盒之内，修书一封，遣人送至魏寨。诸将不敢隐蔽，引来使入见司马懿。懿对众启盒视之，内有巾帼妇人之衣，并书一封。懿拆视其书，略曰：“仲达既为大将，统领中原之众，不思披坚执锐，以决雌雄，乃甘窟守土巢，谨避刀箭，与妇人又何异哉！今遣人送巾帼素衣至，如不出战，可再拜而受之。倘耻心未泯，犹有男子胸襟，早与批回，依期赴敌。”司马懿看毕，心中大怒，乃佯笑曰：“孔明视我为妇人耶！”即受之，令重待来使。

受之 only means 司马懿 received / took in / accepted the clothes.

Here's an English version:

(emphasis mine)

  Then he confirmed the order to remain strictly on the defensive till
  some change of circumstances on the part of the enemy should promise
  advantage.

  After his army had settled into camp on the Wuzhang Hills, Zhuge Liang
  continued his attempts to provoke a battle. Day after day, parties
  went to challenge the army of Wei, but they resisted all provocation.

  One day Zhuge Liang put a dress made of deer hide in a box, which he
  sent, with a letter, to his rival. The insult could not be concealed,
  so the generals led the bearer of the box to their chief. Sima Yi
  opened the box and saw the deer hide dress. Then he opened the letter,
  which read something like this:

  "Friend Sima Yi, although you are a Commander-in-Chief and lead the
  armies of the Middle Land, you seem but little disposed to display the
  firmness and valor that would render a contest decisive. Instead, you
  have prepared a comfortable lair where you are safe from the keen edge
  of the sword. Are you not very like a deer? Wherefore I send the
  bearer with a suitable gift, and you will humbly accept it and the
  humiliation, unless, indeed, you finally decide to come out and fight
  like a warrior. If you are not entirely indifferent to shame, if you
  retain any of the feelings of a tiger, you will send this back to me
  and come out and give battle."

  Sima Yi, although inwardly raging, pretended to take it all as a joke
  and smiled.

  "So he regards me as a deer," said he.

  He accepted the gift and treated the messenger well.


Does an existential sentence with "有" only carry a non-specific noun? Sentence 1: 桌子上有一本作业
Sentence 2: 桌子上有我的作业

I think both sentences are correct. However, I just watched a grammar video which mentioned the existential sentence with "有" can only carry a non-specific noun. If so, "桌子上有我的作业“ wouldn't be correct, because "我的作业" is specific. So I am confused. Can anyone explain this?

Yes, normally, in standard usage

  zhūozishàng yǒu wǒde zuòyè 桌子上有我的作业

isn't supposed to be correct. You'll hear it a lot, though, especially if a different specific noun phrase is contrasted, such as

  … dàn méiyǒu nǐde zuòyè 但没有你的作业.

My Better Half, a native speaker, swears there's nothing wrong with

  … yǒu wǒde zuòyè 有我的作业.

Addendum: The preferred way of dealing with stating the location of a specified noun (modified by a personal pronoun (wǒ 我, etc.) or a deictic pronoun (nà 那, etc.) is to make it the topic of the sentence, giving it greatest focus, as befits a specified noun. So

  wǒde zuòyè zài zhūozishàng 我的作业在桌子上

etc.


In 你把票放好, why is the complement 好 instead of 住? I'm currently learning about Resultative Complement in Chinese. Today, I tried to do some exercises provided by a website and bumped into this question :

Direction: Translate this question into Chinese!
Question:

Put your ticket away properly and don't lose it!

I then translated the sentence into:

你的票请你拿住,... (I don't know if this one is grammatically correct though)

I initially wanted to use the resultative word "好" because it says "properly" but I became skeptical because in the explanation that I read, 住 is the one that's used to indicate "to make sure sth stays securely", which I think, is more suitable for the condition above (you are told keep your ticket properly and not to lose it).
But when I checked the answer, it says :

你把票放好,...

I wonder why it uses 好 whereas 住 seems to be more suitable (in my opinion)? Could you please explain more about 住?

Put your ticket away properly and don't lose it!

In order to interpret it properly, we should understand the English phrase "put away" correctly. I think this dictionary definition explains the sense of "put away" applied in this context well:

  If you put something away, you put it into the place where it is normally kept when it is not being used, for example, in a drawer.

In your context, "Put your ticket away properly" suggests that you should put your ticket in the place where you feel safe and comfortable to keep it. So, 放好 here makes more sense because it's indicating keep it properly. 拿住, however, denotes the sense holding it tightly preventing from dropping, which is a bit off from the context.

P.S. 住 in 抓住 denotes the sense of sustainability. 抓住 and 抓紧 are often interchangeable in most of contexts.


Help translating two lines of Zhang Shaolin's "Hakka homesickness" (客家乡情) + some weird pronunciations in that song Song video. Lyrics, romanization (based on what I hear in the video), translation attempt.

张少林的“客家乡情”（客家话）

爱记乡情 齐家都係客人
最緊有煞拼求進 (AX 建议的写法)
莫忘乡情 齐家係自家人
只只回故乡寻根
叔公叔婆来相认
亲戚送礼来好热心
到处都有人亲
做事耐苦
人乌白也分明
好硬頚客家人
客人最亲
亲情最真
世界客人 团结纪念乡情 (on ket nyi hiam hiong chin?)
血脉浓于水承认
事业有成 客家奋斗精神
晓出头自有原因

* 封做官(fon?)来人尊敬
救苦救清贫好热心
莫问自家出身
见面自家人
有个三分情
无忘本客家人

*

客家老人尊敬…

Oi ki hiong-chin  che-ka tu he hak-nyin
Cui-kin yiu sat-piang khiu-cin
Mok mong hiong-chin  tshe-ka he chii-ka-nyin
Cak-cak fui ku-hiong chim kin
Suk-kong suk-pho loi siong-nyin
Tshin-tsit sung-li loi hau nyet-shim
Tau-chu tu yu nyin-tshin
Tso sii nai khu
Nyin vu-phak ya fun-min
Hau ngang kiang hak-ka nyin
Hak nyin tsui tshin
Tshin-tshin tsui chim
Shii-kai hak-nyin  on ket nyi hiam hiong chin
Het-mak nung yi sui shing-nyin
Shii-nyap yu shing  hak-ka fun-theu tsin-shin
Hiau chut-theu tshii yu nyen-yin

* Fung tso fon loi nyin tsun-kin
Kiu khu kiu chin phin hau nyet-shim
Mok mun chii-ka chut-shim
Ken-men chii-ka nyin
Yu kai san fun chin
Mau mong pun hak-ka-nyin

*

Hak-ka lau nyin cun-kin…

I must remember [my] homesickness   all [my] family is Hakka
[And] lately we have struggled for continued success
Do not forget homesickness    all [my] family ar self-made people
Each of us will go back to our homeland to look for our origins
[And] get to know great-uncles and great-aunts
[Our] relatives give us gifts [and] are very warm-hearted
[We] haverelatives everywhere
[We] work [and] endure pain
And understand whether people are black or white (i.e. good or bad)
Hajka people are very hard-necked
Hakka people are the most intimate
Intimate feelings are the truest
Hakka people in the world    are united in remembering homesickness
血脉浓于水承认 (?)
They have careers and success    Hakka struggles are energetic
They can succeed for they have a reason

* The honor of being magistrates is bestowed [on them] and people respect [them]
They help the poor and help the needing and are very warm-hearted
Don't ask them about their own family background
I see the great feelings
That self-made people have
[And] don't forget [I'm] originally a Hakka person

*

Respect old Hakka people...

Questions:

Line 2 makes no sense to me unless I accept the spelling proposed by Ånton Xiè (AX), which I gave a translation for; is there a way to make sense of the captions, or do I just accept AX's respelling?
Even AX can't understand the untranslated line: what does it mean? We have "Blood dense in water confess", does that mean they acknowledge a great impurity of their Hakka blood due to mixing with non-Hakkas?
团结纪念乡情 should be "thon-ket ki-nyam hiong-chin", but I hear "on ket nyi hiam" at the start; what's up with that?
At the start of part 2,官should be kwon, but I hear fon; what's up with that?

Hakka speaker from mainland China here.

there is karaoke lyrics on the video, L2 is 追根由石壁求证 which is correct. Not exactly sure how to translate 求证 here. Maybe: ancestry seeking is proven by the stone walls.
Your own translation is good. "Hakka people in the world are united in remembering homesickness / [And] acknowledging [their] blood is thicker than water." The uncommon order of words is intended for a better rhyme in the song.
团结纪念乡情 (thon ket nyi hiam hiong chin) I hear that's exactly what the singer is pronouncing.
官 is indeed kwon, but still I don't have any problem with the singer's pronunciation.


What's the function/meaning of 就不要 in 过去的事情就不要说了? 就要 normally means "about to" but in this sentence the negated form makes the sentence hard to translate.

过去的事情就不要说了 means it's not necessary to mention those things in the past. Or it's not deserve to mention the things in the past. It implies that just let it go because it is just meaningless/helpless to the current situation.

就 here is kinda like the word just. So, 就不要 here is kinda like just don't because there is no use.

You should comprehend 就不要 as 就 and 不要 in this case. 不要 is like "don't" in an imperative sentence. For example, 不要说话: don't speak! 就不要说话了 is kind of suggestion, meaning just don't say anything.

Another point is 过去的事情就不要说了 can be paraphrased as 就不要说过去的事情了. By pulling 过去的事情 ahead, it's like saying: things passed, so just don't mention it.


Where did the words for various colours originate from? I wonder if, like in English, the words for colours (red, yellow, green) just formed arbitrarily in Chinese? Or is there a story behind choosing 红色 for red, 蓝色 for blue, etc.?
It’s also interesting how they add the character 色 after each colour. Does this mean that 红，蓝，绿 represent something else as standalone characters?
It becomes more interesting when we think of compound colours like 粉红色，咖啡色. Surely they came much later than primary colours?

Colours are an abstract concept, and ancient Chinese largely used words for objects with the colour to describe the colour itself.

紅, 綠 originally referred to silks dyed in those colours, hence the use of the 糸 semantic component;
藍 originally referred to a plant used to make blue dye, hence the use of the 艹  semantic component;
黑 originally referred to a punishment called 黥面, in which a criminal had the name of their crime tattooed on their face in black, and was originally a pictogram depicting this;
青 originally referred to the colour of grass/plants, and the top was originally 屮 or 生, indicating this meaning;
赤 originally depicted a person (大) being scorched (火) maybe as a form of punishment, indicating the colour of burnt skin.

Sometimes characters were used as a phonetic loan for colours, and had no connection to the original meaning, e.g. 黃, 白. 粉紅 and 咖啡, as you've pointed out, are modern terms, but they reflect the same idea of using things that have the colour as a word for the colour itself.

Although it did appear with the meaning colour, the use of 色 was unnecessary in ancient texts. However, in a general trend of words evolving from single syllables to double syllables, 色 came to be used in conjunction with the above characters to form a combined meaning of X (colour).