Is it possible to type traditional characters with a pinyin IME in Windows 7? I am now used to typing Chinese using a pinyin IME from my time in mainland China.

But as far as I know the pinyin IMEs usually generate simplified characters. I'm now in Taiwan and having trouble learning the ways they type here so I'm wondering if there's a way to type in pinyin but generate traditional characters?

I'm using Windows 7 and would prefer to use one of the IMEs included with it. But if none of them will do it then an answer involving downloading another IME would also be OK.

Here's one way to do it which I figured out starting from some tips thanks to user2619 in the comments:

Right click on the keyboard/IME icon in the system tray.
Select "Settings" from the popup menu.
The "Text Services and Input Languages" dialog will appear. Use the "General" tab.
Under "Installed services" click on "Add...".
Find the section "Chinese (Traditional, Taiwan).
Select "Chinese (Traditional) - New Phonetic". Click "OK".
Left click on the keyboard/IME icon in the system tray. Select "Chinese (Traditional, Taiwan)".
Click on the "Tool Menu" icon in the IME's system tray icon. It's the 4th icon to the right of the CH icon.
Select the "Properties" menu item. Then the "Keyboard" tab.
In the section labelled "Choose your preferred keyboard layout", choose "HanYu Pinyin" from the dropdown list.

Now if you are used to the Pinyin IME for simplified Chinese in the PRC the way to select characters is totally different. I haven't figured out that part yet ...


在 before or after the verb Hello i have a doubt about where  在 has to be?

I have two references listed below about our matter. The first one talks about movement or location and the second about movement with displacement for the 在 to be after the verb. That second one I think is better.

For example verbs like  睡觉，站，坐，can have 在 after the verb. No movement is involved. like 弟弟不肯睡在房车里。 what about the 觉
。 why is it missing in this sentence? What about verbs like 想，考虑。where would you put the  在。 For example.  I was under the tree thinking about the future.  I am not moving can I say  我在想在树下面。 would be right or not?  And I have another doubt. It says in the firs reference from wiki
我 学习 在 图书馆。Wǒ xuéxí zài túshūguǎn. is incorrect. but 学习 does not imply movement so I am a bit confused.

Could you solve my doubts and make it clear for me? thanks.

from wiki.

This pattern is used regularly with special types of verbs, including: 住 (zhù), 放 (fàng), 坐 (zuò), and 站
(zhàn). These are verbs that imply movement or location. Technically, the structure is called a location
complement, but it can be understood without going into that much detail. Just remember that for verbs
implying movement or location like the ones above, the default sentence order changes and you get this
structure:
Subj. + [Special Verb] + 在 + Location
Examples
你 住 在 上海吗?Nǐ zhù zài Shànghǎi ma? Do you live in Shanghai?
他 坐 在 老板 的 旁边。Tā zuò zài lǎobǎn de pángbiān.He sits next to the boss.
你 应该 站 在 我 后面。Nǐ yīnggāi zhàn zài wǒ hòumiàn.You should stand behind me.
不要 坐 在我 的 床 上。Bùyào zuò zài wǒ de chuáng shàng.Don't sit on my bed.
你 的 衣服 不 可以 放 在 这里。Nǐ de yīfu bù kěyǐ fàng zài zhèlǐ.You can't put your clothes
here.
不要 站 在 路 中间。Bùyào zhàn zài lù zhōngjiān.Don't stand in the middle of the road.
不要 坐 在 地 上。Bùyào zuò zài dì shàng.Don't sit on the ground.
那 本 书 我 放 在 桌子 上 了。Nà běn shū wǒ fàng zài zhuōzi shàng le.I placed that book on
the table.
不要 走 在 草地 上。Búyào zǒu zài cǎodì shàng.Don't walk on the grass.
周末 我 不 想 待 在 家 里。Zhōumò wǒ bù xiǎng dāi zài jiā lǐ.I don't want to stay at home on
weekends.
Remember that this is an exception to the normal rule. A common mistake is to over apply this and produce
incorrect sentences. Note the incorrect and correct versions below.
我 工作 在 上海。Wǒ gōngzuò zài Shànghǎi.
我 在 上海工作。Wǒ zài Shànghǎi gōngzuò.I work in Shanghai.
我 学习 在 图书馆。Wǒ xuéxí zài túshūguǎn.
我 在 图书馆 学习。Wǒ zài túshūguǎn

from a book

6.2 Dynamic and static differences A noticeable semantic dimension that
affects the use of action verbs in Chinese is the difference between
dynamic and static verbs. A dynamic action verb implies that the action
travels across a certain space, whereas a static action verb does not. This
can be clearly illustrated by the difference between ‘walk’ and ‘stand’:
when one walks, one moves from one location to another, whereas when
one stands, one either stays in one place or changes from a sitting position
to a standing position and no change of location is involved.
The dynamic or static nature of an action verb will decide whether a
location phrase associated with it precedes or follows it. A dynamic action
verb will have location phrases preceding it, whereas a static action verb
may have a location phrase either preceding it or following it. For
example:
他 在 公 园 里 散 步。 tā zài gōngyuán li sànbù He is having a walk in the
park.
*他 散 步 在 公 园 里。 *tā sànbù zài gōngyuán li He is having a walk in
the park.
他 在 草 地 上 坐 着。 Nota 4. tā zài càodì shàng zuò zhe He is sitting on
the grass.
他 坐 在 草 地 上。 tā zuò zài càodì shàng He is sitting on the grass.
Nota 4 The addition of the particle 着 zhe to the verb changes it from
narrative mode to descriptive mode. This will be discussed in

"在" has at least two functions.

First "在" can be used to imply something is happening, for example, "我在学习(I am studying)", and in this case it comes before the verb. The verb doesn't have to be about physical movement.

Second you can use 在 as a preposition, implying the place where something happened/is happening/will be happening. For example, "我现在住在上海(I live in Shanghai now)". In this case it comes after the verb.

"睡觉在" is strange for a native Mandarin speaker. We would just say "睡在".
"我在想在树下面" is also weird. The correct translation for "I am thinking under tree" is "我在树下面想".


How to say "backup (option)"? In day to day conversation, I frequently use the word "backup" to refer to a dependable but perhaps slightly less desirable option.  For example,

  When applying to college, you should apply to 10 dream schools and 10 backup schools

or

  I know this is not your first choice, but it is a good backup.

How can I translate the word "backup" used in this context?

Someone once told me that 保底 has this meaning. Is that correct?

後備(reserve/backup) - opposite of 先發(starting) / 正選(primary)

副選/次選 (secondary option/ secondary selection) opposite of 首選 (first choice/ first option) or 正選 (primary)

e.g.

北京大學是我的首選, 天津大學是後備 (Peking University is my first choice, Tianjin University is the backup)
北京大學是我的首選, 天津大學是我副選/ 次選 (Peking University is my first choice, Tianjin University is my secondary option)
先發球員 (starter)- 後備球員 (bench player)
正選球員 (starter)- 副選球員 (second string player)


一趟 vs 一次、is there any difference? Under the entry 趟 my dictionary says:

  For round trip
  For single train trip

Does this mean, when I see this word I must assume the speaker  went back and forth, except when he went by train, where I must assume a single trip?

This startles me very much, since knowledge of the means of transportation would be required, in order to correctly interpret the sentence!

Does 趟 imply that the speaker is now away from the place in question? So, does:

  我去過北京兩趟。

mean I am not in Beijing? Is this a difference between 趟 and 次？

My English is not good. This answer translated by Google Translate.

Nowadays these two words are mixed and there is no serious mistake. But here are some explanations.

趟

趟 is generally used for round trips in a specified time. Example:

  我今天去了兩趟超市。

  I went to the supermarket twice today

I went and came back twice. Now I'm home.

次

次 emphasizes number of travels and your experience from the trip. Example:

  我去過两次北京。

  I went to Beijing twice.

I just want to tell you that I have that trip.


What is the grammatical function of 當 and 自 in 爾男子，當自警 ? Two lines from 三字經 are 爾男子，當自警.

I understand 爾男子 as "you boys" as if asking for attention by adressing them.
警 is to warn or to guard or being in a state of attentive observation.
Now as for 當 and 自 I am very unsure,
what is their function in this sentence , how  would you explain their grammatical roles in terms of English grammar (adverbs, particles,sth. else ? )

If,

當 = should / must

自警 = self-discipline

What do you think their grammatical roles are?


What is the meaning of 真是的 What is a meaning of 真是的. I heard for many times in context something like 你真是的！ And yet I have doubts about proper meaning of this expression.

It's an interjection, which means its translation relies very much on the context it's in.

In general, it's an exclamation of disbelief or disagreement on what follows the phrase.

Examples:

你真是的， 怎么没穿鞋就跑出来了？ (Come on! You ran out without any shoes on?)

你也真是的，　这么早就把我吵醒了.　(Seriously? Waking me up this early?)

真是的,　他到现在还没来.　(He's not here yet. Hopeless!)


Why do some Chinese characters for animals not use the radical 犭? why some Chinese words don't use the rule of prefix?

Some Chinese characters are pictographs. For instance 牛 and 羊 come from pictographs of animals.

By contrast, many other Chinese characters are composites of a "meaning part" and a "sound part". 狗, 猪, 猴 have as meaning part an alteration of 犬 "dog" and sound parts 句 (compare 够), 者 （compare 煮, 著, 诸), 候 respectively. 鸡 has meaning part 鸟 “bird”. The left hand side, 又, is an elision of the sound part 奚 (pronounced xi1).

There is no rule that all characters must have both a sound part and a meaning part. Many besides 牛 and 羊 do not.

However some characters originated in a way similar to your suggestions. For instance 萬 is from a pictograph of a scorpion. At some point a scribe added the common meaning part 虫 "bug", yielding the character 蠆 "scorpion". This was probably more as a disambiguation than out of any desire that all bugs have 虫 in their character for the sake of consistency.


Is 壁橱 (as opposed to 衣柜) only a colloquial word for "closet"? I apologize if this is very elementary: I've never heard of closet referred to as 壁橱， only as 衣柜， but the direct translation doesn't seem appropriate. I've also heard 衣柜 used to reference cupboard as well. Is this for colloquial reasons?

壁橱 can refer to a small closet, a wardrobe embedded in a wall, a cupboard hanging on a wall, a chest placed against a wall or something else. As the characters go (壁=wall, 橱=case), it can be a container for anything not limited to clothes. Note, as an imported concept, 'walk-in closet' is not translated into 壁橱 but something along the line of 储衣间 (clothes storage room) or 更衣室 (dressing room).

衣柜 (衣=clothes, 柜=cabinet) means a wardrobe, either built-in in the wall or a standalone piece of furniture. A general-purpose cupboard should never be called 衣柜.

In Chinese, the distinction between built-in in the wall vs. standalone furniture is not made by first-class words or affixes. Both 壁橱 and 衣柜 can refer to either a closet or something else.

For the similarities/differences between 橱 and 柜, please refer to @Question Overflow's answer here.


Is it 在桌子上面 or 在桌子的上面? A Google search of both exact phrases turns up both:

在桌子上面
在桌子的上面

There are about 10x more without the 的.

Do they mean the same thing?

"的" is a possessive marker like ('s) in English.

"桌子的" = (table's) e.g "桌子的顏色" (the color of the table), in which, the noun "桌子" possess the noun "顏色"

"在 ~ 上面" (on/ on top of/ above) is a preposition. The phrase "在(桌子)上面" (noun + preposition), doesn't require the possessive marker "的" because there is no noun to be possessed.

"在桌子的上面" (on the surface of the table) [preposition + noun + possessive marker + noun] 上面 here is a noun that means  'surface/ top'
"在桌子上面" (on the table) [noun + preposition] 上面 here is a preposition means 'above'
"在桌子上" (on the table) [ noun + preposition]
"在桌上" (on the table) [ noun + preposition]
Example of difference between with or without 的:

書(在)桌子(上面) = the book is (on) the table
書在桌子(的)上面 = the book is on the table('s) surface/top (noun)
In the first sentence, "在 ~ 上面"(on top of) is the preposition; in the second sentence, "在" (on/ at) is the only preposition, while "上面" is a noun that the noun "桌子" possessed

Usage of 的 as an 'adjective marker'

"桌子上的書" (the book on the table)

"桌子上"(on the table) is a noun + preposition

的 here functions as an 'adjective marker' that turns "桌子上" into an 'adjectival phrase': "桌子上的" which describes the noun "書" (the book that's on the table)


What does `只` mean in `他有四本书，可是我只有三本`? In the following sentence:

他有四本书，可是我只有三本。

, what does the 只 mean?

I think the sentence reads He has four books, but I have three.

I also read the sentence like 我只需要一个叉子, though I cannot get what 只 works for in the sentence.

Note that when I looked up 只 in my dictionary, it says the following:

classifier for birds and certain animals, one of a pair, some utensils, vessels etc

So I don't get what it means. What does it function for?

In Simplified Chinese, 只 is polyphonic. In the sentence, 只 means only, pronounced zhǐ. The meaning you cited corresponds to another pronunciation, zhī, of the character.


What is the difference between 把 吧 and 巴? What's the difference between these three and when to use them?

把 is a structural particle.  There are many articles on here and the internet to further understand..it covers too broad a scope for me to answer here.

吧 is usually a modal particle, and comes at the end of a sentence, usually indicating a polite suggestion.  It also is a loan word, which means a word borrowed from English to phonetically represent it's English equivalent.  It is the Chinese loan word for bar.  Another example of this is 沙发 which means sofa, and also can be used to describe the first person who responds to an online post.

巴? According to mdbg.net,
to long for / to wish / to cling to / to stick to / sth that sticks / close to / next to / spread open / informal abbr. for bus 巴士 / bar (unit of pressure) / nominalizing suffix on certain nouns, such as 尾巴, tail

Ba state during Zhou dynasty (in east of modern Sichuan) / abbr. for east Sichuan or Chongqing / surname Ba / abbr. for Palestine or Palestinian / abbr. for Pakistan


Traditional: 舍命 vs. 捨命? There seems to be some confusion between traditional 舍 and 捨. Here is an idea of 舍命不舍財 vs 捨命不捨財, etc.:

Two without the 扌.

NTDTV

  所以採取了「舍命不舍財」的做法

UDN

  除了少數舍命不舍財的腦殘之外

Two with 扌on both:

PTS

  習近平這種捨命不捨財的做法

Epoch

  有報導表示這種「捨命不捨財」的做法凸顯了中國經濟受到了嚴重影響

A mix of 扌on and off:

Some blog

  都什麼時候了，還捨命不舍財，請一個護工啊

Looking through my digital version of《汉语大词典》there seems to be quite a lot of inconsistency with whether 舍 should have its 扌or not. Some entries are written example sentences that include: 舍命 and others with: 捨命.

I can't see how, technically, it wouldn't be anything other than 捨命 and 捨財, in traditional.

Ideas?

Some general principles:

In early Chinese writing, there weren't enough characters to represent the range of words or morphemes used across the language;
Many characters became used for multiple purposes, and some of these purposes are not etymologically related to the original (phonetic loans);
Since multi-use (including phonetic loan) characters can become very confusing to read, components are piled on to existing characters to distinguish between different senses;
This is why Chinese writing has a large inventory of characters, some of them with many components.

The natural development of Chinese writing is therefore from:

A limited number of characters with simple shapes / few components, to
A large number of characters with complex shapes / many components.

In addition, since Chinese writing has a very well-recorded history, many words come from old literature but survive in modern expressions, and their spelling frequently become fossilised, regardless of whether the characters making up those words have changed (became more complex through the addition of more components).

With the above principles, we should be able to see that this question is in fact the same question as Why 纹 is the wrong character to write for tattoo?.

西周金夨令方尊集成6016

「舍」 is comprised of phonetic 「余」 (Baxter-Sagart OC: /*la/) and a distinguishing mark 「口」, indicating the original meaning to give/donate something, extended to to give something up / abandon something.

  《易・比》：“舍逆取順，失前禽也。”

The original meaning, to give/donate something, is now written as 「予」 (/*laʔ/), which is a phonetic loan character;
The extended meaning, to give something up / abandon something, is now written as 「捨」 (/*l̥Aʔ/), formed by piling on semantic 「手・扌」.

「舍」 itself does not mean either of those things in modern Traditional Chinese, being (almost) exclusively used as a phonetic loan character for the meaning dwelling (/*[l̥]Ak-s/). However, modern spelling standards are pretty arbitrary, and you're unlikely to find that most people stick to them rigidly.


Where do I put adverbial expressions and other phrases in a sentence? I know Chinese use the sequence S O V. I also know place follows time, for instance in these ways: t(ime), p(lace)

S tp V O
tp S V O
t S p V O

Where do I put further phrases, like adverbial expressions in a Chinese sentence?

adverbial adjuncts (状语) always premodify the predicate which can be a verb, adjective or other predicate. These have to be distinguished from complements (补语）。The latter always postmodify the predicate (verb or adjective) .

quote from 外国人实用汉语语法（ISBN ７－８００５２－０６７－６）第无节 状语 （Adverbial Adjuncts）
一，什么叫状语（Definition）

在动词谓语前边的状语 （adverbial adjuncts premodifying the verb predicate：状语－－－中心语（动词谓语）

Adverbial adjunct ＋ modified word （verb predicate）
他 昨 天 参加了一个招待会。

我们 那 边 看看。

他 很 关心大家的健康。

我 只 有一本汉语语法书。etc。

在形容词谓语前边的状语：
（Adverbial adjuncts premodifying adjective predicate）：
状语－－－中心语（形容词谓语）

adverbial adjunct ＋ head word （adjective predicate）

他 非 常 谨慎。

他对人 很 热情。

他说话的声音 不 大。

在其他谓语前边的状语 （adverbial adjuncts premodifying other types of predicates）：

他 已 经 二十八岁了。

今天大概十七号。

二，状语的语法特点（Grammatical features）

（一）状语一定要在中心语前边 （The adverbial adjunct always precedes the head word）

（三）状语后边常带结构助词＂地（de）＂（The structural particle 地 is often attached to the adverbial adjunct）


Help with translating a traditional Chinese calligraphy inscription I got a vase with this inscription that I would like some help with translating. I believe it might have been made in the winter year of 1921 (?), but not much else. Is it perhaps possible to find an artists signature? Any help is appreciated.

I think it writes 辛酉冬月志良竹翁先生雅玩王枕遐敬赠, which means in the 11th month of 辛酉 year (1981, 1921, 1861, etc) in lunar calendar, 王枕遐 gave this gift to 志良竹翁先生.


栅 pronunciation - zhà vs. shān As far as I know, the normal pronunciation of 栅 as in 栅栏 is zhà, but there is another pronunciation shān listed in dictionaries. Are both pronunciations in common use?

The pronunciation shān is only really used in certain compound words:

光栅/光柵, a diffraction grating used in optics.
栅极/柵極, the grid of a vacuum tube or the gate of a transistor.

The Taiwan standard uses zhà for both even in this context.

Apparently, it also has another pronunciation, cè, for certain placenames in Zhongshan, Guangdong.


How to say "to found"? I've been struggling for a while with how exactly in Chinese to say "to found". Recently, I learned that 创办 could have that meaning? (I.e. 北大是1898年创办的）  - but, I also know that words like 创始 also could mean to found.

If I wanted to say something like "Mark Zuckerburg Founded Facebook" - how would that be translated? Would it use 创办？ Or is that only used for time periods?

創始 is usually used for small shop or brand.

創辦 may used for school or news agency.

創立 would be normally used for a country or more formal organisation.

Usually we won't say some brand was 創立 於 2004. That's too formal.

As for Facebook, you could say "Facebook 於2004年創立 or 成立". I think it depends on how formal the object is in your mind.


What is the meaning of 十三薪? It has something to do with salary bonuses. Anyone know how to describe this in English? I haven't the slightest clue.

From http://www.baike.com/wiki/13%E8%96%AA

13薪 is a type of salary bonus scheme. The 13 comes from "13th month". The idea is that in the last month of the year (or after working for 12 months), the last monthly salary will be doubled, as if you receive the salary for a non-existent 13th month.

Sometimes it's calculated based on total employment, so if you have only been working for half a year, the 13薪 bonus is half of what it would be.

It's a scheme that helps retention, as employees who don't work for at least 12 months may not receive this bonus.


How does 即 + 使 compound to mean "even"? Cambridge translates 'even' as 即使, as can be substantiated on ZDIC.net. But what semantic notions underlie 即, 使 with "even"?
ABC Chinese–English Comprehensive Dictionary (2003).  I can't access the "slightly revised through July 2005" ed.

即 = assume

使 =  make it

即使 = assumedly make it (literal meaning)

[即使 ... 也] =  [assumedly make it .... still ]

Apply the logic in the following sentence:

有錢不賣 = have money, not sell

有錢(也)不賣 = have money  (still) not sell -- 也 is implied

(即使)有錢也不賣 - (assumedly make it that) you have money, I still won't sell --  即使 is implied

即使有錢也不賣 = even you have money. I still won't sell it to you

"即使" literally means "assumedly make it".  The practical meaning of 即使 (even), is extended from the [即使... 也] structure

Similarly:
就算 = just count as (literal meaning) --> 就算有錢也不賣 (just count it as you have money, I still won't sell it to you) = (even you have money, I still won't sell it to you)
縱使 = allow to make it (literal meaning) --> 縱使有錢也不賣 (allow to make it  that you have money, I still won't sell it to you) = (even you have money, I still won't sell it to you)


Difference Between 学校 and 学堂 What's the difference between 学校 and 学堂? I've heard that 学堂 has more classical usage, is that correct? I know that 学校 is more commonly used these days.

The connotation of 学堂 is more than "an old expression of school", but "an old-style school in ancient China". A typical 学堂 only has one room and one teacher and few students (compared with a modern school). Just imagine the place where Confucius taught his followers.

学校:

学堂:


For the character/word 煎, which of the English words "braise", "pan fry", "sauté" are the best way to think of it? In my Memrise Chinese courses 煎 seems to be translated inconsistently and I'm always getting it wrong. This also leads to confusion when I'm looking at menus in real life.

It seems that the dictionaries I generally use are also not consistent with each other.

In any case English speakers who are not into cooking are not always clear on the differences between these terms and cooking methods, which might be part of the reason for inconsistency is the flashcard courses. Even moreseo given that many English speakers are actually imperfect second language speakers and are still active on language learning sites, forums, flashcard sites, etc.

So out of English "braise", "pan fry", and "sauté", which is the best fit for 煎?

Of course languages don't map 1:1 so the Chinese might be "between" two or all of the English words, or might overlap two or all of them.

The best fit would be "pan fry" or "sear" - cooking with a small amount of fat, typically in a shallow pan. 煎 goes with such foods as steak, fish filet, pancake, eggs (sunny-side-up or over-easy, not scrambled) ...

FYI, saute or stir-fry is "炒" and braise is usually rendered "紅燒" in menus and recipes.


Can I replace 均 with 都 here? Is this sentence still acceptable if I replace 均 with 都？ Or to put that another way, have I got the meaning of 均 here correct?

发达国家对产品生产等整个过程均需符合环保要求。

发达国家对产品生产等整个过程都需符合环保要求。

Yes, you are correct. In this context, both 均 and 都 mean all. 均 slightly indicates the variety of the processes.

均需 is formal and usually used in writing or lectures. 都要 would be one of the informal equivalents.


Understanding how to pronounce the “er” at end of words I know how to pronounce stuff like:

玩儿 : war

哪儿 : nar

男孩儿: nan har

But I recently came across 小偷儿. How would you pronounce that? Would it just sound like “xiao tour” like the English word “tour”?

First off, Forvo actually has a recording of 小偷儿 that you can go and listen to.

There are two kinds of erhua that you'll come across. One I like to call an integrated erhua, in the South this is the only kind of erhua you will find; so taking 偷儿 for instance it would become something like tēr ([t‘ər] or more accurately [t‘ɚ]). In southern areas the erhua always becomes an integrated ɚ.

In the North, though, you'll often hear what I like to call an affixed erhua. Again, taking 偷儿 for instance MSM pinyin matches it quite well: tou'r ([t‘ou̯˞]). Like a little r plopped on right at the end hanging out in the depths of your throat. You'll hear words like 牛儿、瓶儿、空儿 that sound like the erhua is just trailing there on the end.

I find the southern pronunciations much easier to learn for foreigners but there's something enchanting about that Northern trailing "er".


Illegible embroidery I'd like some help figuring out what this embroidery says, if it says anything at all. It's allegedly from China, but I don't have access to the physical object, just a few photos.

Random characters I can sort of pick out:

Upper right: 豕(?)常
Upper left (and again somewhere in the middle): 中
Near the top of both left and middle: 王
Several on the right (not in a row): 窗, 月, and 有
Signature: 豈 (and something else)

The level of illegibility is such that I'm not entirely sure I believe that all of these are characters, but someone (somewhere) went to the trouble of sewing it.


What is the difference between 穿 and 穿上? I found the following sentence:

  我正在穿上毛衣。

In this sentence, can you rephrase it as the following?:

  我正在穿毛衣。

If you can rephrase it as such, is there any difference between 穿 and 穿上?

I also found the following sentence:

  他正在脱衣服。

Why don't you say it as possibly 脱下 but 脱? In other words, why do you have to use the particle when expressing putting on, but not when expressing putting off?

穿 and 穿上 are usually like English 'wear' and 'put on'.  The sentence 我正在穿上毛衣 means 'I am putting on a/the/my sweater'; I think this is quite unambiguous.  The sentence 我正在穿毛衣 is a little bit odd (to me), but can be interpreted as 'I am wearing a sweater'.

穿上 is an action, which has a beginning, middle, and end. 穿 is often a state, if you like, with no beginning or end.  Not always of course: for example, in imperative sentences like 趕快穿衣服! "Hurry up and get dressed!" the 'hurry up' makes the non-stative meaning clear. You don't HAVE to use 穿上 to mean 'put on' then, but it helps make the action/state distinction explicit.

脫 'to remove (clothing)' is unambiguously an action to begin with, so it doesn't need a resultative ending to disambiguate it.  脫下 is possible of course; to me it emphasizes both completion (clothes no longer on me) and a more detailed process. One example: I might use 脫 for removing shoes, 脫下 for a suit (jacket and pants).


'最终有个交代‘, '交代’ meaning The sentence comes to my mind is

  at least, in the end, I can say that I tried everything I could.

Is there a corresponding expression for ‘交代’ here?

「交代 」

(v)  to answer to  / to explain / to report ;
(n)  explanation / justification

Example:

向民眾交代 (answer to the people / explain to the people)

給民眾一個交代 (give people an explanation)

~

最終有個**交代** meaning

It means " At the end, there will be an explanation"

More example:

怎樣向皇上交代 ( how to explain / report it to the emperor?)

你可獻上我的頭顱作為交代 ( you can offer my head as your report)

~

Additional Note:

交代 mainly means "explain" or "explanation", and by extension, it also carries meanings of "report" and "instruction"

If you explain how you've carried out a task to your boss - that would be "giving a report".
If you explain how to carry out a task to your son - that would be "giving an instruction".


What does the zhe 着 after a verb do? mdbg.net has for zhe 着： aspect particle indicating action in progress

That implies it corresponds with -ing. Many times however, I find 着 cannot be translated in this way.

What does 着 do? What difference does it make if it were not used?

From 父亲去世了

他光着脚，手指弯曲着，失去了往日的力量。
His leg bared, fingers bent, gone his former strength.
他的眼睛紧闭着，像两个黑洞。
His eyes tightly closed, like 2 black holes.
嘴巴张着，牙齿都露了。
Mouth open, teeth revealed.

着 is used to express that something is in the status of a verb, so it should not be progressive. For example "sitting" is 坐着.

Examples:

他光着脚，手指弯曲着，失去了往日的力量。
His leg bared(baring), fingers bent(bending), gone his former strength.

Counter-examples:
您做着什么？ This one is invalid

The verb "do" is progressive(this action is changing), so 着 is not used here.


Differentiating: 肚 and 胃 in English? In Chinese 肚 and 胃 are two quite seperate things.

In English, though, it's mostly just: stomach.

Is there a good way to differantiate between the two in English?

肚 is belly, 胃 is stomach. So:

啤酒肚: Beer belly.
肚子疼: Pain in the belly, could be the stomach, but may well be the appendage.
大肚婆: Slang for pregnant woman.
小肚子: The underbelly. Formal: 下腹 or 小腹.
肚脐: Belly button.
肚量大: Big-hearted. (Funny, but we also say 心胸宽广.)

When you read it as dǔ, it means the stomach of an animal: 猪肚, 牛肚, etc. Usually edible by Chinese standards. Sometimes you hear 肠子肚子 which means "stomach and intestines". A human stomach is NOT called 人肚.

Update，肚子疼 vs 胃疼：

病人：医生，我肚子疼。
医生：你肚子哪里疼？
病人：这里。（Points at the left）
医生：那应该是胃疼咯。

So 肚子疼 is the pain in the belly area, maybe it's the stomach, maybe not. 胃疼 is more specific, it is the stomach, no doubt about that. Also:

女雇员：老板，我肚子疼，今天请个假。
男老板：那你去医院看看吧。
女雇员：不用的，休息休息就好。

In this case 肚子疼 means "period pain", and the boss should say things like "好好喝水，多多休息" instead of advising her to go to the hospital.


Difference between 兵法 vs 武術 The classic text "兵法" is usually translated as "The Art of War", but doesn't  "武術" also literally mean "art of war"?

My (not very long) experience with chinese language makes me believe that if there are two characters with the same english translation then almost always there are nuances of their meaning or usage.

So are there more precise translations for "兵法" and "武術"?

My guess is that since "兵"'s first meaning is a "soldier" and "法" is more like a "rule", "兵法" relates to the way you should organize your troops, learn about your enemy to prepare for battle etc, more like a "management of the army"; while "武術" actually means "the art of battling", "the art of fighting on the battle field". So that when the "兵法" part is done, you can use your "武術" to beat the enemy.

兵法 Art of War

用兵作戰的策略和方法。
strategies and methods of warfare.
兵書。
military books, which discuss the strategies and methods of warfare.

武術 Martial Arts

軍事技術。
military technology.
中國民族體育之一 (one of the Chinese traditional sports.)。
如：太極拳 (tài-ji-quán, shadow-boxing)、劍術 (fencing)、刀術 (broadsword play)、槍術 (spear play, joust)、棍術 (stick/cudgel play)。

兵法 is usually related to the country.
武術 is more personal.

Some user posted the following comment.

I found the following information on the Web.

《影響世界的中國元素--中國功夫》

《中华青少年成长必读集萃——万事由来》

《揭秘万物由来之谜》


Can you decipher what this seal stamp says and means? I am told that this seal stamp character(s) are from the Chinese dialect, though I got it from my Japanese grandmother.  She had it made and gave it to me. I was told it says 'strong and smart' and also resembles my name 'Matthew'.

I have not been able to find the characters that are shown on the stamp, and do not know either language well. Can someone help me with what the characters say and mean, or where to find them, along with anything else?

The the characters on the stamp were written in 小篆(xiao zhuan), which is an ancient Chinese writing form. The character on the right is 麥, which means wheat. The character on the left is 菲, which means the fragrance of plants. I don't know how those two characters could relate to 'strong and smart'. I think the combination of the two characters might have a specific meaning in Japanese, since there are also Chinese characters in Japanese.


What is the purpose of 多 in 你多与别人就此事沟通? I have a sentence with a given translation, as follows:

你多与别人就此事沟通。 = You communicate with other people.

Why is 多 put into this sentence, it is not mentioned in the translation.
What would be the difference between the given sentence and the same sentence without the 多?

你多与别人就此事沟通    <> 你与别人就此事沟通  ?

It is a polite way to make suggestions, e.g.

我建议你多运动。
I suggest you to do sports/exercises.

or

请你多指教。
Please give some guidance/opinion.

So I guess, a more proper translation of you example would be: 'You should contact other people about this issue.'


Early childhood Chinese language immersion accent exposure Is it important for young children (4 or 5 years old) in a Chinese language immersion program to be exposed to more than one type of Mandarin accent? If the child only hears one accent (and one that is not bad but not entirely standard Putonghua) for the first two years of learning Chinese, will that make it hard for the child to self-correct later when exposed to more standard accents?

I will go out on a limb and say yes, it is great to get exposure to different accents even if it is not standard so long as the child is told what the standard would be. (Awareness of the differences) The reason being that people you encounter are not always going to speak the standard pu tong hua exactly the same. So when you encounter somebody from the guangdong area for instance, you can adjust your listening to understand when a person says "si" it should be "shi". Oh really chinese has a certain rhythm to it as well. So if somebody asks you a question that is not in a set phrase you know, you can usually take a good guess at what you are being asked. (Not always but sometimes)

A related side note. Not everybody believes in the phonology acquisition cut-off age.

In Paul Pimsleur's book, How to learn a foreign language *(December 1980)*He defends the idea that Adults are better equip to learn a (second) language then kids are. And that adults can a achieve a flawless native accent. But the thing is you have to consistently work at it. So if you are talking and are misunderstood you have to immediately correct your pronunciation, and the only way to do that is to ask the person you talk to what you said wrong. And correcting the tones. Of course some people have more difficulty than others.


Modifying nouns with phrase + 的 We were discussing this topic in the class yesterday and had a few difficulties understanding it. The main problem was to understand when the sentence / phrase is referred to a regular action or to the action in the past. Could this be figured out without additional time markers?

For example, from these sentences:
去北京的火车 or 妈妈做的菜

Modifying nouns with phrase + 的

A [phrase + 'adjective suffix 的'] is an 'adjective phrase'. It functions as an adjective for the noun. If there is a [clause +'adjective suffix 的'], then it is an 'adjective clause'

的 can also be a 'possessive' but that's another topic.

  The main problem was to understand when the sentence / phrase is referred to a regular action or to the action in the past.  Could this be figured out without additional time markers?

May be this can help: How do you specify past tense for 是?

So, the answer is, " no, you can't figure out the action is in the past or present without additional time markers, but you don't need to"


Is there a word in Chinese to mean "mostly"? Is "大多" appropriate? As title， is there a word in Mandarin Chinese to mean "mostly" ? For example, I am going to tell my friend who wrote a letter to me that "I mostly got what you man", is it appropriate to say "大多" that I found in dictionary in this case for "mostly"?

is there a word in Mandarin Chinese to mean "mostly" ?

Of course, but that just depends on different kinds of senarios:

1) “相当，非常……”（程度副词）: adverb something related to the depth:

I mostly love peace (我**非常**热爱和平)

2）It's mostly bad=It's quite bad=It's awfully bad 糟糕**透**了！（implementation to describe "bad"'s depth in Chinese, but that's used as an adverb in English).

3）包含很大程度上的可能性，肯定：
Mostly speaking, It's almost of no hope to save people who sunk in the sea disaster of Korea.（可以这么说，救援韩国海难沉入水的群众希望破灭了）。


How would one accurately translate "万事大吉"? This is a four character phrase for which I have found no accurate translation online. I hear it all the time around CNY.

  万事大吉

This is an expression wishing the listener good luck. Any equivalent English expression will do: "Best of luck in all your endeavors", "May your every endeavor prosper", etc. The use of the character 万 (wàn, meaning "10,000"), here just means "many" or "all".


How to ask a simple maths / arithmetic question I'm trying to internalize numbers by forcing myself to think of them numerically rather than associating them with their English translations. So I thought it might be a good idea to learn my times table in Mandarin using Anki flashcards.

Is the following a valid way to ask an arithmetic question that expects a number as an answer?

七乘以六等于什么

I've tried to search for an answer online, but I can only find examples of arithmetic statements and equations, not questions. Is it ok to take an equation and change the right hand side to 什么 as I've done above, or is there a more idiomatic way?

The method is correct, but the word should be '几' , not '什么'. If you ask 等于什么? it will 等于数字 ever, brain-teaser :)

几 is used more when you calculate simple questions, can be replaced with 多少 which is a common word.

七乘以六等于几?
七乘以六等于多少?

12345乘以4545等于几?(acceptable, but 多少 is more appropriate due to the complexity).

you can cut the 以, there's no difference in practice.


一、 marker meaning? Ordinal number? What does the drop in 一、 mean?

It'a punctuation, which does not exist in English, and I don't know its English name.

In Chinese it's called 顿号 (dun4 hao4). It is usually used between listing of things (or verb, or adjectives ... I don't know the grammar term, who can help me please edit the post):

屋子里有桌子、椅子、凳子。

Usually in English, comma would be used.

In your example, it is just used a symbol separating the listing number and the title, which is not related to the use I mentioned above. This is common when Chinese numbers are used. The punctuation itself does not carry actual meaning.


What is the difference between 抽 and 拔？ We just had both these words on the same lesson and they seem very similar to me. Yet, a search about 抽和拔之間的區別 returns nothing helpful. In our book the respective example sentences were:

  …又從另一個書架抽出來一本看看。

and

  鑰匙忘拔下來了。（title）

These two movements seem very similar to me.

CC in pleco defines:

  抽：
  1 to draw out
  2 to pull out from in between
  3 to remove part of the whole
  4 (of certain plants) to sprout or bud
  5 to whip or thrash

  拔：
  1 to pull up
  2 to pull out
  3 to draw out by suction
  4 to select
  5 to pick
  6 to stand out (above level)
  7 to surpass
  8 to seize

I further examined the list of words for each character in pleco. I noticed some tendencies, but I may be wrong once again.

  拔草，拔劍，拔牙
  seem to imply a pull against resistance.

  抽彩，抽空，抽功夫，抽成，抽血
  seem to imply less resistance/ more abstraction.

Is this observation coincidence? How to best describe the difference?

抽 從「手」，「由」聲，本義為引、拉。(the basic meaning is 'lead' ; 'pull')
拔 像用雙手拔取草木之形 (The original character looked like the form of pulling grass with both hand)

The basic meaning of 抽 is 'pull' (toward a direction)
The basic meaning of 拔 is to 'pluck' (拔草 pluck grass from the ground or 拔毛 pluck feather from a bird)
Since the motion of pull and pluck look similar, the two words are often used in similar way. You observation is correct, 拔 usually imply pull against resistance while 抽 doesn't imply anything in term of degree of resistance.
As you can see from your research, both character have other meanings that are not overlapped. The 'pull' meaning is overlapped but with subtle difference


What is the modern meaning of "送官究辦" I saw this word from this:

What does it mean?

送官究办 sòng guān jiūbàn - means to be sent to court to be dealt with

送 - to send

官 - means an official building, in this case it means the court

究 - investigate

办 - to be dealt with

Maybe others can provide some insight into whether or not this is still in use


Help me choose a good chinese name I'm currently learning chinese and I've decided to adopt a chinese name since my given name doesn't translates well to mandarin. I wanted to choose a nome that comes from ancient poetry and evoques beauty/elegance, as well as a good character.
I liked the name 雪盈 from this verse by poet Xin Qiji: "蛾儿雪柳黄金缕，笑语盈盈暗香去". I was thinking about 馮 or 方 as the surname since they kind of remind me of my original surname.
Is this a good name, or does it sound weird, funny, or wrong in any aspect for native speakers? If so, could you give some suggestions on finding a more appropriate one?

(This is not an answer per se, but definitely too long to be in the comments)
Don't get me wrong, both 馮雪盈 and 方雪盈 sound very nice to me. The ci is equally aesthetic. However, in this ci, it is often said that Xin Qiji had a deeper overtone than to merely describe the many sightings (people included, as in your quoted verse) of the Lantern festival. His pursuit of 'that person' 那人 standing well away from the crowds in the last verse is said to be a reflection of his patriotism (to Northern Song), which, at that time (Southern Song), is sadly largely forgotten by his contemporaries who found complacency in this kind of life. In a way, he was contrasting his motive with these very glamorous descriptions of the festival.
In light of this, it would be perfect if 雪 and 盈 are found in other sources of poetry that provide a better justification (without the historical connotations above). Perhaps the Book of Odes or other ci works. I leave that for others who are more familiar with poetry to answer. However, do keep in mind sometimes 雪 itself (not as part of a compound word like 雪柳) may confer a different, perhaps lonely imagery, such as 江雪. I only felt obliged to inform you the way this ci can potentially be interpreted.


Can native Chinese speakers distinguish tones in songs? I already have a hard time distinguishing tones in normal speech. This gets significantly worse when I listen to Chinese songs, since the melody masks tones even further.

Yes, I understand that context will help distinguish words from one another. But almost always I have to look up the lyrics to know exactly what they are singing about.

Can native Chinese speakers tell tones apart in songs? How can I improve my tone-listening skills (in music)?

No.

In songs, most tones disappear. The syllables are sung along the melody of music. We only tell the tone because we can catch what the whole word or sentence is.

In songs, usually the melody should be written to convey the tones of syllables (or syllables chosen to match the melody). Mismatch of melody and lyrics can result in misunderstandings. However, in pop music, not much attention has been paid to this problem.

An interesting paper (that this blog post pointed me to) claims that in Cantonese pop songs, the melody more closely follows the tones, while in Mandarin songs, the tones just get obliterated.


Which one is correct to say "Hello everyone": 大家好 or 你好大家? When you want to say hello to many people in front of you,
which one is correct to say "Hello everyone": 大家好 or 你好大家?

While 大家 does mean 'everyone', it functions like the 2nd person plural pronoun ('you all') here. In *你好大家, there are two problems:

With 你 always being the 2nd person singular pronoun, the plurality is confusing.
Even if you say it like *你們好大家 to match the plurality, there is much redundancy. It is ungrammatical and nonsensical to add a subject (大家) after a topic–comment (你們好) sentence.

Much better if you say 大家好 or 你們好 instead. 大家 is friendlier than 你們.


Idiom, common phrase crossword puzzle challenge 3 Please solve the following puzzle

語出《易經． 繫辭下》It means that when things develop to the extreme and exhaustion, they must seek changes. After the changes, they will be accessible and suitable for needs.

Strict teachers have great students

Can't help but do

At the end of one's rope

Unreasonable

Be hoisted with one's own petard

Indiscriminately kill innocent people

岳飛的罪名 (Yue Fei's Charge)

inquire after someone's well-being

Ambiguous

extremely wealthy

Not for Children (For adult only)

Free and contented

Extravagantly grand 出自宋·罗大经《鹤林玉露》补遗

五嶽之首 (Head of the Five Sacred Mountains)

very old age

Bankrupt

Suffering

Water from far away cannot put out a fire nearby

Nepotism

Completely disintegrate

Find common ground and keep different opinions。出自《礼记·乐记》

A. Birds and animals
B. It is a metaphor for the outflow of talents from one country to work in other countries. 出自《左传·襄公二十六年》。
C. When you are poor on a street, no one cares about you; when you are rich, distant relatives will seek you out in the mountains
D. Read very fast
E. Refugee
F. Barbarians
G. Prescription
H. Pretentious
I. The five elements
J. Understanding, reasonable
K. To emerge and perish on its own
L. Lovely person (refers to a young female)
M. Strictly forbidden
N. Feel shame for receiving an undeserved reward
O. 形容家庭和顺，夫妻和睦 出自《诗经·周南·桃夭》Means to describe the family harmony; harmony between husband and wife
P. Shoplifting
Q. Wipeout, no longer exist
R. Famous mountains and great rivers

If you cannot solve the blank puzzle, please try the one below with additional word hints

The third time! I really don't want to see it happening again. Why don't you join it, friends?


Asian ornate bakelite? bowl that is prob 20th century Can anyone translate the pottery mark shown below.  It is on an ornate Japanese? bakelite? bowl roughly 340mm round probably 20th century.  The bowl is very ornate and has bats and fruit on the inside of the bowl and flowers and foilage on the outside of the bowl.  Entire bowl is gold in color except for a black base.

it is 清乾隆制,means it is made in the Chinese Qing dynasty over the Qianlong Emperor time.And in my opinion,it is fake


What is the difference between 演奏 and 表演? What is the difference between 演奏 and 表演?  Google translates both as “perform”, “performance”, or “playing”.   It also indicates they are either verb or noun.
Can they be used interchangeably?

表演 is a general term for 'perform (v)' or 'performance (n)'; 演奏 is a specific term for 'perform playing a musical instrument(v)' or 'musical instrument playing performance(n)'

You can 表演 (perform) any kind of performance and any performance (表演) can be performed

Example: 胸口碎大石，高空踏鋼線，肚皮舞，單手打蛋，倒掛金勾射球，書法，騎射 and so on

演奏 (n) =  (musical instrument) playing performance; 演奏 (v) = perform playing (musical instrument)

Example:
(v) 演奏小提琴，演奏鋼琴，演奏二胡
(n) 小提琴演奏，鋼琴演奏，二胡演奏

演唱 (v): perform singing; (n): singing performance

Technically, playing piano and singing song (表演彈鋼琴; 表演唱歌) is 表演 too, but they have their own dedicated words 演奏 and 演唱, therefore, 表演 is not used for musical instrument performance or singing performance.
No one says 表演'陽關三疊' (name of the music), only 演奏'陽關三疊''; No one says 表演'明月千里寄相思' (name of the song), only 演唱'明月千里寄相思'
演出 (v): 'perform'/ (n):'show' is mostly for stage-play or opera. e.g. 演出舞台劇; 演出歌劇


How to guess when to use 銷 or 消 in compounds? In some words that have to do with smelting and metal (銷蝕 , 銷毀 ) it is intuitive we have to use 銷. But in most cases they seem really hard to distinguish.  According to pleco:

取消: cancel, call off, abolish
註銷: cancel, write off
抵消: offset, cancel out, counteract
撤銷: cancel, rescind, revoke
對消: offset, cancel each other out
吊銷: revoke, withdraw, cancel
消去: cancel, eliminate
銷帳: cancel (or remove) from an account, write off

It seems that “cancel out” always goes with 銷 not 消，but other words are really hard to predict. Is this something we just have to memorise, or is there any helpful logic or mnemonic?

Use 銷 when the object has man made physical  form

Use 消 when the object has no man made physical  form

We 吊銷牌照 and 銷毀武器

License and weapons have man made physical form

We 消滅 敵人 and 消除恐懼

Enemy and fear have no  physical form, they are concepts

Simply put, look at the object and you can guess it should be 消 or  銷 in the compound


What does 起来 mean in this phrase? 把被子收起来吧.

  Translation: Let's put the quilt away.

In other circumstances, 起来 means to get up but here there is a different meaning, and from the definitions I can't decide which definition is used here.

used after a verb indicating beginning and continuation of an action or a state
indicating an upward movement
after a perception verb expressing preliminary judgement
bringing things together

THX！

This 起来 serves as the resultative complement of 收.

It is required because you cannot say “把被子收_吧”. You must specify in what state you want to put the 被子 via the action 收. e.g. 把被子收进屋子里, 把被子收到柜子里, etc.

You can say “把被子收走” or “把被子收了”, too. The choices of complements make slight difference.

For some reason, when 起 is not followed by an object, you must put 来 or other verbs or prepositions after it. e.g. it's possible to say 收起被子, but you have to say 把被子收起来. (Some speakers may accept 把被子收起, but it sounds a little stilted and incomplete to me. Another similar particle is 回, which is often accompanied by 去. But 把被子收回 still sounds acceptable to me.)

I think the closest definition out of the four is:

  1. used after a verb indicating beginning and continuation of an action or a state

This 起来 in 收起来 indicates that, after the completion of the action 收, the blanket is in a temporary state such as protection or preservation. It may sound redundant, but is required by the Chinese grammar.

起 can be consider as “to happen/to arise”, which by itself has almost no meaning. But if you look at many similar collocations like 收起, 亮起, 挂起, 升起, 隆起, 突起, etc. It might be related to another meaning, too:

  2. indicating an upward movement

Also, don't confuse 把被子收起来 with 收起被子来. The latter means he starts to put the blanket away, which is extremely unlikely to be used in daily conversations. 收起(了)被子 can express the same meaning in many contexts without 来. I don not know what exactly is the function of 来. But this does not have much to do with your question.


Difference between 经常 and 时常? When do I use 经常 and 时常? Can they be used interchangeably? If there is difference between the two words, what situation do I use each of them?

No. They are not interchangeable at all.

经常 bears more frequency than 时常. E.g. 我经常去看你 Vs. 我时常去看你. 我经常去看你 indicates I go see you more often than 我时常去看你.

If you say 我经常去打球，I'd think your frequency of playing ballgames is high. If you say 我时常去打球, I'd take that your frequency is normal/moderate (or probably a bit above normal), neither very high nor low.


The differences between 生日 and 生辰 Recently, I have come across people giving birthday wishes to others using the word 生辰 instead of 生日.

I looked up some online dictionary/translation tools and it turns out 生辰 also means birthday.

So what are the differences between 生辰，生日. By the way, do people also 生天 to mean birthday in Chinese?

Thanks,

生辰 can mean either "birthday"(the day one's birth) or 生日+时辰 (birthday + birth time) as in the phrase 生辰八字.

Usually, 生辰 just means birthday, but it's more literary. You can probably only see it's used in a book. For example, 而这一日子恰逢其80岁生辰. Normally, people just use 生日 in spoken, but you can say 生辰 when you try to be more literary.

生天 isn't a correct word for birthday. 生天 in old Chinese is the same as 升天, which means go to heaven.


Sound Loans in Chinese On one comment to a recent question, LulalaBoss made reference to this article on Chinese character classification. When a character is transformed or redefined, is there a comprehensive method to identify when one is dealing with a sound-loan rather than an 形聲 that has changed to a related (presumably more modern) meaning? On the other hand, I see some characters that appear to simply have had newer meanings added to an existing character. I'm curious to understand more about:

How to discover basic sound-loans (is this even necessary to be aware of in reading/writing/speaking Chinese)?

Let me try to answer your question, though I am not a professional in Chinese language.

Seems you are talking about the so-called radical-phonetic characters, and you are asking a way to spot them among tons of Chinese characters. I have a trick here for you, since I always use it when I, as a Chinese, don't know the character.

First of all, you need to be able to know which one is the radical part, normally either on the left side or on the top, e.g. 沐. The radical part here is the "three drops of water". So that you know, aha this has something to do with water.

Then, the most important, you must be able to pronounce the phonetic part. E.g. 沐's phonetic part is 木, and it is pronounced as "MU".

At last, the rule of thumb is, you just pronounce using the phonetic part! No matter what. 90% you will pronounce it right (maybe the tones need some adjust). If you are wrong, there will be people correcting you, and then you remember next time. :D

Simple, right?

Examples are as follows: 尧 is pronounced [yao 2]. It is the name of an ancient legendary king. But when you see 烧[shao 1], 浇[jiao 1], 饶[rao 2], they don't pronounce as [yao 2], BUT you may discover that they share the common vow. Another example is: 提[ti 2], the right part is 是[shi 4], which has totally a different sound.


Are there web-site with description of visual meaning of symbols? I'm interested in explanation of why certain symbol means what it means, in other words what object or scene it depicts. There is some books about that, like "Origin and evolution of...", but I wonder if there's way to get that information for free - some website.

this is an online dictionary you can search for certain words.
http://www.vividict.com/

And I hope this includes symbols you want to know..


Japanese 気分転換 in Cantonese? Is there an expression in Cantonese with roughly the same meaning as the Japanese 気分転換 (I guess it's 氣分轉換 in Chinese characters)?
I would include an English translation but something might get lost in translation, so I'll just refer to these examples.

I think if this this phrase means

release your stress and get a little rest, (maybe take some breath to help you relex ?)

there is some Chinese expression “缓口气”


What role does 事 play in 事不師古？ 司馬遷， 史記，秦始皇本紀：

  事不師古而能長久者，非所聞也。

I only understand the very broad meaning should be similar to:

  That someone flourished without learning from the ancients, thereof I never heard.

But, to understand more clearly, I have to know what role 事 plays here. Is it the work of the government, like Confucianism says:

  事君能致其身

Then I have to translate "learn from the ancients in governance". Or is it just the object of 張久，some matter that is supposed to flourish?

事不師古而能長久者﹒非所聞也

事 : working, you may shortcut it to governing in this context

不 : not

師 : learn, or imitate

古 : past

而 : and

能 : can be

長久 : long time

非: not

所聞: heard, maybe recorded

so, the verse is roughly:

[if the] governing (事) is not (不) imitate (師) to the past (古), and (而)[such governing] can (能) [last] long time (長久), it's unheard (非所聞).

that 淳于越 suggested that nations not using feudalism, would not last long.

some underlying asumptions:

in ancient china, both 商 dynasty (bc 1571 - 1046)  and  周 dynasty (bc 1046 - 770) used feudalism. compare to spring and autumn period (春秋), and warring states (戰國) period, these two dynasties lasted 400-500 years, which was a long time.

the related text in 秦始皇本紀, would started from "始皇置酒咸陽宮"

  仆射周青臣進頌曰：「他時秦地不過千里，賴陛下神靈明聖，平定海內，放逐蠻夷，日月所照，莫不賓服。以諸侯為郡縣，人人自安樂，無戰爭之患，傳之萬世。自上古不及陛下威德。」

then one of the master 淳于越 refuted:

  博士齊人淳于越進曰：「臣聞殷周之王千餘歲，封子弟功臣，自為枝輔。今陛下有海內，而子弟為匹夫，卒有田常、六卿之臣，無輔拂，何以相救哉？事不師古而能長久者，非所聞也。今青臣又面諛以重陛下之過，非忠臣。」

last, the prime minister 李斯 suggested:

丞相李斯曰：「五帝不相復，三代不相襲，各以治，非其相反，時變異也。今陛下創大業，建萬世之功，固非愚儒所知。且越言乃三代之事，何足法也？異時諸侯并爭，厚招游學。今天下已定，法令出一，百姓當家則力農工，士則學習法令辟禁。今諸生不師今而學古，以非當世，惑亂黔首。丞相臣斯昧死言：古者天下散亂，莫之能一，是以諸侯并作，語皆道古以害今，飾虛言以亂實，人善其所私學，以非上之所建立。今皇帝并有天下，別黑白而定一尊。私學而相與非法教，人聞令下，則各以其學議之，入則心非，出則巷議，夸主以為名，異取以為高，率群下以造謗。如此弗禁，則主勢降乎上，黨與成乎下。禁之便。臣請史官非秦記皆燒之。非博士官所職，天下敢有藏詩、書、百家語者，悉詣守、尉雜燒之。有敢偶語詩書者棄市。以古非今者族。吏見知不舉者與同罪。令下三十日不燒，黥為城旦。所不去者，醫藥卜筮種樹之書。若欲有學法令，以吏為師。」

you may treat the text as argument of "feudalism" vs "totalitarianism"

the text maybe further elaborated, if you need :)

have fun :)


Distinguish between 眼睛 (Yǎnjīng) eyes and 眼镜(Yǎnjìng) glasses You may have know 眼睛 is eyes, and 眼镜 is glasses. They sound quite similar.
I get confused when listening to someone say "yanjing". I may not know what the speaker refers to, eyes or glasses. How do Chinese people distinguish these two?

In different city or province people have very different pronunciations, we call it "方言"(dialect),so I don't know the situation in other cities, I'm a beijinger,I can tell how beijingers distinguish these  two words.眼睛 the last word 睛 will be light reading, but 眼镜 the last word 镜 will be normal reading, otherwise,beijingers used to add a "er" pronunce in some specific words ,such as眼镜er,but 眼睛 has no 'er' pronunce.


Politeness in referring to a recent death Some people in the US normally avoid saying a person has "died."  They say the person "passed on," or "has left us."  Are there similar, gentle ways in Chinese to avoid saying a person died?  Would it generally seem rude among friends to just say that someone has died?

TL;DR

The most general euphemism for "die" in Chinese is

  去世

  Literally means "leave the world". Similar to the English expression "pass on/away".

It would be polite enough to address anyone's death and is commonly used in speaking and writing. So if you don't know which word is the best, just use this one – in only a few cases would it sound unsuitable (even though it won't sound impolite), e.g.

When using euphemism is absurd. For example, it's weird to say

(Awful!) 这个专门杀男孩的杀手终于去世了。
(Awful!) Finally, the serial killer who aims at boys has passed away.

As you wouldn't say that in English, don't try it in Chinese.
When addressing children's death. Chinese consider 去世 is too solemn for children, and in formal writing we use 夭折. In conversations, personally I might (I hope there's no chance for me) say 离开了我们 (has left us).

A Longer List

General (for grown-ups)

  (leave the world; leave forever) 去世/过世/离世/谢世/辞世/与世长辞 / [长逝/永逝]
  (sleep forever; rest in peace; say farewell forever) 安息/永眠/长眠/永别

For children and youths

  夭折/夭亡/早逝 / [殤/兰摧玉折]

For young girls

  香消玉殒/倩女离魂

For the great

  逝世/辞世/与世长辞/ [星陨]

For martyrs

  牺牲/就义/殉道/殉国/殉难/殉职/壮烈/舍身 [成仁/以身许国/舍生取义/马革裹尸]

For those who die for illness

  病故/病逝

For ancient emperors

  驾崩/ [大薨/山陵崩/登遐/晏驾]

For Buddhist monks

  圆寂/坐化/涅槃 [示寂/示灭/入灭/灭度/示灭]

For those who die for accidents

  遇难/罹难/丧身

For those who normally die at an old age

  寿终/寿终正寝

For old masters (these phrases are Taoism related)

  驾鹤西去/仙去/仙游/ [登仙/物化/羽化/遁化/迂化/迂神/隐化/解驾]

Note:

Brackets [ ] denote expressions that would be too formal to be used in conversations.
This list is far from and is not supposed to be perfect (as expressions are too many). Feel free to improve it :)


Why Chinese subtitles in American shows are relatively simple? Every time I watch an English show with Chinese subtitles, it's so much easier to read the subtitles than in a Chinese show.

What do you think is the reason for it?
Who does the translations?
Can you recommend a good site the offers shows with Chinese subtitles?

I think this is the characteristic of the "subtitle community".

Historically, before American (or western, but mostly American) shows are widely legally imported to China, the Chinese audience pretty much relied on piracy as their only source.

The subtitles of those, are of course contributed by the community, which, by its origin, is of "various" quality. This is still the case now because some publishers would purchase subtitles from the community and pair it with legally imported shows.

So, to directly answer your question: because most of the time they are not created by professionals.


Pronunciation of 山 (in Taiwan) I'm a newbie Chinese student and I have a question about the pronunciation of the word shān (山), meaning mountain. When I went to Taiwan recently, friends there pronounced it as sān, not shān. For example, they referred to the National Park Alishan (阿里山) as Ali SAN.

Is this particular to Taiwan, to my friends, or some other reason? 谢谢 for your help!

Still should be shan1 but probably they have some 翘舌音 problems, i.e. cant pronounce ch, sh, zh etc. A lot of Chinese variants don't have 翹舌音 so these pronunciations become problematic.

Count it as an accent.


Some doubts about "copulative sentences" in Chinese I'd like to know precisely how the Chinese language syntax conveys in the fewest possible number of words the meanings that English syntax expresses with simple copulative sentences.

For example, (1) can be used to respond to someone saying Jenny is behaving outrageously; it means that such behavior is ordinary behavior for her (i.e. Jenny is exhibiting the traits she always has had). (2) means exactly the opposite: she's now behaving out of the ordinary.

  (1) Jenny is Jenny

  (2) She's not being herself today

Sometimes in English we also identify participants of the conversation or its surroundings. For example, if we are talking with a friend about a couple of artists that he knows and, while we're talking, we happen to see people just like them in the street, we can point to them and utter (3). Moreover, if four kids are staging a play and deciding who plays who, one of them can utter (4).

  (3) Are they them?

  (4) He's me and she's you

Do these structures have equivalents in Chinese? I'm not interested in the translations per se; what I want to know is what syntactic structure is used to express sentences like (1)-(4).

The same structure exists in Chinese

  Jenny (is) Jenny --> 珍妮(就是)珍妮

  Money (is) money --> 錢(就是)錢

~

  She's (not being/ not like) herself today --> 她今天(不是/ 不像是)她本人

  Silver and coin (was not) the first currency  --> 錢銀(不是)最初的貨幣

  This amount of money (is not/ is not counted as) money to me --> 這數目的錢對我來說(不是/不算是)錢

~

  (Are) they them? --> '他們' (是那個) '他們'嗎?

  (is) he him? -->'他'(是那個)'他'嗎?

~

  He (is) me (and) she (is) you -->'他'(就是)我(而)'她'(就是)妳

  Money is currency ; currency is money --> 錢(就是)貨幣；貨幣(就是)錢


Who wants to visit whom? In this sentence:

好久没有看望萧乾老人了，怕干扰他翻译和写作，怕影响他休养生息，但心里却常惦念着他。

I think 好久没有看望萧乾老人了, = 萧乾好久没有看望老人了， but I'm not certain and I don't know why I think this. Is there a rule of syntax being followed here?

Could it be read '老人很久没有看望萧乾了，'?

I think '怕干扰他翻译和写作' means '萧乾怕干扰自己的翻译和写作工作，‘ but I suppose it could be '老人怕干扰他。。。‘

Who does ‘看望，怕，休养生息， 惦念‘？Is that clear from this sentence?

Who does ‘看望，怕，休养生息， 惦念‘？Is that clear from this sentence?

Yes, but the subject is ommitted here, let's restore it:

  (我)好久没有看望萧乾老人了，(我)怕干扰他翻译和写作，(我)怕影响他休养生息，但(我)心里却常惦念着他。

This is verbose indeed, so it's natural to ommit it, especially in the writing at the view of first person.

萧乾老人 is the object of 看望, means the aged named 萧乾.


Difference between 可靠 and 实在？ A quick question. I appreciate that 实在 can also be an adverb, but as an adjective, how does it differ in its usage from 可靠？ They both come out roughly as reliable, dependable.

What is the difference between a 实在的人 and a 可靠的人?

Any ideas?

Many thanks

实在的人 = pragmatic person

可靠的人 = reliable/ dependable person

Your confusion might come from you thinking "One can rely on pragmatic people to do thing well". Thus make pragmatic people also be reliable people


Does reading Chinese sentences improve my speaking? If I do not have anyone to practice speaking with, will reading Mandarin help me speak Mandarin?

I’m Chinese and currently studying English.  If you're just reading, your progress is probably very slow.

I think that the best way to improve your skill is to have conversation with people.

  你好，朋友，我是中国人，我正在学习英文。
  如果你只是阅读，可能你的进展很慢。
  我觉得提升你能力的最好办法是跟别人交流。


Are HSK6 questions 51 through 60 (语病) so difficult that it's reasonable to just guess? Among the HSK6 advice I've encountered, I'm a bit surprised by some practical advice regarding the ten 语病 questions (51 through 60) wherein each question has 4 sentences A through D and exactly one sentence contains some kind of error.

My teacher in Beijing confessed to us that this part is hard even for native Chinese speakers ...for us muggles, the best strategy will be to simply GUESS IT.  My strategy here, again, is b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b.

The idea is to guess, and thereby save precious time for the remaining parts.  I checked some past exams, and indeed most answers are B or C (then most likely D, and seldom A), so this strategy will likely result in 2 to 4 correct (out of 10) on this component.
I'd like to verify whether this part is as difficult as claimed.
Question: Are HSK6 questions 51 through 60 (语病) so difficult that it's reasonable to just guess?
There are 50 questions in the reading 阅读 section, and 50 minutes to answer them.  So there's basically 1 minute per question.  For concreteness, from this past HSK6 exam, we have these questions:

第51-60题：请选出有语病的一项。

A 笑声如阳光，能驱走人们脸上的冬天。
B 保持年轻的之一秘诀是拥有健康的心态。
C 网站正在维护中，如有不便，敬请谅解。
D 世上没有令人绝望的处境，只有对处境绝望的人。

A 四川省计划今年新增三条国际直飞航线。
B 春天来了，到处是呈现出一片生机勃勃的景象。
C 您好，您拨打的电话正在通话中，请稍后再拨。
D 专家建议，两岁以下的儿童尽量不要接触电子产品。

A 火龙果热量低、纤维高，深受减肥人士的喜爱。
B 竹楼是傣族传统的建筑形式，有利于防酷热和湿气。
C 时间如同一位慈母，可以帮助我们抚平心灵的创伤。
D 通过载人航天技术的发展水平，体现了一个国家的综合实力。

A 生长在野外的长尾鸡，尾羽每年能增长一米左右。
B 任何每一个障碍，都有可能成为一个超越自我的契机。
C 西溪湿地距离杭州西湖5公里，是罕见的城中次生湿地。
D 移动广告的增长速度远远超过了其他广告形式，具备强劲的发展潜力。

A 青蛙因经常吃害虫农田里的而被人们称为“庄稼的保护神”。
B 这次展出的齐白石的画作包括了他各个时期的花鸟山水精品。
C 行书是介于楷书和草书之间的一种字体，工整清晰，实用性高。
D 据统计，人类常见的疾病有135种，其中106种与维生素摄取不足有关。

A 蔬菜要尽可能现炒现吃，逃避长时间保温和多次加热。
B 近期新车优惠少，观望客户较多，市场上出现了持币待购现象。
C “满月酒”是中国父母为庆祝自己的孩子出世满一个月而设的宴席。
D 他迷恋昆虫研究，曾用自己的积蓄买了一块儿荒地，专门用来放养昆虫。

A 手指肚上有许多整齐又有规律的图形，这就是人们常说的“指纹”。
B 这种设计，既能减弱流水对桥身的冲击力，又能减轻桥自身的重量。
C 月亮反射的太阳光只有7%能到达地球，但已足够照亮地球上的黑夜。
D 一个人要有主见，要具备判断是非的能力，更不会被别人的意见所左右。

A 好的摄影师能够把日常生活中稍纵即逝的平凡事物转化为不朽的视觉图像。
B 现实是此岸，理想是彼岸，中间隔着湍急的河流，行动则是架在河上的桥梁。
C 早在原始社会末期，人们就在石头或崖壁上刻画符号的方法用以记事，这就是碑的起源。
D 卧室里浓烈的色彩会刺激人的神经，让人过度兴奋，不利于人较快地进入深度睡眠状态。

A 南京林业大学的一名学生设计了一种自动穿衣架，可帮那些手脚不便的人轻松穿上衣服。
B 南锣鼓巷全长786米。 以南锣鼓巷为主干，向东西各伸出对称的八条胡同，呈鱼骨状，俗称蜈蚣街。
C 凡是妨碍到人们正常休息、学习和工作的声音，以及对人们要听的声音产生干扰的声音，都属于噪声。
D 鲜花饼是一款以云南特有的食用玫瑰花入料的酥饼，是以凭“花味、云南味”为特色的云南经典点心的代表。

A 《子不语》是清朝著名文学家袁枚撰写的一部笔记小品，多记述奇闻异事、奇人鬼怪。
B 森林能有效地保护生物的多样性，目前地球上已知的生物一半儿以上有在森林中栖息繁衍的。
C 紫丁香盛开时，硕大而艳丽的花序布满全株，芳香四溢，观赏效果甚佳，是庭园裁种的著名花木。
D 传统观念认为动画片的受众仅仅是儿童，但目前越来越多的公司开始推出适合不同年龄受众的多元化产品。

(I'm not expecting people to solve these; I include these to facilitate answers.)  The answers are:

 B B D B A A D C D B

(A previous question asked about this, but I'm not sure if that's just a once-off.)

For native Chinese who read and write a lot, there are many obvious mistakes we can spot in one glance, but for learners, these questions are indeed extremely difficult.
Things that are easy to  spot:

保持年轻的 [之一秘诀] 是拥有健康的心态  --> 保持年轻的 [秘诀之一] 是拥有健康的心态

"XX 之一" is a common structure for "one of the XX "

~

春天来了，到处是呈现出一片生机勃勃的景象。 --> 春天来了，到处[是][呈现出]一片生机勃勃的景象。

是 is a verb, 呈现出 is also a verb. We only need one

The problem is not the difficulty. The problem is the long time it takes to go through the lengthy sentences.
Your teacher's suggestion was a practical one, for dealing with a time restrained test.
My suggestion is similar-- Answer the questions you know the answer first, leave the hard and long questions at the end.
Guess only at the last minute
Edit:
It took me 10 minutes to answer all ten questions. I guess non-native speakers would take three times as long. If a test has a time limit of two hours, and 200 questions, they would be spending  1/4 of their time to answer 1/20 of the questions.


"I am good" in Chinese I would like to know if you can say "我好", when someone asks you "你好吗?".
I am aware you can answer "我很好" as in "I am very good", but can you say "I am good"?
Please fix my mistakes if I have any.

-Thanks, Orangalo

We never answer “我好” when asked “你好吗?”. Indeed, these days it's not very common for people to greet others with “你好吗？” face to face, but simply “你好” will do just fine. When greeted with “你好”, we can acknowledge it with the same “你好”. 我很好 sometimes means I am ok (so don't worry about me). Imagine two lovers just broke up but still treat each other as friends. In their letters later on, one may write 我很好，不用担心我. This is the scenario that popped into my head when I first saw this quesiton.


Are [ɚ] and [ər] interchangeable for (儿化) er-hua? I've got different resources doing different things for er-hua, e.g.:

包儿

resource material #1

  [pər]

resource material #2

  [pɚ]

is [ɚ] and [ər] interchangeable for (儿化) er-hua?

I would hazard to guess that [ər] is just a lazy [ɚ].

They should be the same. It is just differences in notation. [ər] is commonly used by Sinologists, while [ɚ] is actual IPA.

In the Beijing dialect (and standard Mandarin), 包儿 should be pronounced as something like [paʊɻ] (probably written by Sinologists as [paur]). It looks like you're looking at something like Sichuanese, where 包儿 is pronounced as [pɚ].

Take a look at the Wikipedia article on erhua for more details.


Why are there duplicates in the following words 游游泳, 化化妆, 散散步, ..., etc? I am looking through my text book and I came across some words like: 游游泳, 化化妆, 散散步.

What is the difference between those and their regular counterparts 游泳, 化妆, 散步?

Reduplication of a verb

'with AA Pattern' indicates the action occur in a slight degree, brief time period or casual manner

Examples:

看- to look; 看看- to look briefly

走- to walk; 走走- to walk briefly

敲- to knock; 敲敲- to knock slightly

嘗- to taste; 嘗嘗- to slightly taste

Another form of Reduplication 'with A一A Pattern' indicates the action occur in a single instance, slight degree, brief time period or casual manner

Examples:

看- to look; 看一看- take a look/ to look briefly

走- to walk; 走一走- take a walk/ to walk briefly

敲- to knock; 敲一敲- knock once/ to knock slightly

嘗- to taste; 嘗一嘗- taste once/ to slightly taste

For verbs that are made up of a two characters like  游泳, 散步, you only need to reduplicate the first character.

游泳- to swim; 游游泳- to swim casually (or briefly)

散步- to take a walk; 散散步- to talk a walk casually (or briefly)


When should "度" be used? When should "量" be used? I noticed both 度 and 量 mean "amount, number". It looks like they are not exchangeable. Am I right?

For example, I saw 温度，湿度，长度，宽度，高度，角度， but never saw 温量，湿量，长量，宽量，高量，角量。I also feel 重量，容量，含量，数量 are fixed combinations too. Is there a rule about where to use which?

度 is measurement for length, height or level  (difference between levels is measured in distance )

量 is measurement for volume (something to do with space available or occupied)

As nouns, they are not interchangeable

量度 (v ) to measure ( length or volume)

量 (v) to measure ( length or volume)

度 (v) to measure ( length)


How to understand "你怎么了？" I understand 怎么 generally means "how".
However, I came across the following translated example:

你怎么了？ 说话声音这么小!
Nǐ zěnme le ？ Shuōhuà shēnɡyīn zhème xiǎo!
What happened to you? You are speaking in such a low voice!

Why does 你怎么了 mean this? Literally, I understand it as "You (are) how?". Is 样 implied? Like in:

你怎么样？
Nǐ zěnme yàng?
Literally: You how is it?, meaning How is it going?

Although the translation seems a bit different.

It's one of those fixed expressions whose otherwise regular meaning is significantly and conspicuously altered by the modal 了, that introduces change semantics.
The phrase 「你怎么（样）～」 in itself means "How do you...?". If you add a modal 了 signifying change, it becomes：

"How do you... now" (as opposed to before)

...which in an idiomatic translation becomes: "What happened to you?". The English version precisely conveys change semantics, as it implies that you had no issue earlier, but you might have some now.
A similar result happens with this other expression:

我知道 I know
我知道了 I know now = I got it

And also this one, though I must admit this is my own interpretation, and I have no scientific evidence to support it:

算 to count, to consider as
算了 counted (as in, not counted before, but counted now) = forget about it


Could saying "慢慢吃" to a stranger cause offence? I learned that the equivalent to "bon appetit" in Chinese is "慢慢吃" (perhaps also "请慢用"). This is a polite thing to do in English.

But since it literally means "eat slowly", I'm wondering if some Chinese might interpret it literally when coming from a complete stranger. Especially if they are actually eating quickly.

Should I think twice before using this phrase with strangers to attempt to be polite?

Usually you would say "bon appetit" at the beginning of the meal. Same applies in Chinese: you can say either 慢慢吃 / 请慢用 / 请 / 慢用

The only time it might cause confusion is when you say it during the middle of the meal


When did 方便面 become 泡面 and why? I've noticed people avoid the word 方便面 these days, instead opting for the word 泡面. I'm not sure exactly when this switchover occurred but it does seem very pervasive at the moment.

KEY does define 泡面 as:

  {TW usage} instant noodles

Is it just that 泡面 sounds fancier that it has cotton on?

I think, your intuition is right. 泡面 sounds fancier, and people prefer fancier names unconsciously.

方便面 sounds cheap; they were just instant noodles for filling one‘s empty stomach. The name reminds the way how migrant rural workers eat 方便面, which is very common to see in train stations of big cities.

泡面 sounds as elegant as 泡茶 (make tea); because usually it takes time to 泡 (verb) something and then to enjoy what has been 泡-ed.


What is the meaning of "完败"? 客队0比3完败。
客队0比3完败主队。
客队3比0完败主队。
客队以完败收场。
客队0比3完胜了。
客队3比0完败了。
What is the meaning of "完败" in these sentence?

Entirely/completely defeated, without any score.  See, all your examples are nothing to 3, hence, the other (winning) side is 完胜：主队3:0完胜客队。


What does 惊鸿 mean in this context? I've read from Baidu that '惊鸿' has three meanings.

However, I still don't understand what it means in this sentence:

  惊鸿剑方向一变，竟然不理会儒袍修士，化为一道惊鸿，只是一闪就出现在白颖脚下，同时剑身一个狂涨，化为数丈大小。

"惊鸿" word in 化为一道惊鸿 is confusing for me. I think the most probable answer is 'flying swan', but if it does mean swan, why is "道" used as the measure word?

显然这出自一篇网文（玄幻或武侠之类）。惊鸿即为受惊而翀的鸿雁，“翩若惊鸿”就是盛赞洛神之体态轻盈。言归正传，这里就是一类仙侠玄幻小说常用设定罢了——此剑既唤作 惊鸿剑，就真的能够化为惊鸿了。或是极言其变换移形之迅捷，好突出它的厉害。事实上，随便用其他的意象也无妨。换成“化为一闪电光”之类的也可以。

“道”自然是量词，但是属于“创意性的用法”。“一道”什么，首先令人想到的就是闪电，这样更加表现了剑之莅飒。在文学中，量词的运用可以带来感官的变化。比如在我所给的句子中“一闪电光”同样用了一个不寻常的字眼来作量词，是一个道理。

This quote looks like it comes from a type of web novel (specifically fantasy stories of martial arts, righteous warriors, and immortal sages).

「惊鸿」refers to a swan goose「鸿」which flies straight upwards (like a missile/jet) whenever it gets startled「惊」, and harks back to the idiom「翩若惊鸿」, which is an old chengyu describing the graceful body figure and mannerisms of immortal beauties.

In this context, the novel has set the usage of the word「惊鸿」. Either this sword being called「惊鸿剑」can really transform into a「惊鸿」, or「惊鸿」is a metaphor for its powers, or「惊鸿」is just one of its powers. Describing the sword as being able to transform into a lightning bolt gives much the same imagery.

「道」is a measure word, but its use here is innovative.「一道X」gives an impression of a flash of lightning, highlighting the swiftness and nimbleness of a sword's motion. In literature, a measure word (that may be different from expected) may be used to bring out some special features of the object measured for the audience. For example, I could use the word「闪」to measure occurrences of lightning.


What's the difference between 可 and 可以? I've seen threads for 可以 as opposed to 会 and 能, but what about 可以 with its component, 可?

Wiktionary seems to use them interchangeably:
白银可以指：银，贵金属，用做货币时可称为白银

Is there a difference in nuance, or flow of the sentence?

"可" is a morpheme, while "可以" is a word.

With the meaning of "be able to", "可" and "可以" are interchangeable in most cases.

When we answer a question, we should say "可以", which means "fine", or "OK". When coming to popular culture, some of us would just answer "可", which is not literally supposed to. Say, if you answer like this, we could still understand.

Here are the situations I could come up with, only "可" is used as emphatic adverb (just like "very"), sometimes used to throw a question.
See definition #2 here

For example, "这本书可贵了", which means "this book is very expensive". This is the morpheme "可" used for emphasis.
Another example, "近来可好？", which means "How have you been recently?". This is the morpheme "可" used to throw a question.


Can 九十 = "ninety" also mean "nine or ten" (like how 三四 means "three or four")? It's normal in Chinese to say something like:

  他大概三四岁左右 (source)
  he is probably around 3 or 4 years old

This is called Approximating with sequential numbers on the Chinese Grammar Wiki.

However, 九十 is problematic because 九十 ordinarily means "ninety".

  他大概九十岁左右
  he is probably around 9 or 10 years old
  he is probably around 90 years old

Question: Can 九十 also mean "nine or ten"?

It may simply be that we're not allowed to use 九十 to mean "nine or ten" (i.e., it's an exception), or perhaps "nine or ten" vs. "ninety" is usually inferrable from context.

No, since 九十 already means exactly 'ninety', it cannot be use as an approximate figure for 'nine or ten'

'nine or ten years old' has to be written as "九至十岁"

You can say 十一二 (11 or t2) , 十三四 (13 or 14) or even 十五六七 (15 to 17) but not 九十 (9 or 10)


How would you translate 细腻 into English? My Chinese coworkers were describing Korean drama TV shows & said that the actors faces are "细腻" xi4ni4. When I look this up in my dictionary, I get 2 definitions "fine & smooth" or "exquisite". I don't think those capture the meaning my coworkers intended. When they tried to describe what they were saying, they said something like the actors don't have to SAY what they are feeling, you can see in their eyes & so forth.

Is this just one of those words that is difficult to convey in English or is there a good way to translate it based on this context?

Thanks!

细腻 in acting means delicacy and attention to details, also implying sensibility and emotional subtlety.

  演员的表情细腻入微。The actor performed with great delicacy and sensibility.


List of historical Chinese currency terms Does anyone know where I can find a list of terms used for units of currency throughout the history of China?  I am especially interested in finding those terms that can function as 量词, like 文 and 贯.  I have already checked Wikipedia (http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E8%B4%A7%E5%B8%81) and Baidu (http://baike.baidu.com/view/1802633.htm), but am not entirely satisfied inasmuch as they focus on the currency itself rather than the terms used to talk about it.

The most used ones are 钱、文、贯、吊、千 and 万。They are not names for money, they are quantitive nouns. Read more: http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B0%BA%E8%B4%AF%E6%B3%95

Originally, 钱 is a very small mass amount. However, as time went by, it became the name for money.

There are other nominative words to refer to currency itself: 贝(shell)、币(刀币as referring to antique money)、帛(fine silk that can be used in barter trading)、锱铢(bronze or cast steel coins)、孔方(bronze coins with a hole)、元（圆）(coin)、金(metals)。Sometimes we also use 元宝、锭 for different shapes metals are made. For the modern world, we sometimes use 刀 or 美刀 to refer to USD.

Others are quantitive words. They might be quite confusing because traditionally we think it a vulgar doing as to refer to money directly, or because it is inconvenient to compose quantitive word and the noun itself together. Fortunately today we only use a little of them now. Note that in strict grammar, quantitive words are a special kind of nouns.

However, sometimes ancient people pay their debts in precious metal like gold / silver / bronze. Then we use mass units to count.

The following are quantitive words for counting money.

文(historical "small")=枚(when you don't know the coin's value, "a small piece")=元("the basic")=圆("a round stuff")=块(“a bulk”)=1 main unit coin.

角(litterally a corner / a horn of an animal)=毛(litterally "a feather of a bird")=1/10 the main unit.

分(litterally "a part")=1/100 the main unit.

厘("nuance")=1/1,000 the main unit.

毫("body hair of a beast")=1/10,000 the main unit.

贯(historical,"to string up")=千("a thousand")=1,000 main unit

Note: In classical Chinese scripts, since there is no clear difference between quantitive and nominative words, it is possible to say 二百又一錢, which equals to 二百零一块钱 in mandarin.


Questions on how to talk about specifics, how to talk about things in relation to other things Say you're at an event and you want to say, I like this specific event.

Let's say basketball, is 我喜欢这篮球比赛 correct?

And in comparison, 这篮球比赛比昨周篮球比赛很好。That doesn't look right, so I'm

curious on how to formulate these types of statements.

You can say 这场篮球赛比上周那场更好。or 这场篮球赛比上周那场好的多。


Chinese painting poem and seal meaning Could anyone please help me, I got a painting as a gift, and I tried to find the meaning of the poem and seals on my painting but it didn’t succeed.

it's not a poem. just a record of who send a gift to who.

read from top to bottom, right to left,

武夷雪花泉　：　a spring named snow flake (雪花泉) in mountain 武夷, in hokkien province

建樹先生惠存　：　建樹 is the name of recipient, 先生 is used as a respectful term. 惠存, roughly a courteous term for "receive & keep"

薛靈敬贈　：　the sender's surname (薛) & name (靈), sending (贈) with respect (敬)

甲子年冬日　：　甲子 is the first entry of sexagenary cycle, for indicating year, it's 1984, 1924, or any sixty years earlier. in context, it's 1984, cause the painter born in 1911, died in 1992, it's very unlikely the painter did it in 1924 (he's just 14 years old).

冬日 means in winter (winter 冬, day 日)

陳挺作　：　陳挺 (1910-1992) the name of the painter, 作 means fabricate (paint, in this context)

about the seal, the first one is provided by drooze :)

here's some afterthought about how:

1　must, and only use traditional chinese to decipher

2　determine how many characters the seal has

this one is simple, only two characters

3　determine which "ideographic description sequences" a character has

the unicode defined some structures, that how a traditional chinese character is written (u+2ff0 - u+2ffb)

eg, the left character of the first seal is ⿳, above, middle and below

the above is 艸 (u+8278), the below is 口 (u+53e3), the middle might be hard to recognise, never mind, one could guess it by listing possible choices, cause this character would be in the radical 艸 (140th).

so, only 苔, 苕, 若, 苦, 苫, 茖, 茗, 茩, 荅, 莒, 莕, 莙 has the below 口

http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/radical.php?rad=140

then, checking the seal script of these 12 characters would show that

若 (u+82e5) matched.

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

again, the right character of the first seal is ⿰, left & right; with the right part is ⿵ surround from above (or ⿱, top & bottom)

the left component is 人 (u+4eba), the right bottom is 口 (u+53e3); so, the choices are:

估, 佁, 佑, 佔, 佫, 佮, 佶, 佸, 侶, 俉, 俗, 信, 倍, 倜, 偌, 傛

http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/radical.php?rad=9

then, 倜 (u+501c) matched.

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

when a character can't be recognised by first sight, the above method might help :)

edited.

the third seal has four characters, the first three are "有所不"

top right: 有

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

bottom right: 所

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

top left: 不

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

bottom left character is not recognised at first glance :(

wait :)

OK, the last one is 及 (u+53ca)

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

this one is in early spring and autumn style.

together, the seal "有所不及" was also used by the painter 陳挺.

have fun :)


Single-worded verbs being repeated when use in a sentence So in Mandarin there are verbs like 数 means count and 试 means try but I usually them being doubled when use in a sentence (I.e: 请数数 = Please count). Can somebody explains for me?

It is called verb reduplication and it is not the first time I explain it.
From my answer to another question What is the purpose of verb reduplication?

Phrases like 笑笑，看看，走走 or 吃吃 are verb reduplication, it serves to indicate the verb is in a slight degree or a casual manner

From my answer to yet another question 快把大衣穿穿！When is it wrong?

Reduplication of verb imply the verb is in 'a slight degree', 'a casual manner' or 'tentative manner'
Examples:
吃 = eat
吃吃 = (slightly/ casually) eat
试 = try
试试 = (slightly/ tentatively) try

The difference between 请数 and 请数数 is 请数 sounds like a blunt demand; 请数数 sounds less demanding (reduplicate the verb 数 hinting you make the statement in a tentative manner. Not that you are not sure the other person should count, just you are not forcefully telling him to do so)


Shi / Hen for adjective + noun when discussing facts or perceived facts There are the simplified rules about never using "shi" to link an adjective with a noun. However, I believe this is not true for facts or perceived facts, such as colors, then I should use "shi" to mean simply "is":
When I say: The dog is black: 狗是黑色的.

And cannot say: 狗很黑色

I think when using 很, the meaning changes, it does not mean "IS" anymore. And that is the thing.

Is that correct? I read it in an article but on the other hand, many other articles just mention the simple rule I mentioned above.

@user970696 emmm i ve checked all your comments and i guess you are somehow mislead by some strict rules. You may have perceived that 很 more or less conveys comparison. 石炭纪的蕨类植物很大(The Carboniferous ferns are huge in size)(They are considerably huge compared with plants today)   这部电话很白 you more or less emphasize its white color. Why do you say that? The reason may come from the feature of generalized kind. (There are few phones that are so white)or from context (-我这电话买了十年了-那这电话很白啊)(-I bought the phone ten years ago-Oh, it's still that white!(It should looks old after using for so long)) So 我家猫很黑 is not simply "my cat is black". Try to learn different implication of 很:

我养的柴犬很黑(Because Shiba Inu is usually ginger)(So the comparison is between my dog and common Shiba Inu)
我的猫很黑，但毛却发亮(My cat is black, but he has shiny fur)(the comparison is between my cat and common black but dull cat)
蚂蚁很小(Ants are small compared with many animals we often see)

If you just say ...很... without explicit or inexplict comparison, it's correct but just strange.