What do 了 and 好 indicate in ...别人用了我们的赠品，觉得好...? There's a line like this:

  高个儿拍了拍脑袋，“你的意思是说，别人用了我们的赠品，觉得好，就自然会找我们买？”

Why is there 了 in the 别人用了我们的赠品?

Does this sentence indicate something about completion of an action or something in the past?

I don't think so though.

And then, what does 好 behind 觉得 indicate? Does the whole phrase mean "think well"?

Does this sentence indicate something about completion of an action or something in the past?

'verb + 了' indicate the verb is completed, but it doesn't indicate any tense, It can be in the past or in the future.

Example:

昨天我(吃了)就睡 - I slept after I ate yesterday

現在我(吃了)又要去睡 - now I've eaten, I have to sleep again

明天我(吃了)還是要去睡 - I will still sleep after I've eaten tomorrow.

In all three sentences, 了 only indicate the action 吃 is completed.

  别人用了我们的赠品，觉得好

'If' is implied.

如果(if) 别人(people) 用了 (used) 我们的赠品 (our gifts)，觉得好 (consider it is good)

别人(people) 用了 (used) 我们的赠品 (our gifts)，如果(if they) 觉得好 (consider it is good)


How to say "a blue-ruled Olympic Exercise notebook" in Chinese? I wondered what the meaning is in Chinese.

Also there are other different types in printing, like Graph ruled, wide ruled. If I can call them "蓝边"  "图纹"  and "宽边笔记本"?

A blue-rules notebook 蓝横格本

rule, 横格
grid, 方格


V + 到。。。。头上来: Exact meaning and how to use? I know that the abovementioned formula expresses a negative result, but I am not exactly sure how to translate it. Some questions:

1      How to translate it well into English?

2      Can I use it without verb + 到 / alternatively without verb, but with 到

3      Can I skip verb AND 到 altogether without ruining the actual meaning?

4      One Chinese friend told me that the meaning of 头上来 is equivalent to 自己. False or correct_

5 To understand better, I quote a few sentences from my textbook - I seriously can not translate them well by myself. Help, please....>

a   我没找你算账，你倒先找到我头上来了
b  他们丢了东西，查来查去倒查到小孩子头上来了
c    你谁去欺负，现在竟然欺负到他头上来了

Thanks a lot for helping me out. Concerning this construction, I am lost!

This is a good question. First of all, 头 is the most important part of a human body. So, for someone to climb on top of another person's head 爬到 Subject 头上 or to ride on top of another person's head 骑到 Subject 头上 shows great disrespect to the person. This term is used usually to express incredulity on the action of another person.

Because this phrase XX头上XX is usually used in the literal sense,
any translation to English has to be done on a case-by-case basis.
到 always used together with a verb in front for this type of construction if you want to use 到 at all.
Yes, for example, 算在 Subject 头上. Note, 来 is not necessary here.
As explained earlier, 头上 refers to the most important part of a
human body. It still refers to whoever is the Subject, not necessary
自己 (yourself).
The following would be how I would translate the three sentences: a)
I should be the one looking for you to settle the score, but you
have come to look for me instead! b) They lost some stuff but ended
up investigating on a little kid! c) Your bullying antics have
gone on unchallenged, now you even dare to bully him!

Note that for the three sentences above, omitting the words 头上 would not change the meaning of the sentence. In English, it could only be represented by an exclamation mark as a way to express incredulity.

However, the more common usage would be 爬/骑到 Subject 头上 where 头上 is not optional. Example:

  婚前她千依百顺，婚后她却骑到她丈夫头上，百般刁难。 She was very obedient, but after their
  marriage, she rides roughshod over her husband, making life difficult
  for him.

The words 头上 can also be found in an idiom 在太岁头上动土, which means to do a daring act that would offend someone of higher authority.


What does 老大 mean in 少壮不努力, 老大徒伤悲? I was gaming with a friend at his house, and his grandfather told me this phrase which I don't understand.
The friend explained that 少壮不努力 means I don't study hard when I'm young, and he explained that 老大徒伤悲 means that a gang leader would be sad about me.
Obviously I know he's joking about 老大 being a gang leader, but he didn't want to tell me the real meaning, and I couldn't find what 老大 officially means. According to Wikipedia, 老大 could mean

The honorific title to the elder brother .
Respect for the boss .
Respect for the leader .
The name for the gang leader.
Respectful title for chiefs and superiors .
The honorific title for "older people".
Common name for "the number one person".

What is the correct meaning for this context?

老大 here is not the noun 'leader/ boss'
It is an adjectives phrase
老 = old; 大 = grown (in age)
'老大' in '老大徒伤悲' means "old"
Detail break down of this expression:

少壮 - young and in your prime

不努力 - not work hard

老大 - grown and old

徒伤悲 - only have sadness

少壮不努力, 老大徒伤悲 means "If you don't work hard when you are young, there will only be sadness for you when you get old"


Sports verbs 打 and 踢: which one is suitable for martial arts? For sports you have some verbs like 打 when you do the sport with your hand like 打篮球 or 踢 when you do it with your feet like 踢足球. What about sports you use both hands and feet or none? What verb accompanies the main verb? For example in the sports below:

Karate, judo, all martial arts.

Hockey, polo

Ski, snowboard, surfing, sailing.

Swimming, triathlon, running, climbing

Generally speaking, when it comes to sports, Chinese constructs the actions using a verb-object composition. 打 and 踢 are certainly not the only verbs that can be used.

To answer the question in your title, the correct verb to use for Martial Arts is 打 if the Martial Arts in question has a "fist" in the title (e.g. 打太极拳) or 练 (e.g. 练武术). Very often the two are interchangeable, though that may sometimes sound awkward (but nevertheless, remain correct). I would veer toward using 练 as the verb for Martial Arts because it means to "practice" the martial art, which is something that everybody does no matter what the point of the martial art is.

To list your other sports:
hockey 打曲棍球

polo 打马球

skiing 滑雪

snowboarding 滑雪板

surfing 冲浪

sailing 帆船

swimming 游泳

triathlon 跑（铁人）三项

running 跑步

climbing 爬山 or 攀岩


When should I use 兆 instead of 万亿? In the following sentence:

  据悉，日本政府此次提出了在东京奥运会召开的2020年，使访日游客增至4000万人次，消费额达到8万亿日元的目标。

In this sentence, 万亿 is used instead of 兆, to express 10^12 digit.

In Chinese, now 兆(zhào) might be rarely used to express "trillion" and instead 万亿 is used.

So when should I use 万亿 and when 兆 to express such a large number?

And also what about the case to express more than 万亿, such as 10^16?

Japanese use 万, 亿, 兆, 京... but how about Chinese? Should I write it as 91万万亿2513万亿522亿6915万159 to express 912513052269150159? or 91京2513兆522亿6915万159?

兆 was used in ancient China to represent trillion, it is no longer used in mainland China, but still used in Taiwan, it uniquely represents the mega prefix in the International System of Units currently. But in Taiwan, 一兆 means one trillion, while 兆赫兹 means MHz (megahertz). The largest number that can be expressed in a single Chinese character is 亿 in mainland China, to express larger numbers, use the phrases like 万亿 or 亿亿. Of course, there are also Chinese characters that represent numbers larger than 亿 (100 million), but such a large number is not used generally, and nobody use them, except the ancient literature. You may learn them here.


Shenzhen IO character differences The video game, Shenzhen IO seems to have different spellings of the fictitious company's name in Chineese.

The game's store page uses 深圳龙腾科技有限公司, while the game's manual uses:

The first character looks a bit different. Is this just a different font, or is it a different character?

In case your stack exchange font is different to mine, the game web page looks like this:

The first character looks a bit different. Is this just a different font, or is it a different character?

Unicode treats them with the same codepoint (U+6DF1), so it's the same character according to digital standards.

The difference in appearance is usually due to fonts, which adhere to different standards across the regions which use Chinese characters.

Mainland Chinese standards use a「八」shape, while other regions usually use a「儿」shape. If you're seeing「儿」then your fonts are not designed according to the Mainland Chinese standard.

  We now have super-families of fonts like Noto CJK which accommodate for both differences in orthography (character variations) and (minor) differences in regional shapes, so you can get (for example) a text which has Simplified Chinese but with the non-Simplified characters as Korean shapes.

  The exact font you're using to display those characters is Noto Sans CJK JP.

  Minor differences exist in all standards; your browser thinks the text language is Japanese, or defaults it to Japanese.

If you're learning Chinese characters not specifically from Mainland China, write it with「儿」.

  For reference, that component was originally「穴」, which depicts a cave dwelling (窯洞). The two strokes under「宀」was an abstract depiction of ventilation passages or air currents.

  楚簡新甲3.83

  The structure of「深」has changed like the following over the years:

  西周金・隸定乖伯歸夆簋「罙」集成4331楚簡上(1)・孔・2　秦簡睡・雜15　現代楷

  As can be seen,「八」or「儿」is just an approximation of a shape, and neither character actually features as a component in「深」. Shuowen's description

    「穴」，土室也。从「宀」，「八」聲。

    「穴」(Baxter-Sagart Old Chinese: /*[ɢ]ʷˤi[t]/), earthen dwelling; from semantic「宀」(building) and phonetic「八」(/*pˤret/).

  is very likely to be incorrect.

  References:

  季旭昇《說文新證》
  李學勤《字源》
  小學堂
  國學大師


Chinese countable/uncountable nouns (How do they work? Examples?) I recall in Mandarin class, my teacher would often discuss an idea about countable nouns. I never really understood how one would easily determine when one is faced with a countable vs uncountable noun. So I did a bit of research and found this site. I am now trying to verify that the situation works in a similar fashion in Mandarin and more importantly I am interested in one or two Chinese examples:

Finally and most importantly, is this idea of countable nouns intertwined with measure words? If so, how?

UPDATE:

So I did a bit more research and ran across an italki discussion where chinese speakers said this does not exist because everything is countable in Chinese. However a search revealed these samples. At this point I don't know who is correct but more insight would be helpful. Did the wiki have it wrong or is the concept mentioned something other than what I've indicated in the title.

UPDATE 2:

So, in order to reconcile the apparent differences I did some more research and found the following information. The presence of quantifiers, seem to me, to relate closely to the idea of measure-words, which, I believe is the point my teacher was trying to convey.

UPDATE 3:

Just to clarify. I accept the solution offered however this site still indicates some exception to the rule.

(countable) time; a measurement of a quantity of time; a numerical indication of a length of time

Chinese Grammar Info reports on the relationship between measure-words and nouns:

I think it is a terribly bad idea learning Mandarin by trying to map grammar from Western languages onto it.

There is no such thing as countable nouns in Chinese, precisely because nouns do not have plurals.

Conversely, you can make any noun ”countable” by adding a classifier to it： 你要一杯咖啡吗？


The relationship between 羞 and 醜 Since 醜 is the traditional version of 丑, why is the lower part of a traditional 羞 丑 but not 醜?
I found this 羞,

(會意兼形聲。據甲骨文,以手持羊,表示進獻。小篆從羊,從醜,醜亦聲。“醜”是手的訛變。本義:進獻)

But it doesn't explain why it is 丑.

羞 didn't originally mean shame/shy and 丑 didn't originally mean ugly.
丑 is originally a hand with curled fingers, later borrowed to become an earthly branch. Ugly, and all its associated meanings like disgrace, shame, and even clown were originally 醜, which became replaced with 丑 in 'simplified' Chinese. I believe 丑 was borrowed as part of 羞.
羞 is a hand 手 holding a lamb 羊, to offer it as a sacrifice or for food, originally meaning "offering". The hand got changed into 丑, which doubles up as phonetic component.
Offering is now written as 馐.
羞 earlier on had its meaning shifted to become shame or shy, possibly because lambs and sheep are shy and timid creatures, while ugly was still written as 醜.
https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E9%A6%90
https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E7%BE%9E


What does 多少 mean in 但是我也相对得到多少的感动? This sentence is from oral Chinese, but I want to understand what 多少 means.

但是我也相对得到多少的感动。

Is 多少 an adverb here?
Also, is 感动 a noun?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noKbiu-4YiU
1:23

What 多少 means?
In this context it means "somewhat"
"Somewhat" is an adverb.
多少的感动 = "somewhat affected / moved / touched"


How do you pronounce 盛开? The phrase 盛开 means to bloom, as in, "池塘里的荷花盛开." Is this pronounced as "shèng kāi", or is it pronounced as "chéng kāi"?

You can guess the pronunciation according to its usage:

"盛("chéng")" in 盛饭 is used as a verb, which means to fill or to contain.

"盛("shèng")" in 盛开 is used as a non-verb(adj./adv./noun), which means prosperous(ly), flourishing(ly)... (盛宴,盛装,旺盛,兴盛...)

by the way, 盛"shèng" is also used as a surname, such as this man


What do these Chinese symbols mean? Looking for age or value of this bowl found while cleaning family home.

This is the inside of the bowl.

[![enter image description here][2]][2]

[2]: https://i.stack.imgur.com/AZZvq.jpg

the characters are:

碧 - http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=碧

王 - http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=王

玲 - http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=玲

玩 - http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=玩

very likely, it's an antique. try to contact sotheby, or christie :)


Meaning of 嘛 in this context? 台灣都嘛是做小成本人文電影

I was wondering how 嘛 is used in this sentence.
I think the sentence could be translated as something like "Taiwan only makes low-cost movies about the humanities."?

嘛 has 2 functions.

The first translates as showing something's obvious, much like an "of course" would on the end of sentences in English. An example would be 「你的妹妹很漂亮嘛」if you're taking it as obvious their little sister is pretty (I assume you're using 繁字體). Clearly not the case here, as your example is in the middle of a sentence.

The second function is to signal a topic for emphasis. For example

  大熊貓嘛，孩子們都很喜歓。Pandas ah, children all like them"

嘛 is used to provide emphasis. In this case, "台灣都嘛" emphasizes that "As for Taiwan, it makes nothing but low cost movies about the humanities". It's not a perfect translation, but as with all particles, finding an English equivalent isn't always easy, or possible. If you know any Japanese, the particle は can be used for similar effect in many sentences.

Most importantly, 嘛 is emphasizing 台灣都. It marks it out as a topic, and is a small break in the sentence, like a comma in English. You could take your example sentence as

  台灣都嘛、是做小成本人文電影

which we can take in English as along the lines of "Taiwan, it just makes low cost humanities movies" or maybe better "Ah, Taiwan, it just makes low cost humanities movies"


How can I sort a list of words by frequency or by hsk level? I have a list of Chinese words. Is there a tool that will allow me to sort them in order of frequency or by hsk level?

I found a tool here: https://hskhsk.pythonanywhere.com/hanzi

Sample input:

Sample output:


What does 十天半月 (or 十天半个月) mean? From the novel 活着 (p.8):

  我长大以后喜欢往城里跑，常常是十天半月不回家。

I got no real idea what 十天半月 means.  Baidu suggests 十天半个月 is more common.  Literally it says "10 days; fortnight".  The closest to an answer I could find is Baidu Zhidao:

  Answer 1: 半个月之类 一星期以上 类似于 上中下旬
  Answer 2: 10~15天之间

I can't make sense of the first answer, and I have no idea if the second answer is correct.

Question: What does 十天半月 (or 十天半个月) mean?

十天半月 or 十天半個月 means 十天～半個月 (10 days to half a month).

我長大以後喜歡往城裏跑，常常是十天半月不回家。
After I grew up, I loved going into the city, often not returning home for about a fortnight at a time.

For reference, both the Baidu Zhidao answers say approximately the same thing. 上中下旬 means the first, second, or third period of a month, with a period of a month being a 旬 (10 days).


how to translate this slogan '向前一小步，文明一大步' and the like in almost every public toilet in China the other one is '靠近方便, 贴近文明', both of which have different versions of English translations, most of them, though, suck. they go like:

One small step forward
One giant leap toward civilization

A small step for man,
A giant leap for mankind

Near the civilization
Near the wall

close to civilization,
Near to convenience

Are there any ones you guys find suitable and making sense to a western people?

The quote from your title:

  '向前一小步，文明一大步。'

which literally translated to: "One small step forward, (is a) big step for civilization"

Is kind of a paraphrase of Neil Armstrong's "One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind" which translates, according to Wikiquote, to:

  '这是我个人的一小步，却是全人类的一大步。'

However, as mentioned above, this is a euphemistic way of asking people to get closer to the urinals in order to keep the floor dry and clean.


形式，样式 and 方式 - appearance, style, form, shape...? In terms of the appearance of something, there a lot of HSK5 words that are very similar. Here are four and the definitions I've found thus far.

表面 - 1. surface (tangible, 方面 is intangible), 2. outside, appearance (表现 is more behavioural, subjective, the way something comes across)

形式 - n. outer appearance, form, shape

样式 - n. type, style

方式 - n. way, manner, style, pattern

Is there a clear way to distinguish between 形式，样式 and 方式? They all seem very close to each other and am not sure how to separate their usages.

According to dictionary owned by Ministry of Education in Taiwan.

形式 can mean:

  文學作品上指作品外在的體式。

(Format of literature.)

  抽象或具體的事物，其形態的直接表現或組成。

(The way of how abstract or concrete things show directly or constitution.)

樣式 can mean:

  樣子、形式。

(How does things look like, The way it show directly or constitution.)

方式 can mean:

  說話或做事時所採行的一定方法、模式。

(The way of how to do things.)


when is the suffix 边/面 required? I have learnt location words such as 上/下/前/后etc. and understand they can modify a noun such as -桌子上，宿舍前 . I also know the suffix 边 or 面 can be added (doesn't really change the meaning). When do i need to use the suffix?
When do i use 上 and when do i use 上边/上面? In the next sentences, I just wrote the mono-syllabic location word, but the answers say the suffix is needed, then others I didn't need to put the suffix.

中文楼右就是图书馆  (should be 右边/右面)
人文楼在行政楼后吗？ (should be 后边/后面)
我办公室就在新阅览室下 (should be 下边/下面)

see grammar, Difference between location nouns and place/position nouns, 方位词 vs 处所词

additionally 汉语语法基础，第一章 词法 第一节 名词 ２。４附：方位词 方位词是具有助词性质的名词。从意义方面说，它具有一定的意义-----表示方位；但从语法方面说，它的用途又和一般的名词不同。方位词一般不单独用，有的甚至根本不能自由运用，总是附在名词后边，或者同别的方位词结合成一个表示时间或处所的名词。鉴于这种情况，把方位词列入名词，但是又不等同看待算作名词的附类。
常用的方位词有以下这些：

东 西 南 北 上 下 左 右 里 前 后 边 面 头 外 中 间 内

这些单纯的方位词还可以同＂以＂或者＂之＂构成合成的方位词。如：

以上 以下 以东 以西 以外 以内 之中 之间 之内 之上 之下 之外

方位词的用途主要有两个：１。同别的成分结合在一起，构成表示时间或处所的名词。如：东边 南面 域北 京西 床边 门外  内里 午后 外头 左右 上下 中间
这里要注意方位词在由它构成的名词里边所处的位置。比较：外国---国外  北城---城北 ＂外国＂指我们国家以外的＂国家＂，是一般的明词；＂国外＂指我们国家以外的空间，是表示处所的明词。两者是不同的。
２。附在别的词或者词组后边，构成表示时间或者处所的方位结构。如：
教室之外 长江以南 五个月之中 八个人以上
由方位词构成的名词或者方位结构既然是表示处所或者时间的，它们的用途也就同表示处所或者时间的名词一样，不需要再加以说明了。这里要补充说明的是，所有的名词和方位结构都不能直接作补语，必须先同介词组成介词结构，然后再由介词结构充当补语。如：酒杯要摆在桌子上，但算盘却要收在抽屉里，或者最好是在肚子里。（鲁迅，病后杂谈）

there happen to be certain differences between usages of different nouns of locality which simply have to be learned, e.g. NP +上、下、前、后、里、内、外、中、间 exist，while 东、西、南、北、左、右 cannot be used the same way, also depending on whether referring to space or time or sequence order  前、后 are used differently, similarly instead of 下, 底下 can be used more generally in the sense of "under", e.g. 棹子底下,新阅览室底下, also note compounds with 以,之


How does "do" (做) mean "become" (成)? In the sentence ‘I want to be[come] a policeman’, why is the verb for ‘become’, ‘do’?

我想做一个警察。
Wǒ xiǎng zuò yīgè jǐngchá.

I have seen one of the dictionary definitions of 做 to mean ’become’, but this is only after coming across this sentence. I have not heard of 做 meaning anything other than ‘do’ with many expansive concepts related to it, and have only heard of 成 to mean ‘become’.
Therefore, my question is twofold. Why use 做 instead of 成 - what is the difference in meaning? And, how does the word 做 as a singular character have such a broad meaning from ‘doing’ to ‘becoming’ without the addition of another character (e.g. 做出)? Meaning, the two concepts, though perhaps related, are quite distant without adding additional meaning (e.g. 自 or something). So, what is the background that causes this contextual meaning?

"做" contains the meaning of  "be ", not "become"

"我想做一个警察" means "I want to be a police"

it is "成为" that means "become", not just "成"

(成 is mostly used as a result complement for varieties of verb)

"我想成为一个警察" means "I want to become a police"

  how does the word 做 as a singular character have such a broad meaning from ‘doing’ to ‘becoming’ without the addition of another character

As I stated, 做 can mean 'be' but not 'become'

You know when does it mean 'be' or 'do' by looking into the context.
When the object after 做 is a task or action, you know 做 means 'do'; When the object after 做 is an identity, you know 做 means 'be'

Example:

做功課，做木工，做好事 = do homework, do woodwork, do good thing (功課，木工，好事 are all nouns for action)

做學生，做木匠，做好人 = be a student, be a carpenter, be a good person (學生，木匠，好人 are all nouns for identity)

Notice: don't confuse 做(do/ be) with 造(make), e.g. 做個包子 (be a bun) is not the same as 造個包子 (make a bun)


What is the rule for a series of third tones? I understand what to do if you have a series of 3 third tones, and the rules are well explained here. But what about 4 third tones in a row?

  这件大衣很特别，我也想买一件。

I'm guessing it would be wó yě xiáng mǎi
Would that be correct?

It might be subtle, the series of tones would be 2-半三声-2-3. (半三声 means only the first half of the 3rd tone, without the rising tone part.)

Firstly 我也想买 could be separated as 我(也(想买)), and according to the rule about the 3rd tone sandhi, rule #4.1 (for 也(想买)) and #2 (for 我(...)) match and then leads to 2-半三声-2-3.


what is the correct translation for the indoor playground attraction called a "ball pit", google gives: 球坑 My son is working a project for his dual language immersion 2nd grade class; is 球坑 intelligible, as in: "这是我的球坑。" ?

I am always very concerned that the automated translation stuff will present something that ends up being slang or offensive...

波波池

  波波池（英语：Ball pit或Ball pool）是一个凹陷的位置上布满彩色小胶球的池，这些球的直径一般不大于3吋（7.6厘米）。除了小胶球外，亦可以使用其他球体物，如气球。波波池通常是专供小朋友玩乐的地方。

Here's an example of use from winshang:

  　　 这种带着“寓教于乐”的主题式乐园，由于其具有科学教育的作用，对入园的小朋友有一定的门槛要求，并非简单的玩乐，需要家长陪同。一旦消费者进入审美疲劳，持续的内容创新和体验创新就会变成一个问题。其间，funmax也做了很多积极调整，如扩充儿童职业体验内容、增加更适合低龄孩童的挖沙、波波池等等。进入2020年，伴随着疫情防控的严峻，FUNMAX-EXPO暂停了营业。


How to translate: 人是铁，饭是钢，一顿不吃烦得慌. What is the logic? 人是铁，饭是钢，一顿不吃烦得慌

I can not really figure out to translate this sentence. I guess it basically means that not eating is a bad thing. The first sentences - do they indicate that "iron" and "steel" belongs together, and so does "man" and "food", and it there is one, there better be the other, and thus - not eating is a terrible thing.

Would this be a correct understanding - or what else is the logic behind this sentence?

Thank you

The idiom's meaning is reinforced by the rhyme. I think you have the basic meaning correct. Maybe if you rhyme it in English it'll come out more like the Chinese:

"People are iron/Rice is steel/You'll feel like crap without a meal" - not a literal meaning, but conveying the gist.


Asking for right answers for 中级 questions I just wanted to ask for the right answers for these questions...
In these 2 paragraphs, are my 标点符号 right?

我家有五口人，爷爷   、奶奶、爸爸、妈妈和我。爸爸在电脑公司工作，他是一名工程师；妈妈在一所学校教数学，爷爷和奶奶早就退休，但他们也有很多活动；爷爷在老年大学学习书法，他最喜欢说的话是：“活到老，学到老”，奶奶喜欢养花，每天精心伺候我们家四季常开的鲜花。
一位先生来到一个工地看见3个建筑工人在干同样的活，于是他问其中的一位：“你在做什么？”，那个工人回答道：“你没看到我在砌一块砖？”，那位先生又问第二个工人：“你在忙什么？”，他一脸不高兴地回答：“我在做一个窗户”，第三个工人在听到同样的问题时，兴高采烈地说：“我在盖一座大教堂。”

And in this table, which is more suitable to which?

急急忙忙 地 跑过来|
兴高采烈 地 庆祝胜利|
迫不及代 地 打开了包裹|
迟疑 地 往前走|
生气 地 骂他的孩子|
风趣 地 开了一个玩笑|
热烈 地 欢迎我们|
客气 地 谢绝了他的邀请|
激动 地 说|
得意 地 拿出自己画的画儿


高 as a verb talking about the weather In my chinese book i saw the next sentence.
"最低气温很少低于3度"
In the dictionary said 低 could be a verb meaning to drop.
But 高 did not appear as a verb. But i found sentence like this in the internet. ?is it right?
"最高气温很少高于40度"
Or is better to say
"最高气温很少超过40度"
"最高气温很少达40度"
How about using the word 降到。
"最高气温很少降到40度"
¿what would be the opposite of 降到?
Thanks.

The construction Adj. + 于, where the adjective X is actually a stative verb means "more X than".
Stative verbs, which in English are normally translated as adjectives, are verbs that describe qualities, and can be modified by intensifiers as 很，太，非常, etc.
低 means "low", it is a stative verb, therefore 低于3度 means "lower than 3 degrees". If you want to keep some morphological correspondence with English, you can render is as "to drop" (= to go lower than).
As for your example sentences:

最高气温很少高于40度 here 高 (high, tall) is a stative verb, or adjective, like 低 (in fact it's its antonym), therefore this is a correct sentence, where 高于40度 means "higher than 40 degrees".

最高气温很少超过40度 I think 超过 is not the best verb here, but the sentence sounds fine to me.

最高气温很少达40度 here 达 alone doesn't sound okay; I would say 达到

最高气温很少降到40度 the word 降到 means “to fall, to drop" so this sentence  is borderline nonsensical (= the highest air temperature rarely drops to 40 degrees). You can use 升到 "to rise" instead: 最高气温很少升到40度


What does 9月26日电9月26日 ("26 September electricity 26 September") mean? I'm reading the newspaper 人民日报 here in Beijing, and I stumbled upon the following:

新华社北京9月26日电9月26日，中共中央政治局委员、……

人民日报, 27 September 2020 (enlarge)

I don't understand what 9月26日电9月26日 means.  I originally thought it was a typo, but there are similar things online, e.g. here, here, and here.  I guess the 电 indicates an electronic version of the article in question, but I don't really know.
Question: What does 9月26日电9月26日 mean?
Google Translate just gives "September 26, September 26".

The bolded text is the organization and time indicator and the second line, which is not bolded, is the real start of the main body. They are not connected.
9月26日电 means the message is sent on Sept 26th by 电报 "telegraphy". It is an old expression when telegraphy was the fastest method for sending messages. But as "Telegraphy" in general includes the internet, the expression is still in use.


Dot vs. slash in Chinese computer fonts We have been working with a new character system that differentiates between a dot and a slash in Chinese characters.

The issue I have is being able to instinctively tell which one I should use. When I asked the creators of the system they said it is because it is related to the rules of Chinese calligraphy.

For example, on the character 下 the third stroke looks like a slash down and to the right, but it is actually a dot when handwritten.

Is there a Chinese computer font that shows the difference between the dot and slash more clearly? I had heard that there was one that was considered more standard, but I haven't been able to find it...

Before simply answering "there is such a font", I would like to seriously suggest you should not differentiate a dot and a slash. The reasons are:

Many Chinese people don't distinguish them when writing, even calligraphers. We care about "fast" and "beautiful".

The standard glyphs among mainland, Taiwan/Hong Kong, Japan and Korea, are usually different, you can't tell which one is the most authoritative.

If anyway you need a computer font to do such analyses, check

標楷體 and 國字標準字體 for traditional Chinese. This font (edukai-3.ttf, title: TW-MOE-Std-Kai) can be downloaded from the website of Ministry Of Education of Taiwan.

微软简楷体 for simplified Chinese. This font (simkai.ttf, title: 楷体. Offered by ZHONGYI Electronic Co., Beijing) is the default Kai font in MS Windows for simplified Chinese. Note that though it is named "simplified Kai", it includes traditional characters.

In the examples of the wiki page 國字標準字體, the first column is "standard" and the second is "conventional" (both should be considered correct):

Some distinction of a dot and a slash is highlighted (維, 內, 集, 遨, 說, 眾). Yes, I should also mention even in Taiwan many scholars criticize this standard, "sometimes it departs from convention too much". And I've never ever seen any native speaker strictly follows such a standard when they are writing.
Other minor differences can be also found, see the comparison (微, 標):

I guess you can figure it out :) So, I'm afraid it's better not to differentiate a dot and a slash in a "character system".


Can you use "非常非常‘ to emphasize how much you think of something? I'm trying to figure out if a common English usage such as the one below is used in Chinese.

  I really really <verb> something

Could I say something like this?

  我非常非常喜欢这首歌

Could I use this in spoken Chinese? Could it be written this way if it is a more informal context: e.g. a diary?

Sure. You can even repeat it more times (非常非常非常) if you want...

Like the English usage ("really, really") it isn't something you'd put in formal writings, but its certainly common enough in dialogue or advertisement or blogs/internet posts, etc.


How are the Kanji in this Dictionary Ordered? I don't understand the basis for the ordering of the Kanji in this dictionary:

  http://www.wul.waseda.ac.jp/kotenseki/html/ho04/ho04_00717/index.html

It seems to be a Rime Dictionary and I found some information on Wikipedia about that here, but I'm not sure how I should go about looking up a given character.

Can someone familiar with Rime Dictionaries help me understand how to find a given character here?

the book is "草書禮部韻寳" by emperor 仁宗 of 宋 dynasty. it's for looking up how a chinese character  appears in 草書 (cursive script), as you know, ordered according to rime.

well, it's a calligraphy dictionary. you look up a character, see how it's in 草書, nothing more; no explanation, no 反切.

if you're looking for a rime dictionary, you may download all 5 volumes of "鉅宋広韻" (宋版廣韻), from 重要文化財（漢書） of the national archives of japan.

https://www.digital.archives.go.jp/DAS/pickup/view/category/categoryArchives/0500000000/0511000000/00

edited, info added about how to lookup a character in rime dictionary.

in general, you already know the 聲 (Tone) & 韻 (final) of a character, then you use the rime dictionary for confirmation, or look up characters in the same 韻目 (rhyme groups). if you don't know how to pronounce a particular character, forget it :(

the wiki page explains it:

    the characters were first divided between the four tones
    Each tone was divided into rhyme groups

since 平聲 (level tone) has more characters, it's further divided, that there're five group:

    上平聲 upper level tone
    下平聲 lower level tone
    上聲 rising tone
    去聲 departing tone
    入聲 entering tone

then, each group has several 韻目 (rhyme groups), each group list all relevant characters with the same 韻 (final).

talking about tones & finals, it's easier if you know cantonese, one of the dialects which still has 入聲 (entering tone); that, if you know the pronunciation, or, from the end of finals (-p, -t, -k); you know that it's 入聲字, directly.

now, let's try 鬱; in cantonese: wat1, sound file

first, to determine it's in which 聲 (Tone):

it belongs to 入聲 (entering tone), which is directly by the cantonese pronunciation. or, if i try to write the romanisation, it's "wat", which ends with "t", a second hints of 入聲字.

secondly, pick up the 5th volume of 鉅宋広韻﹒入聲卷, in the first page, read from rightmost column, from top to bottom; until you find a character sounds similar to 鬱

that is, to look for 屋, 沃, 燭, 覺, 質, 術, 櫛, 物 in sequence. then, 物 sounds similar to 鬱. because i know both the cantonese pronunciation, they're similar, if in doubt, the two characters (文弗) above 物 provide 反切

it should read as "物﹒文弗切", which means the pronunciation of 物, one can combine the 聲母 (initials) of 文, with the 韻母 (finals) of 弗:

文:  man4

弗: fat1

物: mat6

弗 is also sounds similar to 鬱, which i've strong confidence that character "鬱" is in 韻目 (rhyme groups) "物"

now, turn to the page of 物, voila, 鬱 is here :)

in mandarin, 鬱 is yu ; without hints of tone; imo, it's very difficult for mandarin speaker to use rime dictionary. you may try it by yourself

have fun :)


How did 中風 become “suffering a stroke”? I have learned the Chinese names of some common ailments and they are surprisingly very descriptive and intuitive once you know the meanings of the individual characters.
For example: 糖尿病，高血壓，心律失常.
But what happened to 中風, and how did this become “suffering a stroke”?

中風，中醫學術語，中醫認為這是外感風邪侵犯人體之後所造成的病證。

因為「風者，擅行而數變」，有許多症狀都被歸類在中風之下，但最主要的，有兩個意義，一是指因腦血管阻塞、出血而造成的病變，亦即現代醫學所說的中風

'中風' (suffer a sickness caused by 'something' in the wind)-- a term in Traditional Chinese medicine. Traditional Chinese medicine believed that it was a disease syndrome caused by external wind pathogens invading the human body.

Because "wind is invisible, move fast, and unpredictable", many symptoms are classified under '中風', but the most important one has two meanings. One refers to the pathological changes caused by cerebrovascular obstruction and bleeding, that is, Stroke in modern medicine

In the olden time, when someone fell ill suddenly without any apparent cause, people had to blam something invisible. The obvious choices were wind and evil spirit. A stroke had to be caused by something in the wind they thought.
For the same logic, when someone suffered a mental breakdown (發瘋 - get crazy), people might suspect the patient had 揰邪 (ran into an evil spirit)


How to explain this situation in a few Mandarin phrases? Background/Context

I have been spending a lot of time taking care of my mother-in law recently. Because she is from 台山市 I have been learning some Taishanese. She is 85+ and only eats specific foods. So I spend a bit of time buying extra food at dim sum places. I am not Asian so I am having problems understanding what are some appropriate phrases to explain myself when I am shopping on her behalf.

Question

What is the proper way to explain when one is buying for someone else in this situation? I have used the term ngoi mai (buy to go) but I wonder if someone could give me a couple of more sophisticated alternatives in Mandarin.

I also find some of the folks in the restaurant wonder what is going on. How can I explain that I am buying the food to give to my mother-in-law (ngoi mo) but I want to be able to give explanation in Mandarin. The reason is that sometimes I order quite a bit and I can tell the workers are curious. So I would like advice on a couple of Mandarin phrase that I can use to explain the situation.

I am currently stumbling through an explanation where I use terms like lao yan yuen (old folks home) to describe where my mom-in-law is staying. All of this is fine but I'd prefer to have one or two sentences that describe the situation (in Mandarin).

Any advice on useful Mandarin phrases would be helpful. In this case, I do not have sentences that need translations but I want native speakers to offer an appropriate Mandarin phrase to explain the concepts above and more specifically those below: Again please note, I do not want to sound weird, so I am hoping to find natural sounding alternate phrases (it doesn't have to match the English exactly just the idea needs to be the same).

(Me)
- Hi, I'd like to order some take out

(or in other cases)

(staff, tells me) you order so much food?
(Me) I have to order to give to my mother-in-law
(staff, tells me) where is your mother-in-law?
(Me) My mother-in-law stays in the old folks home
(if other suggested Mandarin phrases might apply, please share)

I doubt the results given by Google Translate:

（ME）
- 你好，我想订一些冒了出来

（或在其他情况下）

（工作人员，告诉我）你订购了这么多菜？
（我）我要为了给我的母亲在法律
（工作人员，告诉我）这里是你的母亲，岳母？
（我）我妈妈婆婆留在养老院
（如果其他建议普通话短语可能适用，请分享）

(Me) - Hi, I'd like to order some take out

你好，我想叫一些外卖

(staff, tells me) you order so much food?

你叫了这么多东西啊？

(Me) I have to order to give to my mother-in-law

我帮我岳母叫的。

(staff, tells me) where is your mother-in-law?

你岳母在哪里？

(Me) My mother-in-law stays in the old folks home

我岳母住在养老院

Please be noted that there're different expressions in Mandarin for mother-in-law. If you are male, your mother-in-law is 岳母. A female's mother-in-law is called 婆婆. Because you mentioned you call her ngoi mo, she must be your 岳母 or else she would be called gah po.


Which one is correct `是不是你想离开` or `你是不是想离开`? I think it is correct to say 是不是想离开 to emphasize whether it is true that you want to leave.
I wonder if I want to add 你, where should it be in the sentence?
是不是你想离开 or 你是不是想离开?

Both 是不是你想离开 and 你是不是想离开 are correct and can mean the same.
However, it's worth to mention that in 是不是你想离开, when you put a tone emphasis on 你 like 是不是'你'想离开, it would mean Is it you that want to leave, implying it's you, not others.


Glyph origin for 㐆 and Mnemonic for 殷 Came across through the word 殷勤. could you please help with Glyph origin for :
㐆yǐn to follow, to trust to, to put confidence in, to depend on, to turn around
Any any mnemonic to remember this?
殷 yīn earnest, eager, flourishing, hospitable
yǐn roll of thunder
yān dark red

㐆 is a reversed 身 which could be a rotund man or pregnant woman, likely the latter in this context. I've never seen 㐆 being used alone before.
殷 is grand, abundant, or flourish. Getting pregnant with child would be a source of celebration back then, and 殳 represents a hand hitting something, likely a drum if we were to interpret the original meaning as "grand music."
https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E6%AE%B7


Where should I place 多 in large numbers? Where should I put the "多“ in large numbers?
I saw in one text
300多万人
but
10亿多人

They are different in meaning:

300多万人:

(>300)万, maybe 301万 or 310 万...

10亿多人:

(>10亿), maybe 10亿+10000 or 10亿+1000000...


how to type the degree sign (°) using Chinese IME on iOS/(mac)OS? Some people say you can

  打“摄氏度”

to get: ℃ but that seems to be a sogou IME thing only - and boy does that celsius degrees C look ugly.

Others suggest:

  “插入”“特殊符号”

but that just seems to be a Word thing.

Any idea how to do this, easily, on ios and mac os?

i "fixed" my input method as "unicode hex input" on my macbook, so, to type celsius symbol, just press "option" + "2" + "1" + "0" + "3"; the ℃ would appear immediately :)

imo, it's convenience; provided you know the code point.


Help with Cantonese correct translation I thouhgt about posting here twice as I know rules do not allow for users to simply ask for translations. But after a few efforst in trying to translate it myself, I decided to ask for your kind help.
The phrase that i would like to translate is here below. Does it mean "I am generous. Kim."? Or is there anything I am missing out?

睇下我嘅. Kim

Thank you.

"睇下我嘅"  (Taei har ngo gea)

"take a look at mine"

It is definitely colloquial Cantonese.

These kinds of "rough" phrases are usually meant to indicate something to boast or show off or a demeaning comparison, like, "pay attention, you might learn something"; "this is how I would do it"; "you see those biceps?"

This phrase therefore has to be a follow-on to demean someone else's poor performance.


How to say "where else", "who else", or "what else" in Chinese? I have looked for some references regarding how to say "where else", "who else", and "what else" but I still can't find one that's dependable enough. Furthermore, it seems like there are quite a lot of ways to express "where else", "who else", "what else".

Here are some example sentences I found on the internet which contain "where else", "who else", and "what else" when translated. I'm sorry that instead of coming with statements, I come with examples. It's because I couldn't find a source that states how to form "where/who/what else. Idk if these sentences are correct though :

1) 还有哪里？

2) 还有什么地方？

3) 我们还能在哪里聊天？

4) 你还会在哪里度假？

5) 别的什么地方我能找到这本书呢？

6) 她还去了别的什么地方？还见了谁？

7) 你还想买些什么，史密斯小姐？

8) 女士，还有其他什么事吗？

9) 你还要点什么菜吗？

10) 聚会上还有谁？

Next, from the sentences above, it seems like when you place 还/别的/其他 or any other words that mean "else" and any question words like 什么，谁，and 哪里 together, you can already form "question word (like where/who/what) + else". I don't know if my assumption is correct though. Please kindly tell me if my assumption is incorrect.

If forming "question word + else" really goes the way I assume it, why is there double else "还&其他" in the 8th sentence? Is it okay to place two "else"s here?

Then, why do some of them contain "有" or "在" and some others not? Is it necessary to add "有/在" when one wants to express "(where/who/what else)? If yes, what do both characters mean/indicate here? And will there be any difference if you choose one over the other?

Next, from the sentences above, it seems like when you place 还/别的/其他 or any other words that mean "else" and any question words like 什么，谁，and 哪里 together, you can already form "question word (like where/who/what) + else". I don't know if my assumption is correct though. Please kindly tell me if my assumption is incorrect.

Yes, a 'question phrase' can be formed by the way you have discussed.

For example:

你还要买什么？ - What else do you want?

你还要去哪里？ - Where else do you want to go?

还有谁要来？ - Who else still wants to come?

谁还 - Who still (want to come)

哪里还 - Where still (want to go)

什么还 - What still (want to buy)

In the 8th sentence, '女士，还有其他什么事吗?', it is actually okay to remove the '其他' as it is unnecessary as you said. (double else)

This forms: 女士，还有什么事吗?

"有" literally means "have"

"在" literally means "there"

There is not much meaning and explanation to why these two characters are sometimes used and sometimes not. I don't feel like I can fully explain to why this is so as if I did I have a possibility to give wrong advice. If you give me some comparison examples I would be happy to help you explain the differences to why one uses these characters and why one don't.


Is 清明节 actually Easter? It is Easter in England, and 清明节 in China. Is this a coincidence, or are these festivals actually one and the same moon related ancient celebration?

Both festivals revolve around the spring equinox. 清明节 falls 15 days after the spring equinox, whereas Easter falls on the first sunday after the first fullmoon after the spring equinox.

Christianity here just superimposed their own myth (the carpenter on the cross) onto the existing Jewish passover, and the Jews in turn just superimposed their myth (the exodus from Egypt) onto then existing premosaic traditions in West Asia.

清明节 is also a redevelopment of 寒食节, although these festivals are more original than any of the Easter traditions. In Taiwan, 清明节 has unfortunately been politicized to commemorate the death of the nationalist dictator 蒋介石.

Let’s just say that both festivals celebrate the coming of spring, that is the essence of it.


What is the origin of the word "香蕉?" Why is the Chinese word for "banana" "香蕉"? Where did it come from?

According to the 《國語詞典》，the「香」in「香蕉」came from the sweetness of its fruit （果實香甜）。Chinese etymology does not draw a clean line between the sense of taste and the sense of smell, which is pretty scientific when you think of the close relation between the olfactory and gustatory system. Therefore, the honeydew,「香瓜」, is also known as「甜瓜」. The meaning and etymology of「蕉」is much more complicated. The short answer will be, the term generally denotes plants belonging to the Musaceae family（芭蕉科）, of which the banana is a very well known member.


Chinese Dictionary Question What do the characters in angle brackets signify?

Examples:

http://www.zdic.net/z/15/xs/4E48.htm
"〈后缀〉"   "〈助〉"

http://www.zdic.net/z/16/xs/54C1.htm
"〈形〉"   "〈名〉"   "〈动〉"

Every good dictionary has the definitions of the words and its classes. The class of the word comes before the definition of thereof. That way you might know what is its definition as used in a specific class before you even read its definition. By classes I mean: nouns, verbs, pronouns, suffixs, etc. For exemple, the word 么 as a suffix has a different meaning when compared when used as a "auxiliary"


规规矩矩: 国语 vs. 普通话 (Taiwanese Mandarin vs. Mainland Mandarin) 规规矩矩 seems to have two - not so agreeing definitions in guoyu and MSM.

The MSM definition looks something like this

规矩 - 互动百科

  2、[Well-behaved；Well-disciplined；Remain orderly；Have proper
  behaviour] 引申为称人的品行方正，谨守礼法

  靠右的一间正屋住着屋主罗斯托玛乞维列，一个规规矩矩的市民。——《第比利斯的地下印刷所》
  又如：没规矩；守规矩

品行方正, 谨守礼法 equates to something along the lines of upright and upstanding.

The Taiwanese Guoyu definition from the Ministry of Education:

MoE

  形容行為有條理、有次序, 合於法度。

有條理、有次序 - orderly / organized / prioritized

合於法度 - legally

Guoyu seems to have the idea of orderly and organized where MSM doesn't.

Are my asusumptions correct?

規矩 doesn't mean exactly same as 規規矩矩. I don't quite agree how MSM uses 規規矩矩 to explain 規矩. 規規矩矩 and 規矩 share the same core meaning, but translated differently in different part of speech. In a nutshell, 規矩 =/= 規規矩矩, 有規矩 = 規規矩矩.

規矩(n) - regulation, plan, rules, scheme, discipline,etc.
That's why when you want to say something is well disciplined you say 有規矩, it literally means "it has discipline".  You need a adverb or adjective if you want to translate "well disciplined" literately.
規規矩矩的(Adj) - regulated, planned, ruled, well disciplined, ordered, legal, etc.
規規矩矩地(Adv) - regularly, orderly, legally, etc.
As you can see 規規矩矩 has more meanings simply because it functions differently in a sentence. Since "well disciplined ~= do sth in order = orderly", 規規矩矩 seems to have more meaning than simply 規矩. Keep in mind that "orderly" has a different meaning from "order", though in English they share they same root, in Chinese "order' would have translated differently to for example 次序.

I know my answer is quite messy but hope it helped.


How is 是 in these two sentences? I came across these two sentences.

你是在说.... (You're trying say ....)
我不是很懂你的意思。 (I don't really get what you mean.)

And yet, I am trying to wrap my head around why 是 is there in the first place. Shouldn't they be 你在说 and 我不懂你的意思 considering that they are describing verbs?

Please help.

See the definition 7 from this dictionary:

加重语气，有“的确”、“实在”的意思：天气～冷。

天气冷 vs 天气是冷, the latter means that the truth is that the weather is cold, 天气确实/的确冷. The former just means the weather is cold.
In practice, 天气是冷 is used to confirm/justify what the other person have said. 天气是冷 stands alone (without previous contexts) doesn't make much sense. Refer to this exchange:

A: 今天天气很冷！
B: 恩，今天天气是冷！ // implying B agrees what A have just said by repeating it with 是 for emphasis.

Back to your examples, 你是在说 means what you are  actually saying is...., while 你在说 is what you are saying is.... 我不是很懂你的意思: I don't really quite get what you meant.  我不懂你的意思: I don't get what you meant.


What is this 某 doing after the names? What is this 某 after the names? Could it be some kind of rank in the Air Force? Listening to the mp3, it sounds like 'mao' not 'mou' to my ear.

陈某和刘某都曾在空军部队。

It indicates that the given name is unknown or intentionally hidden. 'A certain Chen/Liu', 'a Mr. Chen/Liu', 'a Ms. Chen/Liu', etc.

In the case of women 氏 can be used, or was used historically, when only her maiden family name was recorded, e.g. Mao Zedong's paternal grandmother is quoted in Wikipedia as 罗氏, which simply means 'née Luo'.


Are 这是哪 and 这是在哪 different questions? On WeChat, I noticed one of my friends wrote:

  这是哪？
  zhèshìnǎ？

Meaning "where is this?"  This surprises me as I would have expected

  这是在哪？
  zhèshìzàinǎ？

Both of these are easily found used online. I'm wondering if they're the same.

Question: Are 这是哪 and 这是在哪 different questions?

There's also other variations I found online:

  这是（在）哪里？
  这是（在）哪儿？
  这里是（在）哪里？
  这里是（在）哪儿？

And it's quite possible every combination of these (and maybe more) has the same meaning too.

"这是哪？" short for "这是哪里？"; It means  "where is this place/ what place it is?" (you want to know the name of a place)

Example:

A and B are at a park,
A asks B: "这是哪(里)?" - "where is this place?"
B answers: "这是佛光山公园" - "This is Buddha Light Mountain Park"
It would be easier to understand if you say "这是什么地方" instead of "这是哪？"

"这是在哪？" short for "这是在哪里？" It means "where it is at?" (you want to know where an object is located or where an event took place)

Example:

A pointing at a poster and asks B
A: "佛光山公园？ 这是在哪？" - "Buddha Light Mountain Park? Where is it located?"
B: "佛光山公园当然在佛光山" - "Buddha Light Mountain Park is in Buddha Light  Mountain of course"
A: "不，我的意思是佛光山公园在哪个城市" - "No, I meant Buddha Light Mountain Park is in which city"

~

"曹操刚跟呂布战斗？这是在哪(里发生的)？" - "Cao Cao just fought with Lu Bu? Where was it (took place)?"


What is the difference between 哈哈, 呵呵, 嘻嘻, and 嘿嘿? I always see 哈哈, 呵呵, 嘻嘻, and 嘿嘿 in WeChat, QQ, etc, but I don't really understand the subtle differences between them and when to use them appropriately, especially 呵呵. I use 呵呵 myself now, but I'm not sure I'm using it correctly.

check the table. This picture says everything.


“管你是[surname] + [name]还是[same surname] + [different name]” There's a set phrase that goes something like:

(我)管你张三还是李四

I've seen variations on it like:

我管你张静还是李静呢

I'm trying to remember one where the surname stays the same though, something like:

管你是张飞还是张家辉

What common variants on this phrase exist where the surname stays the same?

"我管你张三还是李四" literally means "I care you are John, Dick or Harry". And the actual meaning is "我(不)管你张三还是李四" meaning "I (don't) care you are John, Dick or Harry"

Using the opposite term "管" (care) instead of the actual term "不管" (don't care) is a sarcastic way of making a statement.

  What common variants on this phrase exist where the surname stays the same?

It is not a set phrase, you can substitute any names/nouns to indicate "I don't care who you are". For example: "我(不)管你是皇帝还是王八", "我(不)管你成龍还是成蟲"

When someone said he is the emperor but you don't care, you can say "我管你皇帝还是王八"
When Jackie Chan demands you to do something because he is Jackie Chan, and you don't want to do it, and don't care it is Jackie who demanded it,  you can say "我管你成龍还是成蟲"

One more: "我管你特朗普还是特朗通，你是个混蛋" roughly translated as "I don't care you are Donald Trump or Donald Dumb, you are an asshole"


What measure word should I use when I have two nouns with different measure words? If someone asks me:

你在动物园看了几（___）老虎和马呀？

Choose the correct answer:

a) 个
b) 只
c) 匹
d) other ______
e) all of the above
f) none of the above
g) screw Chinese, I'm going to study Klingon

Thanx!

In this case, a more correct way would be:

  你在动物园看了几只老虎和几匹马呀？

or

  你在动物园看了多少只老虎，多少匹马？

In colloquial speech, it might be ok to say:

  你在动物园看了多少个老虎和马呀？

or

  你在动物园看了几个老虎和马呀？


Critique request: three 筹备 sentences: 有的人的筹备很不合理 and 北京花了很长时间做筹备工作 and 不需要筹备任何配料 (Update: There was a typo: 之间 should be 时间.  I corrected it.)
I wrote these sentences to practice using 筹备 instead of 准备 which I'm more familiar with.

脱欧后，有的人的筹备很不合理！
北京花了很长时间做筹备工作，不过因为冠状病毒的发现，政府推迟新年的庆祝。
西红柿炒鸡蛋是个很简单的菜，不需要筹备任何配料。

I'm seeking a critique of these sentences.  I've basically mastered HSK4 and am working on HSK5 now.  I'm particularly interested in what would happen if we replace 筹备 with 准备.
(I refrain from giving an English translation, as it seems to confuse people more than it helps.)

All of your sentences sound weird.

Barring other grammatical errors, 筹备 is used to describe “collate resources to prepare for an event”.

  日本政府已经花了好几年的时间来筹备今年的东京奥运会。

The Japanese Government has spent a few years preparing for the Tokyo Olympics this year.

Your first and third sentences don’t sound right because they don’t refer to an “event” per se, and you should state clearly that the Beijing government was preparing for the New Year celebrations in the second sentence.


Could you please tell me what these characters are? I can't decipher this pic. Will someone please kindly tell me what they are? It is from the name of a language school. Looks a bit like 拍扙, whatever that is.

柏林
Berlin (the capital of Germany)

快速提升中文程度的方法：
1. 初級者多看中文文章。
2. 中級者多寫中文文章。
3. 高級者多用中文思考。
所以，除了初學者可能有困難外，建議大家多用中文問答。


Help understanding song titled 天嫁 天嫁 | Marriage of the sky

  流星划过天幕 | A shooting star streaks the canopy of the sky
  长长的慧尾 | A long comet
  冰雪溶化汇成 | Snow melts and becomes
  千年的泪 | The tears of a thousand years
  亲人捎来的龙达 | The dragon brought by close relatives reaches
  光耀苍穹 | The dazzling blue dome of heavens
  阿妈告诉孩儿 | Mother, tell your child
  故事的凄美 | The sadness and beauty of history

  那是天上的桌玛 | This is the 桌玛 of the sky
  骑着白驹要远嫁 | Riding a white horse wants to marry a wife from far away
  离愁有多痛痛有多浓 | The grief of parting is too painful and the pain is too dense
  那里的小草绿吗 | Is the grass there green?
  那里的天蓝云白吗 | Is the sky there blue? Are the clouds there white?
  那里的你 还像从前一样美吗 | Are you, there, still beautiful as you used to be?

  嗡嘛哩嘛哩班咩哄
  嗡嘛哩嘛哩班咩哄
  嗡嘛哩嘛哩班咩哄
  嗡嘛哩嘛哩班咩哄

So here are my questions:

What is the correct spelling of 慧尾? The captions of this Youtube video have 慧尾, but I found a Baidu Baike article which has 彗尾…
What is this 亲人捎来的龙 (dragon that close relatives bring in)?
What does 桌玛 mean? Is it one word or two?
The translation of the line 离愁有多痛痛有多浓 sounds just horrible, so what does it mean and how do I better translate it?
If I take it right, "to marry" is 嫁 for women and another verb for men, so why is the sky taken as female, with verb 嫁? (This question probably only arises from the fact that Italian and many other languages have "sky" as masculine gender)

Note: the last 4 lines are the mantra "Om mani padme hum" repeated 4 times, with "mani" repeated twice each time (om mani mani padme hum).

My take to this is different.

'桌玛' in Tibetan is like 'goddess'.

We can seize the meaning of '天嫁' from this two lines, 那是天上的桌玛, 骑着白驹要远嫁. It means the goddess from haven will go to a marriage （on the earth）faraway from her home(haven) by riding a white horse.

So, '天嫁' means the marriage of the goddess from the heaven. It seems that she suffered lots of hardship from there according to the song.


What is the meaning of these words? I recently watched a celebrity show where an actor said: 我还会演雨戏 我还会演风戏 我不光会演雷剧

What are 雨戏, 风戏, 雷剧?

I guess that these are some kind of television dramas.

雷剧 is short for 雷人电视剧，which means this drama is just one of the worst,making you feel 'shocked'.
雷 also means thunder in Chinese.So 雨戏 and 风戏 actually mean nothing, the actress was just playing with language.


Words order: 我们两个是好朋友 I faced sentence with word order that is different from expected "我们两个是好朋友" instead of "我们是两个好朋友". Does it have some different meaning?

Not much of a different depends on the question asked if this is an answer:

我们两个是好朋友 - Us two are good friends

我们是两个好朋友 - We are two good friends


Looking for a [common] idiom that loosely translates to "I fart you away" A few years ago when I first started learning Mandarin, a friend told me of a certain idiom that's used when you want someone to just leave you alone / go away. I can't recall the idiom in Mandarin but in English it loosely translates to, "I fart you away."

Can someone please provide this idiom and if that's the proper context to use it?

I guess it is "滚开". That's a insulting idiom.


How would one write "face up" (e.g. as an instruction on a copier)? We are trying to solve a minor mystery over at Japanese.SE: I found a multifunction printer/scanner/copier/faxer that had the following instruction label on it.

Curiously, the last two lines are both in Japanese. The first one, 原稿面上向き genkou-men ue-muki, means something like "document face-up"; and the second one, 送信面上向き soushin-men ue-muki, means something like "the side you want to send face-up".

User Earthliŋ's suspicion is that one of these lines was supposed to be in Chinese, perhaps as 原稿面向上. From the perspective of the device manufacturer, that certainly seems reasonable.

On a linguistic basis, though, does that seem plausible? Does either of the two Japanese lines resemble what a Chinese device would use to indicate "face up"?

(Note: my knowledge of Chinese is virtually nil.)

"Face up" in Chinese is 面朝上.

An example sentence:

Place your card face up on the table, please.

请把你的牌面朝上摊在桌子上。

面向上 is also OK.

From the Japanese alternatives, perhaps the first one would be more intelligible in Chinese, but with 上 at the end of the expression.


Please help explain: 精神小伙 & 葬爱家族 I think maybe the  精神小伙 seems like bad luck and the other 葬爱家族 is like emo?
Here are some videos for context on the internet slang:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMJJoZ4i1KI    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Cj4GpSdfQ8    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmmtYesSvjE

In the videos, 精神小伙 (energetic young man) and 葬爱家族 (Clan of love burier) are the descriptions of the two rap artists who are doing a rap battle

精神小伙: 原指收拾的十分利落，看起来充满活力、很有精神的小伙子。现在几乎特指看起来很社会的土味小伙子 -- originally refers to a very neat looking and energetic young man. Now almost specifically refers to an earthy guy who looks very social

葬爱家族: 网络词语，葬爱家族是《劲舞团》中传出来的“网络组织”，好多玩家以杀马特造型示人，造型夸张，喜欢斗舞，并组成一个群体接纳另一个她(他)。现在大多指发型夸张，打扮狰狞且特立独行的反潮流的洗剪吹人士 (Nowadays, mostly refer to those who have exaggerated hairstyles and maverick anti-trend dresses)

Basically:

精神小伙 (Energetic young man) --> Earthy social young man

葬爱家族 (Clan of love burier) --> Anti-trend hair and fashion  style maverick


Why are there four ways of writing 黄? My keyboard does not allow me to input them all but I have found four (similar) ways in total of writing the Chinese character for yellow (黄). Why is this and how have these four forms come to differ?

黄

Simplifed variant (Unicode point U+9ec4)

黃

Traditional variant (Unicode point U+9ec3)

⿈

Kangxi radical 201 (Unicode point U+2fc8)

Variant character (Unicode point U+2155b)

Variant character (Unicode point U+28774)


What does 了mean in 衣服也落在了房间内, and is it pronounce le or liao? Could someone please explain this sentence structure?

  衣服也落在了房间内.

What does the 了 mean here? Is it pronounce le or liao?

衣服也落在房间内*了*。

Here 了 is used to indicate the completion of the action of 落在房间内.

衣服也落在*了*房间内。

Here 了 is moved forward and positioned after 在, and that makes 房间内 become the focus point of this setence.

Other examples:
一阵大风吹来，我的帽子飞到*了*天上。

他开车撞到*了*树上。

他把狗锁在*了*屋内。

她一挥手碰翻*了*水杯。


What is the sequence of the Boya Chinese textbooks? I have some Boya Chinese textbooks and want to buy more to have a complete set to work through. Searching for the books, I find very strange naming conventions. Here are some examples:

Elementary 1
Elementary Start
Intermediate I
Quasai-Intermediate 1
Intermediate Spurt I
Advanced Hover III
Pre-Intermediate Speed-Up
Reading and Writing

If I want to buy and work through a complete set, including any corresponding workbooks, what is the order?

I haven’t heard of this series before, but looking at information from the publisher (Peking University Press) and various booksellers I can see the following:

博雅汉语 = Boya Chinese (1st edition, published around 2004–2009)

初级起步篇I = Elementary starter I
初级起步篇II = Elementary starter II
准中级加速篇I = Pre-intermediate speed up I
准中级加速篇II = Pre-intermediate speed up II
中级冲刺篇I = Intermediate spurt I
中级冲刺篇II = Intermediate spurt II
高级飞翔篇I = Advanced hover I
高级飞翔篇II = Advanced hover II
高级飞翔篇III = Advanced hover III

博雅汉语 = Boya Chinese (2nd edition, published around 2012–2016)

初级起步篇I = Elementary I
初级起步篇II = Elementary II
准中级加速篇I = Quasi-intermediate I
准中级加速篇II = Quasi-intermediate II
中级冲刺篇I = Intermediate I
中级冲刺篇II = Intermediate II
高级飞翔篇I = Advanced I
高级飞翔篇II = Advanced II

In addition to these main textbooks there are various extras, like the Guide books aimed mainly at teachers and Reading and writing giving extra resources.


What semantic notions underlie 心 ('heart') with 惑 ('to confuse')? I know that managing your emotions can save your heart, and "when your emotions adversely affect your brain, your heart is affected as well." Yet how does 心 semantically relate to 惑? Many emotions exist, so how did 心 narrow to just confusion in 惑?

Phono-semantic compound (形聲, OC *ɡʷɯːɡ): phonetic 或 (OC *ɡʷɯːɡ) + semantic 心 (“heart”).
惑

confused; puzzled
to confuse; to delude

I think we should start off from the more basic principles in language - hopefully this will give a better idea of how phono-semantic compounds work.

Remember that words have already long existed before writing was invented. What happens, then, if we want to write something down that hasn't been written before?

Now, Chinese characters, representing morphemes or words, have both meaning and sound: if we want to write down a meaning word confuse pronounced as† /*ɡʷɯːɡ/ with no existing character representation, we can

† Pronounced as is a description for convenience only - reconstructions are generally for the purpose of demonstrating historical phonological features and rules, not a guide to how words were originally pronounced.

Write it with a character which hints at the sound of the word using an existing character which sounds similar, e.g. 「或」;
Draw a picture which indicates the meaning confuse.

It is very clear that (2) cannot be employed too often in a practical manner across all the words in a language - so ancient scribes extensively employed method (1) to represent the language.

But hold on, 「或」 already represents a word meaning region or area! How shall we distinguish the word meaning confuse from region/area?

How about reminding the reader that the word referred to is an emotion, by adding the character for heart/mind/emotion, 「心」?

So now we get 「惑」, which is composed of a bunch of hints reminding the reader of a word that sounds like 「或」 (/*ɡʷɯːɡ/) and is an emotion 「心」.

To reiterate, the word meaning confuse pronounced as /*ɡʷɯːɡ/ already exists! In English, if I ask you for a word sounding like eight and is a kind of emotion, I expect you to know, with fair confidence, that I'm talking about the word hate.

I should only need to hint to you that the word is a kind of emotion, instead of needing to draw angry faces everywhere, and you shouldn't need to come back to me and tell me that there are a million different kinds of emotions; how does "emotion" reduce to the meaning "hate"?, because I've already hinted to you that the word sounds like eight.

How does this generalise to other characters? To use @TangHo's examples, we can still talk about emotions, and understand that

We know that there is a word sounding like 「奴」 which means angry. Let's remind ourselves of this word by adding 「心」, the hint for emotion, to get 「怒」.
We know that there is a word sounding like 「夗」 which means resentment. Let's remind ourselves of this word by adding 「心」, the hint for emotion, to get 「怨」.
We know that there is a word sounding like 「巩」 which means fear. Let's remind ourselves of this word by adding 「心」, the hint for emotion, to get 「恐」.
We know that there is a word sounding like 「己」 which means to envy. Let's remind ourselves of this word by adding 「心」, the hint for emotion, to get 「忌」.

In all cases, 「心」 does not mean anything other than a hint for emotion, and in all cases, the writer expects you to know what the word sounds like already. Characters do not exist in a vacuum; they refer to words which you are already expected to know.


What does 坏坏的 mean in "坏坏的问道"? 坏 is obviously bad/broken, and 问 is ask. So, does that mean 坏坏的问道 means something like "asked spoiledly" or something similar? There is no need to translate it since I'm just looking for the explanation, but if it's not too much trouble, then please do so.

Yes, 坏 is usually bad/broken, and 问 is ask. However, if boys want to play tricks on girls, for example, boys ask the girls 'have you ever heard some strange noises from your parents' room?'

In this scenario, we can say the boy 坏坏地问道：“ have you ever heard some strange noises from your parents' room？”


Chinese Words that Accurately Reflect English Phonemes I'm a retired computer science professor who helps Chinese graduate students master English. The students have a good background for reading and writing scientific papers but struggle with their teaching assignments. In all fairness, we're a Southern university with students who have no experience with non-Southern accents.

This semester I'm starting a new tack, which is to use games, especially tongue twisters, to find those sounds that the students have the most trouble with. Some English phonemes are well-known to be difficult but I find different students have trouble with different combinations of phonemes.

My question/request is this. I would like to find a list of Chinese words that contain correct English phoneme sounds. For example, one of my students is struggling with the "w" sound in "wood"; she's very frustrated because her name is Wu. I discovered looking at Chinese phonemes "w" is sometimes silent which is exactly the problem she's having: she wants to say "ood" and not "wood". Ditto for "would".

My goal is to make a table with (1) the English phoneme (2) a Chinese word that contains the English phoneme and the Pinyin version (so I can read it).

Thanks in advance.

I have put together a google group with my attempt to set up my own answer. You can see is at https://groups.google.com/d/forum/cupronunce.  The basic approach is to

Find a site that had English with the IPA listed
Find a site that had IPA to Pinyin
Find a site that had Pinyin to Mandarin

We know that it's a partial function each way, so the missing links are the parts to concentrate on fixing.

Any comments gratefully accepted.

I do not think that such a list exists. If it did, Chinese-speaking learners of English would never need to struggle with the pronunciation of their new language. Let's say we have a List E, which contains all the phonemes in English (whichever variety you choose), and another List C, which contains all the phonemes in Chinese (again, whichever variety you choose). Where E and C overlap, these are the phonemes that students will not likely have problems.  It's the part of E that is outside of C that your students need to tackle, and this is precisely the part where you cannot find Chinese words that contain those phonemes. The reverse is true for English-speaking learners of Chinese, that is, they tend to struggle with the part of C that is outside E. This is also why second-language speakers tend to have accents. They are trying to find a native sound that matches the new language sound, and where none exists, they approximate as much as they can, resulting in a distinct accent.


How to translate "干妈","干爸/义父","干儿子/义子“? I need to translate these words for a rather formal circumstance(Visa interview). And I am referring to serious relationships, not just something like "sugar daddy", and I think it worths to mention that I am not talking about "养母","养父","养子".

"Godmother","Godfather" and "Godson" are the first showing up in my mind, but in China these words seem irrelevant, and I am afraid if I use these terms I would be required to provide some documentation(I guess these documentation exists in a literal "Godfather/Godson" relationship in western/catholic countries), which I don't have.

So, is there any better translation for "干妈","干儿子", etc. that can help a Visa officer understand the relationship?

P.S. I need to write an "invitation" letter to her, and I am trying to fill this blank at the very beginning: Dear ______, so descriptive terms like “close family friend” won't work. Based on everyone's answer, I guess maybe her name would be the best to be filled in. But that seems a little absurd in a Chinese environment.

The concept of 乾媽 and 乾爹 in Chinese culture is almost the same as " godmother and godfather in Western countries. To become official 乾媽 and 乾兒子, there has to be a rite or ceremony performed in front of witnesses. The relationship is formed in the name of gods, and is acceptable to everyone else.

However, in modern days, people tread the relationship of 乾媽 / 乾爹 and 乾兒子 much more casually, any close friend of the family can become an honorary mother to you just by oral agreement between the parties involved ( you and your 乾媽 or your parent and your 乾媽)

In your case, the most appropriate way to describe your 乾媽 in English, would be "close family friend". The visa officer would then understand you are not related to her, but she could be seen as a non-blood related authority figure to you.

The fact is. The visa officer just needs some probable reference from someone who can vouch for you. That person needs to be a citizen in good standing, know you and your history intimately. A " family friend" suggested just that.

  P.S. I need to write an "invitation" letter to her, and I am trying to fill this blank at the very beginning: Dear ______,

In this case, just a simple "Dear Aunt + (her first name)" would do.

If you want to be less formal, you could use "Aunty"

Just like in Chinese, "aunt" in English can be used to address a female friend of your parents, or addressing your friends' mother.

In Western culture, there's no special term for addressing one's own godmother. You don't hear people saying something like: " Hi, Godmother Sally!" (or whatever her name is) People just call their godmothers by name, or "aunt + (her first name)" presuming she is also a friend of your parents or a mother of your friend


Why Is 浜 (bīn) Used So Much In Panda Names? 浜 (bīn) seems to be a very common character in the names of pandas. For example:

爱浜
良浜
樱浜
桃浜
梅浜
永浜
雄浜

just to name a few.

Why Is 浜 (bīn) Used So Much In Panda Names?

They are not so popular in China. However, a lot of pandas are born in Japan, where they are named with the character 浜. It's probably due to the name of the Shirahama zoo (Adventure World, 白浜野生动物园, アドベンチャーワールド) where they are born.


Difference between 一般 and 一样 meaning “same” I want to know if there are any differences between 一般 and 一样 in expressing “same”?

One difference is:

一般  could mean usual, average. As an adjective, you give a description of how something is comparing with the majority i.e, "same as average" or "not average".

For example,
学霸就是学霸， 他的成绩可真不一般。 (The reputation of being the best at school, His grades are no ordinary.)

一般人的跑步速度是每小时25公里左右。(People's running speed is about 15 miles per hour)

牛顿的物理公式可以准确的描述我们一般的生活当中里的物理现象， 可是到了量子力学中， 就不行了。 (Newton's laws can accurately describe our day to day phenomena, But it would fail in quantum realm.)

一样 as an adjective is usually a description of states when comparing between two things. It is weird to use it to compare state of something with the state of the average.

一样 can sometimes mean exactly the same where as you cannot use 一般 to mean two things are exactly the same.


What's the difference between 秒钟 and 秒? Both of them seem to mean a second, according to both wiktionary and linedict.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/秒钟#Chinese

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/秒

http://ce.linedict.com/dict.html#/cnen/entry/b90b963dcf6f45cead8a742525cd059f

If we're only talking about the English word second, then 秒钟 and 秒 don't really have any difference.

Perhaps you could think of 秒 as sec, as in give me sec or I'll be there in a sec & 秒钟 as second.

If we check out MDBG's definition of 秒 we can see that it also includes other things beside a measurement for time, like:

  arc second (angular measurement unit)

and

  (coll.) instantly

Otherwise for general purposes: 秒钟 is just the lengthened form of 秒 & 秒 is just the shortened form of 秒钟.


Translation help:: How to translate 我们经常会怎么说 into English? 假如我们现在碰到有个人，觉得他实在太不争气，实在太让我们失望，我们对他又爱、又恨、又急，那么我们经常会怎么说？

We often do what/as we say?

This is from an ancient text so I'm not sure if the style of language back then is different from today's.

http://www.jxjjxx.com/web/jxjjxx_detail.php?dlmmc=%BD%CC%B9%A4%D6%AE%BC%D2&lmmc=%C8%D5%D0%C2%BD%B2%CC%B3&zlmmc=%C8%D5%D0%C2%BD%B2%CC%B3&wzid=620&lbid=322

假如我们现在碰到有个人，觉得他实在太不争气，实在太让我们失望，我们对他又爱、又恨、又急、
那么我们经常会怎么说？

I think here it means: "so then is that how we usually put it?", "so is that how it is usually said?"


How many unencoded characters still exist? I've been wondering: How many unencoded characters still exist?

I realize this is probably mostly speculation and it would be quite hard to pin down an actual number. Language Log, though, did post a blog entitled, How many more Chinese characters are needed?, in the article they write:

  This month, the Chinese government plans to introduce codes for some 3,000 Chinese characters as part of a grand project, known as the China Font Bank, to digitize 500,000 characters previously unavailable in electronic form. Until now, only 80,388 characters have been encoded in the international computing standard, Unicode.

But the comments mention a few issues with what was quoted in the NYT opinion piece. Endymion Wilkinson also broke down the five k:

  It aims to lay down a more solid basis for the study of Chinese characters by encoding about 100,000 ancient Chinese scripts characters; 300,000 kaiti forms; and 100,000 minority scripts characters to give a grand total of 500,000

Any ideas?

GlyphWiki.org contains 580’000 characters. 92’856 are encoded. You can do the math. However, it will be wrong, as most of these characters are trivial alterations of those already encoded, and thus ineligible for a separate encoding.

So, instead let’s look at the pipeline of next encodings. Extension I (officially, Working Set-2017) is being finalized right now (and can be browsed at https://hc.jsecs.org/irg/ws2017/app/) to around 5’000 characters. Among these:

PRC has hundreds to offer, many of these Zhuang;
Taiwan is almost exhausted and sends only a small number of chemical characters;
ROK has hundreds, but much smaller number, of historical characters;
Vietnam still has some Nom;
However, the UK/UTC selection of scholars is still going strong, providing, say, data from dialect dictionaries.
To say nothing of Buddhist characters.

Most importantly, ROK and Vietnam offerings are approaching conclusion, and it is unlikely there will be substantial extensions thereof. Unless some new surnames or geographical locations are discovered, Japan and Hong Kong have no more intention for encoding.

I expect the following encodings after I to be in number of thousands, not tens of thousands, and the scholarly UK/UTC extensions be the lion’s part of it.


What exact breed of animal is a 金丝熊? 金丝熊 is easily available from local animal markets in my wife's home town. We asked the owners of different stores and they say it is not a mouse.

So what exactly is it, is it just a fancy name for a mouse or something else?

Officially, it is "Mesocricetus auratus" (Golden hamster) (source1 source2). It belong to "仓鼠科", and it should a kind of "鼠类" in Chinese.

However, as not everybody is a biologist, and as the name for it is "金丝*熊*", it may not be treated as mouse in everyday life.

Another reason is that "鼠" does not carry a good meaning in Chinese. It is often related to "stealing" or something alike. So it may be avoided to name a kind pet animal. (However, we do have "仓鼠" for pets.)

btw: To be honest, I've never seen a real "金丝熊".


How do I resolve dictionary ambiguities when looking up words/phrases? More often than not, looking up a simple word in a dictionary brings up several translations. It's pretty obvious that a lot of people have problems with this since a lot of questions here are "what is the difference between X and Y". For example, looking up something like "speak" or "talk" brings up a lot of seemingly equivalent versions:

谈
论
说
讲
说话
讲话
谈论
议论
谈谈
聊聊
讲讲

However, it is obvious from this question that there are subtle differences. Is there a way to infer these differences from a standard dictionary? Or, are there any additional tools and resources that would help with something like this? I understand that we can "just ask someone", but it's not always possible or convenient, so what's the best way to make an "educated guess"?

One way I use to "resolve" those ambiguities in a pinch is by using two dictionaries - one English to Chinese and another Chinese to English.

Essentially, when looking for a Chinese word corresponding to an idea you want to express, look it up in E-Ch dictionary first, then take all the results that you think you could use, and look them up again in the Chinese to English dictionary. Usually the subtle (or not so subtle) differences in meaning become evident in Ch-E translations. This works even better if you use dictionaries that have example sentences, ideally in both languages.

This 2-dictionary trick works for any pair of languages, best if one of them is your native or near native, so try to find dictionaries in your native one. Obviously it works the better the closer the two languages are, but Chinese is quite far, linguistically, from anything spoken outside Asia.

If you want to spend more time on this little research - look the Chinese word up in various online or offline corpora of sentences. Look up or Google the combination of this word and the one you're sure about - subject/predicate, "adjective"/noun and so on and see how many results you get - the more the # the more likely you got it right.

In the end, "usage" is all about context. These methods are quick (compared to asking on forums or reading a few books in Chinese ;) ) and dirty ones for establishing what word fits the context you want to use it in.


How is 就 (jiù) used? Pimsleur's Mandarin course teaches "I'm leaving very early tomorrow morning" as:

  我明天早上很早就走 (wŏ míngtiān zăoshàng hĕn zăo jiù zŏu)

It says that 就 (jiù) doesn't have a corresponding meaning in English, but, frustratingly, that's all it says about it.

What is the role of 就 in this sentence, and how is it needed and used in a more general sense in Mandarin?

Since 就 is a construct that has many meanings, I'm only going to concentrate on your sentence.

In your sentence it will give emphasis that it is really early. You can also write:
我明天早上很早走 but this lacks the emphasis 我明天早上很早就走 has. And the latter construction will be used much more than the former.

Some similar constructions:

马上就来: to come right down
一会儿就好: I'm ready in a moment

It is used for actions (after the 就). You have the structure A就B and B will be done after A is done.

就 can be used to say that one thing comes immediately or very soon after the other. For example 我明天吃了早饭就走: Tomorrow, I will immediately leave after having eaten breakfast.

In this type of sentence you normally have a verb before the 就 and when after the 就. Although there is no verb in 我明天早上很早就走, it is actually the same kind of structure and you can understand it the same. Immediately after "早上很早" you'll leave.

The opposite of this 就 is 才 (another word with many meanings). There you emphasize that  something happened really or rather late. For example 我十一点才起床了： I only got out of bed at 11.


Difference between j, q, x sounds and z, c, s sounds? I'm struggling with some sounds in Chinese. I can't distinguish J, Q, X initials and Z, C, S initials. I feel that they are pronounced similarly.
Am I right? Can you tell me how to pronounce these initials correctly?

most of the time you don't need to distinguish them. JQX are always followed by i or ü, which never happens with ZCS. In fact, in many dialects, JQX are pronounced as ZCS. People will understand you with 0 confusion or information loss.

On the other hand, if you do wish to improve your pronunciation, try this:

ZCS are articulated between your teeth and gum. English J and Sh are pronounced more back. JQX are even more back, but before palatal consonants like y in "yes" or German ch in "China", which is why they're called alveolo-palatal.

Just try to feel the continuous spectrum, it'll be hard to step on the exact point where JQX are pronounced, but it's definitely reachable. With sufficient training you'll surely remember that location.


How to catch up with advanced group? We live in the USA. My 12 yo daughter was transferred to a private middle school for gifted children and joined Mandarin class, where students already studied for 2 years. She is trying to catch up, but apparently it is more difficult than we thought at the beginning of the academic year. While we consider hiring a private tutor to help her to catch up, I wonder if you can suggest any resources, free and paid, which would be useful to help my daughter - websites, books, language learning packages, etc. Is there any good course on Coursera you can recommend? Is Anki convenient for learning Chinese words? Is Rosetta Stone good, in your opinion? Or is http://www.chineasy.com/ would be good for this purpose? Any ideas will be highly appreciated.

try "http://www.wannalearn.com/" search "chinese"

"http://www.openculture.com/freelanguagelessons" scroll down to "chinese" section

"https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Main_Page"


Intonation and stress for Chinese pronunciation The new book 汉语国际教育用词语声调组合及轻重音格式实用手册 ("A Practical Manual of Tone Patterns and Formats of Stressed and Unstressed Syllables in Mandarin Words for the Application of Teaching Chinese to the Speakers of Other Languages") apparently discusses this, according to this answer by Becky:

学习汉语语音只把音节（声母、韵母和声调）发准是不够的，在语流交际中，按照汉语声调连读模式和轻重音格式发出的音才是地道的发音，才有标准汉语的味道。
To learn Chinese phonetics, it is not enough to pronounce the syllables (consonants, vowels, and tones) correctly. In language-flow (?) communication, authentic pronunciation with the flavor of standard Chinese requires following the pattern of Chinese intonation and stress.

This is the first time that I've heard any attention given to intonation and stress in Chinese. What guidelines are there on proper intonation and stress? Of course, the neutral tone is often less stressed or shorter. Aside from that, Wikipedia's Standard Chinese phonology article doesn't seem to say anything definitive. Wikipedia's Intonation article says:

In the Beijing dialect, they are intentionally distinguished for the average speaker as follows, using a pitch scale from 1 (lowest) to 9 (highest):

Declarative sentences go from pitch level 3 to 5 and then down to 2 and 1.
A-not-A questions go from 6 to 9 to 2 to 1.
Yes–no ma questions go from 6 to 9 to 4 to 5.
Unmarked questions go from 6 to 9 to 4 to 6.

I'm not exactly sure what kind of intonation pattern Wikipedia has in mind here – audio examples might be helpful. Besides that, what other intonation patterns are good to know?

(I'm a native Chinese user.)
Any language has its own pattern of intonation and stress variations over a single sentence or many sentences - this is not exclusive to Chinese. Think about English for example (or any other language you know). I don't think such intonation and stress variations (except for the tones of each Chinese character) should be learned by learning the rules that these variations satisfy (in various contexts), because I think it is incredibly unnatural and inefficient for people to remember these rules, and that these rules are in fact very difficult for people to follow. I think it is [very misleading] to suggest to anyone that they learn these variations through remembering and following such rules, unless the person somehow doesn't have the resources which would allow them to listen to properly spoken Chinese.
My suggestion is, ignore these rules and simply listen to native users (who speak Chinese well - not all of them do in fact) speak and imitate them. The way you learn such intonation and stress variations in Chinese should not be different in any notable way from how you learn such variations in any other language, e.g. English.


What does 我就立刻知道他准是对儿媳干了偷鸡摸狗的勾当 mean? (from 活着, p.3) I'm having trouble understanding this:

  他手指挖着裤管上的泥巴，愤怒地告诉我是他那不孝的儿子，当我再问为何打他时，他支支吾吾说不清楚了，我就立刻知道他准是对儿媳干了偷鸡摸狗的勾当。
  活着, p.3

My translation is:

  [With] his finger picking trouser-leg mud, [he] angrily told me that it was his unfilial son, [but] when I next asked him why hit him, he hummed-and-hawed [and] spoke unclearly; I immediately knew he (准是对 ???) [his] daughter-in-law work (?) [in] stealthy, shady business.

Question: What does 我就立刻知道他准是对儿媳干了偷鸡摸狗的勾当 mean?

It seems like 准 means allow, but I don't know why 是 nor 对 is used here.  It's possible 干 may mean "to have sex" here.

我就立刻知道他准是对儿媳干了偷鸡摸狗的勾当.

准 means surely;definitely.

是 is used as an adverb:

  （重读， 表示坚决肯定， 含有“的确、实在”的意思）

E.g. 他是不知道 // He certainly doesn't know.

对 is a preposition, meaning to. E.g. 你对我做了什么 // What have you done to me.

干 means 做(do).

Over all, the sentence roughly means:

   I immediately knew he surely had done some stealthy, shady business to his daughter-in-law.

P.S. As you suspect, the sentence might invoke some sexual affairs.


Is “就快下雨了” correct Mandarin? I've been watching Peppa Pig to improve my Mandarin, but here at 1:59, the mama pig says  “就快下雨了”  meaning to say that it will rain soon. However I thought that the phrase "就快" was Cantonese only, and that you generally use something like "很快" in mandarin. Is the above sentence correct Mandarin?

Yes, 就快下雨了 is idiomatic in Mandarin.  The similar variations are: 快要下雨了，快下雨了，就要下雨了，天就快下雨了，天快下雨了，天要下雨了，etc.


Does Taiwanese accent pronounce 他 as hā or am I hearing the end of tā? Watching A Sun (Taiwanese drama, available on Netflix) it sounds to me like the characters are saying 他 as hā. This seems to be true even when people aren't speaking particularly quickly. Am I hearing a regional pronunciation, or is that just the end of tā without the plosive (plosive is the very first part of the T sound where the air stops)?

No, the pronunciation of 他 can be written as ㄊㄚ in Zhuyin. And ㄊ is plosive pronunciation. So the answer is no.


What does 任一牌 mean in Chinese "Magic: The Gathering" cards? I thought magic cards would be a fun source of study material for me, but I've hit a bit that confuses me. (From this card)
每当任一牌手施放瞬间或法术咒语时，你抓一张牌。
I already know from the English translation that it's trying to say "Whenever a player casts an instant or sorcery spell, you draw a card."
Most of it I can breakdown with the use of a dictionary.

每当...时 -> Whenever ...
手施放 -> I think this is "casts" since it is literally "hand discharges"
瞬间或法术咒语 -> "instant or sorcery" (two card types in Magic)
你抓一张牌 -> You draw a card. Pretty straightforward.

I do not quite get 任一牌. From what I know needs to be said to match the English rules this part presumably means "any player" or more likely "any card". I'm pretty sure 牌 is card, but if this means "any one card" why doesn't it use the measure word 张 as it does when saying "draw a card"?
I'm also surprised I don't see any mention to "a player" to avoid any weird rules lawyering, but maybe it's not actually important.

The confusion you had is on 任一牌，however, is is actually 任一牌手，where 手 means the person that is doing something with 牌。This is a common use in Chinese and specifically for your case, 牌手 means player, namely the person who is playing the cards.
Therefore the verb following it would be 施放 instead of 手施放，which would eventually mean discharge.
There are other examples like

水手 means sailor
刽子手 means executioner
围棋圣手 means the person who is really good at GO
赛车手 means racer
骑手 means bike rider


Would "mutual acquaintance" in Mandarin be 共同朋友 or 相識朋友? Which would be the more authentic Mandarin translation for "mutual acquaintance":

1) 共同朋友
2) 相識朋友?

Is it the same for Cantonese?

Chinese denotes the concept("mutual acquaintance") differently. These are the idiomatic sentences in mandarin:

  我们两个都认识他 // both of us have an acquaintance with him. Or he is a mutual acquaintance of ours.

  张三和李四都和我相识 // both 张三 and 李四 have an acquaintance with me.

  张三和李四都认识王五 // both 张三 and 李四 have an acquaintance with 王五.

However, when it comes to the term "mutual friend", you can put 共同的朋友. For example,

  张三是我们共同的朋友 // 张三 is a mutual friend of ours.


Is 有方 an abbreviation of 有方法？ I hadn't heard 有方 before. I was surprised to find it means 'competent'.

A basic meaning of '方' is 'square'.

Is this '方' actually 方法，方式？ Could I change '方' for '方式' in '他领导有方'?

Yes 方 means 方法 (method) here, and 有方 means (do something) with the proper method/in the right way, i.e. competent.

  [with the proper method]∶得法
  领导有方


Is it possible to 结交朋友？ This little text is talking about the importance of 人脉关系. If you want to be successful, you should make a lot of friends.

(in brackets added by me, not in the original text)

（如果你）多结交能认同你的做法、想法和才华的朋友，他们一定会为你带来好运。

I often wonder about the scope of 的 when it is used to indicate a preceding descriptive phrase.

I think the adjectival phrase for 朋友 is [能认同你的做法、想法和才华]. I don't think 结交 comes under the scope of the second 的。

Take away the adjective and we have '多结交朋友‘ 'make friends with a lot of friends' which seems a bit contradictory. If they are friends, there is no need to make friends with them. If they are not friends, then they are just 人。

Is the Chinese text ok?

This Chinese text is ok.

◎ 结交 jiéjiāo
[take up with] 与人交际往来,联络友谊

Basically, 结交 means get close to someone, contact and communicate to improve the relationship. Becoming friends is just the result of 结交.
In another way, 结交 is not just making friends. In the following sentence it's hard to say 结交朋友 for me.

清 纪昀 《阅微草堂笔记·滦阳消夏录四》：“实则布散徒党，结交婢媪，代为刺探隐事，以售其欺。”
茅盾 《昙》二：“父亲是早已想利用她来结交权贵，姨太太又乘机构煽，他们都顶着礼教的大帽子来坑害她。”


What does "GHTJK" stand for in this part of a Wiktionary: entry: "...composition ⿸丆卜(GHTJK) or ⿻丆" I generally understand the Ideographic Description Characters (IDSes) and the Ideographic Description Sequences,for CJK strokes and components but the abbreviation  GHTJK in this entry and GHTK in others has me baffled:
"Han character
不 (radical 1, 一+3, 4 strokes, cangjie input 一火 (MF), four-corner 10900, composition ⿸丆卜(GHTJK) or ⿻丆..."
Source

They're one-letter abbreviations for different standards, because some characters appear differently in different standards. From https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Template:Han_char#Notes:

G = the PRC and Singapore standard (referring to Table of General Standard Chinese Characters 通用規範漢字表);
H = Hong Kong, referring to List of Graphemes of Commonly-Used Chinese Characters 常用字字形表;
T = Taiwan, referring to Standard Form of National Characters 國字標準字體;
J = Japan, referring to Jōyō kanji 常用漢字;
K = South Korea, which I think refers to Basic Hanja for educational use 漢文敎育用基礎漢字
V = Vietnam (I'm not sure which standard this is referring to though)

The presence of a letter indicates that the given IDS is true for the corresponding standard; GHTJK means the given IDS is true for PRC & Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea.


Chinese Teapot inscription I am trying to find out more about this teapot, near the bottom there is an inscription in what looks like chinese. Thank you for the help.

It's "鉄鋳". It means "It's made of metal."  鉄 means metal.

They are another kind of (simplified) traditional Chinese characters(铁铸). some people may say they are Japanese kanji, but you know kanji(汉字) are from China.

Chinese characters have different shape in different period, in different area, such as Hongkong and Taiwan.


Poetry that deals with wanting to be rescued? I'm looking for some, mainstream, poetry that deals with wanting to be rescued.

China Baike gave me:

黄鹤洞中仙 继重阳韵

  拯救扶风活。逗引扶风耍。故遣扶风颠更狂。扶风马。家累扶风舍。业火扶风洒。云鹤扶风跨。这个扶风灵更灵，扶风马。真称扶风也。

蓦山溪

  观公形貌，俊爽偏清秀。慷慨又雄豪，你肯把、清闲拯救。只知名利，前路做荣华，论文章，说佳吉，衣紫金章绶。肯来随我，闻早植休咎。切虑逐波流，但肯还、迷情恋酒。稍知玄妙，略得悟逍遥，明月里，弄清风，蓬岛同携手。

清心镜 寄四舍弟马运甫

  与人和，休打斗。慎勿迷迷，博弈饮酒。暗风病、谑杀傍人，疾些儿拯救。要病除，须拂袖。物外持修，亘初清秀。更有般、真个长安，待来

and

题景范堂

  曾子才高呈事能，就中一事最堪黎明。
  前贤拯救苍生，赖有斯人解服膺。

I don't necessarily feel that these are good examples of wanting to be rescued, nor very mainstream.

Any pointers?

There are few examples I can think of that exactly match your request of wanting (the poet himself) to be rescued. I think the reason here is the Chinese culture, in which people usually express their personal hopes in a more euphemistic way.

Here I think of a few related example that may be closest to your need:

《茅屋为秋风所破歌》 by 杜甫. In the poem, he described his poor status and he want to rescue all the poors in the world -- this kind of universal love makes it a well-known poem. The most famous segments:

  安得广厦千万间，大庇天下寒士俱欢颜，风雨不动安如山。

《虞美人》 by 李煜, who is the last emperor of the Nan Tang dynasty. He wrote a lot of sad poems since his country is going to fall. His sadness mixed with his hope of returning to the old days.

  小楼昨夜又东风，故国不堪回首月明中。

《满江红》 by 岳飞. The poem express the feeling of the General Yue Fei, who wants to save his country (Nan Song) from being defeated by alien empire Jin.

  靖康耻，犹未雪。臣子恨，何时灭。驾长车，踏破贺兰山缺。


什么都没有 和 没有什么 difference Good day everyone, pls help me to confirm that there are quite a difference between these two sentences like
我跟那件事一点关系也没有。
我跟那件事没有什么关系。
Which supposed to be translated as “I have nothing to do with that”.
The same question with these two sentences:
我什么城市也不想去 and 我哪个城市也不想去。
I don't want to go to any city.
Which one is correct.
Thx in advance for your help.

The first (我跟那件事一点关系也没有) is supposed to translate into “I have nothing to do with that.”
The second one (我跟那件事没有什么关系) should be translated into "I don't have much to do with that."


如果 synonyms for semi-formal written I can see from this post that in speaking 要是 is a good alternative.
However I am preparing for the 80 hanzi text required in HSK 5 and I feel like regardless of topic, I am over-using 如果.
My current candidates as synonyms to be used are:
假如 -- seems right
是否 -- seems to require a second clause after 是否你吃不吃.. then something else.
But are there multiple cases where these couldn't be used as a synonym for 如果?

There are way more synonyms in Chinese than listed. They are in most cases interchangeable depending on your desired degree of formality:

Explanation

如, 若
Originates from classical Chinese; formal. As in 如有垂詢 (should there be any enquiries)

假如, 倘如*
Can be either spoken or written.

假若, 倘若*
Fairly written.

假使, 倘使*
Fairly written.

如果, 若果
Can be either spoken or written.

要是, 若是
Contains the morpheme 'if' and the copula. Can mean 如果 or 如果是†.

～的話
Fairly spoken. Added immediately after the hypothetical statement.

假設
Meaning inclines to 'assuming that...' rather than 'if'.

* In general, 倘 is a written expression, more so than 假.
† If the original sentence already requires 是, e.g. 是我 (lit. is me), 是真的 (lit. is true), then 要是 means 如果是, as in 要是我 (if it were me), 要是真的 (if it were true). On the contrary, if the original sentence does not require 是, e.g. 你死了 (lit. you are dead), then 要是 means 如果, as in 要是你死了 (if you become dead).
Sometimes, for readability, it may be necessary to add coupling words 那, (那)就, or (那)便 before the result of the hypothetical statement:

如果你不服從上司，你便會被解僱。 lit. If you do not obey your boss, you will be fired.
假如時光可以倒流，那會多好！If only I could rewind time (, how great would that be)!

In English, 'if' can either mark a hypothetical statement, or a choice (as in 'whether'). Chinese however, makes a clear distinction between the two. That is to say, 是否 is not synonymous with 如果.

你看他是否睡著了？ See if (=whether) he is asleep.
如果他睡著了，別弄醒他。If he is asleep, don't wake him.


what's the difference between 羡慕 and 妒忌？ Can someone tell me the difference between these to words. Are they both regularly used?

They seem to both indicate jealousy. I've seen 羡慕 on different occasions and I'm used to that one, but I've come across 妒忌 a couple of times lately and wanted to know if they were interchangeable.

羡慕 is a good kind of envy.

"You have a happy marriage. I'm really envy at you and I hope you can be happy forever" This is 羡慕.

妒忌 is a bad kind of jealousy.

"You have a happy marriage. You don't deserve it! I should be happier than you!" This is 妒忌.


How are new words added to the Chinese language? I'm always curious to know, as the world develops and new words come into existence, how are they adopted by the Chinese language?

Is there some sort of government body that decides these sort of things, or is it just based on popular usage?

One example would be 'internet' - did someone just decide that 网 would just be related to anything connected by a network, or is there someone somewhere who makes decisions about this?

What happens when more new terms/ideas are developed, and they need a name in Chinese?

I hope this question isn't too open ended, I'm just really curious to know how new words are added.

For English technical term that does not yet have a translation in Chinese, maybe the first translation that got popular would be accepted.

The translation is done by the person who need to use the translation. Sometimes the original English term or explanation with be also noted before the term is generally accepted. Terms are usually translated by the meaning of the word if possible.

For Internet, in the translation process, the "net" part is translated into "网", and the "inter" part into "因特" (by sound). There is also another translation "互联网" in which no part is translated by sound.

There may be various translations for one term. So there is an official department (China National Committee for Terms in Sciences and Technologies) that will pick one (or make up one) as the official translation. But even the official translation may vary depending on the research area. Take "Internet" as an example, the committee gives the following translation in different areas:

术语        中/英文名     学科            子学科
Internet    因特网      计算机科学技术   网络与数据通信
internet    互联网      通信科技       通信网络
Internet    因特网      通信科技       通信网络
Internet    因特网      资源科技       资源信息学
internet    互联网[络]  计算机科学技术  计算机总论

And I think this kind of official translation is only recommended, but not mandatory.


Difference between 别人 and 人家 Looking on Commercial Press' 现代汉语词典 we have the following definitions:

别人 - 人称代词。指自己或某人以外的人：~都同意，就你一人反对

人家 - 人称代词。指自己或某人以外的人;别人：~都不怕，就你怕

So, they are pretty much the same. Are there any subtleties between them?

Thanks in advance!

别人 means others, 人家 can mean others or "I/me".

别人 always means other people, that is to be used to refer to people that's not part of the current context.

人家 could mean the same thing. The difference is that 人家 could be used to denote a specific group of other people, i.e. "THE others" or simply "They/He/She", or even "it", which 别人 is mostly used to denote unspecific general others.

And, in some settings 人家 could be used to denote "I/me". This is more commonly used by females or children, often to increase the level of feminine or cuteness when trying to make a requests or complaints. And in some regions the latter usage could be quite common.

人家 could also be used sarcastically to refer to people who you think are pretentious by implying they think they are so cute and nice that they would call themselves 人家 but they are not actually that nice or cute.

In the two sample sentences, "人家" and "别人" could be used interchangeably.

人家都同意，就你一人反对
It could mean "They all agrees, you are the only one doesn't" in the context that a group of people negotiating something and "you" are the only one that has a problem.

It could also mean "Everyone WOULD agree, you are the only one doesn't" in this context 人家 means people other than you, but not necessarily real people who are involved.

And you can use 别人 to archive same effect.