Does 屁股 refer to the womens' bottoms in 几个包着头巾的女人正将棉秆拔出来，她们不时抖动着屁股摔去根须上的泥巴? From the book 活着 (audio book, about 7 minutes 40 seconds into 第01集):

  几个包着头巾的女人正将棉秆拔出来，她们不时抖动着屁股摔去根须上的泥巴。

I translate this to:

  Several [几个] women [女人] wearing [包着] headscarves [头巾] are [正将] pulling out [拔出来] cotton stalks [棉秆]; they [她们] frequently [不时] shake [抖动着] their bottoms [屁股] so the root's [根须上的] mud [泥巴] falls off [摔去].

I'm confused about 屁股 (pìgu) = "bottom".  I've only ever seen it used to mean "bottom" (of an animal) in the sense of "arse" (and not "bottom" as in "lower part" as it also means in English).  So I feel it's odd to think about the "bottoms" of the cotton stalks in this context.

However, in this sentence, if it means the women are shaking their respective bottoms, I don't understand how that causes the mud to fall off the cotton stalks.

Question: Does 屁股 refer to the womens' bottoms?

摔去根须上的泥巴 means to swing cotton stalks 棉秆 and hit ground heavily in order to remove the mud attached on the root. In order to make sure the root can hit the ground, they have to squat or bend their knees. By repeating the motion several times, the mud can be removed thoroughly. So, looking behind, their butts shake up and down.


Is there a politically neutral Chinese term for Greater China that is acceptable to all Chinese speakers? By "China," I am referring to the Mainland, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan collectively, without regard to geopolitics. Is there a word that refers to this entire region that would not offend any Mainlanders, Taiwanese or citizens of the Special Administrative Units?

maybe "大中華區". most multinational corporations used this term to describe the regions you mentioned.

such usage is correct, in context of nowadays, or recent decades. historically, taiwan was integrated into the chinese empire after ~1683. before that time, formosa was colonised by the dutch, spanish.

history of taiwan

last, and most importantly is: how do you define "chinese speakers".

there're many ethnicities in "greater china" can speak chinese, they've their own cultures, languages and ideas of state / nation. so, "politically neutral" is, imo, unattainable.

it's better to seek a term that's vague, fuzzy enough; that no-one want to waste time and effort to argue its precise definition.


How do you say: "I have known her since we were both 2 years old"? I've been trying to work out how to form an equivalent of the English present perfect with a stative verb.
I'd like to say something along the lines of:

I have known her since we were both 2 years old.

So far, I've cobbled together this:

自从我们都二岁我认识她。

I could be way off! I'm only at elementary level and this grammar point hasn't occurred in any of my books yet so maybe it's much more complex than this.

"I have known her since we were both 2 years old."

I would translate this as simply:

  我们两岁就认识的  "We were just 2 when we got to know each other"

Sometimes the tricky part of translation is that different languages communicate the same information using different structures, or a structure that is natural in one language is very weird in the other.

The word "since" can only be translated as 自从 in certain contexts. In sentences like this, it is more natural to switch around the word order and use 就. Here's another example:

  I've been here since 3 o'clock! Where are you?!
  我三点就到这里了！你在哪里啊？！

Hope that helps.


What is the English equivalent of 拜托, and what is it's proper usage in Chinese? I quite like the expression 拜托, but I've never been 100% sure of what exactly it means in English, and I'm not quite sure how to use it properly in Chinese. Little help?

The literal meaning is 'to respectfully ask someone to do something', and sometimes it's used in that way. But often, even though it's used as a verb, 拜托你xxx can just be translated as 'please can you do xxx for me'. It's not as common as 'please' in English though, so it sounds more formal / polite.

You can also use it semi-sarcastically to show your exasperation with someone - nciku.com gives 拜托你闭嘴 (please just shut up) and 拜托你少管闲事 (I'll thank you to mind your own business).

As well as being a verb, you can use it on its own or at the end of a sentence. As above, this is either a polite phrase like "I'm begging you for your assistance" or a sarcastic phrase meaning "oh for God's sake" depending on context.


Does Taiwanese Mandarin have the neutral tone? So I'm trying to learn Taiwanese Mandarin, and apparently they don't really use the neutral tone, but if that's the case how do you say things like 子,了, and 的?

I guess you are talking about 輕聲.

臺灣注音符號的聲調除了一聲、二聲、三聲、四聲以外，還有個「輕聲」.

In addition to the first, second, third, and fourth tones, there is a 輕聲 (light tone) in Taiwan.
It is also known as the fifth tone or the neutral tone.

符號是一個小圓點；直寫時，標在上方；橫寫時，標在左側。

The mark is a small dot.
When the text is written vertically, it is marked at the top.
In a horizontal print, it is marked on the left.

For example,

You can search 注音符號發音教學 on the YouTube site.


which one is correct and why "我看书看很长时间” or "我很长时间看书” can we say ”我很长时间看书“？meaning I have read a book for a long time. is it possible to put duration in the beginning?

"看书“ is detachable word， that means we need to put temporal words(such as 很长时间）into the middle of "看书”。Detachable word can be collocated with many kinds of word or phrase and the collocation with quantitative phrase is one of the most common occurrences。
So the correct answer is "我看了很长时间书" or "我看书看了很长时间”。

If you still don't understand this grammar point, I recommond you to buy one or two good Chinese grammar book, this articel tells you the best Chinese grammar book.http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/article/chinese-learning-tips/best-chinese-grammar-book/


What does it say on this coin? I bought this beautiful coin and I have no idea what it says. I think it is Chinese. For the case it is not, please forgive my ignorance, there has been no intention to offend you

獎牌 Medal

農工商部 Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce

製 make (made)

二等 2nd Class/Grade

農工商部是清朝政府於光緒三十二年（1906年）設立的中央機構。
"Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce" was the central government established by the Qing government in the thirty-second year during the Guangxu period (1906).

Price in the August 2013 Hong Kong Auction

農工商部製 二等 獎牌


What's the difference between 拍照 (pāizhào) and 照相 (zhàoxiàng) which both mean "to take a photo"? These two words seem very similar:

拍照 (pāizhào) = "to take a picture" (dict.cn） or "take a photograph (pt took) (pp taken)" (Collins)
照相 (zhàoxiàng) = "take a photograph" (dict.cn） or "take a picture (pt took) (pp taken)" (Collins)

Question: What's the difference between 拍照 and 照相?

Jukuu.com gives many example sentences for 拍照; here's some simple ones:

  你不要动, 我给你拍照 (Nǐ bùyào dòng, wǒ gěi nǐ pāizhào)
  爸爸为她拍照 (Bàba wèi tā pāizhào)
  禁止拍照 (Jìnzhǐ pāizhào)
  你喜欢拍照什么? (Nǐ xǐhuān pāizhào shénme?)

Judging from Baidu results, in the first two cases above, we can replace 拍照 with 照相, but not in the second two cases.  So there seems to be some difference.

The two terms have the same meaning of "take photograph" in modern Chinese, they just describe the same action differently.

'照' in '照相' refers to 'reflect with mirror' and 相 is short for 相片 (portrait/ photograph). Taking photograph with early cameras required the subject to stand still for few minutes, facing the lens like facing a mirror; even with modern cameras, the subject still need to stand still in front of the camera lens to have his or her picture taken.
'拍' in '拍照' refers to the 'clicking' sound of the camera. and '照' is short for '照片' (photograph). when you push the camera button, the shutter would open and shut and make a 'clicking' sound.

(it might also refers to the loud flashing sound the early camera flashlight made)

照相 probably was coined before 拍照. In early days of cameras, the only way to take a photograph of yourself is  go to 照相館-- We never heard of '拍照館' And taking picture of a person or a family was the sole function of 照相館.

Also, we have 禁止拍照 signs but not 禁止照相 signs. 禁止拍照 mainly targeted handheld cameras. With handheld cameras, we can take picture other than people, therefore, 拍照 can mean taking picture of people, scenery or object; While 照相 mainly means taking portrait of people.


What can I do about "Written Chinese"? Every time I go to the dictionary of Written Chinese, it stops working! How should I fix!? http://dictionary.writtenchinese.com/#sk=idiot&svt=pinyin

It shows a server error (503), so you probably can't do anything about it, except using another dictionary.

Try one of these:

LINE Dict Chinese-English
MDBG Chinese Dictionary
Chinese Dictionary


How to understand "请勿复敢见矣"? How to understand "请勿复敢见矣" in 《孟子·公孙丑下》:

孟子去齐，宿于昼。有欲为王留行者，坐而言。不应，隐几而卧。客不悦曰：“弟子齐宿而后敢言，夫子卧而不听，请勿复敢见矣。”
曰：“坐！我明语子。昔者鲁缪公无人乎子思之侧，则不能安子思；泄柳、申详，无人乎缪公之侧，则不能安其身。子为长者虑，而不及子思，子绝长者乎？长者绝子乎？”

Someone translates "请勿复敢见矣" to "I do not dare to ask for meeting you anymore". It makes sense to me, but I don't get why it can be expressed in this way.
I think "请勿" means "please stop doing/ please do not", and "复敢见" is "dare to meet again". Therefore the natural interpretation would be "Please don't dare to meet again". I know it sounds very odd, so I am wondering what I have missed here?

in classical chinese, "i" is rarely used. it's replaced by other character / word.

請勿復敢見矣 is "I do not dare to ask for meeting you anymore" (imo, this translation is a very good one)

請 - replaced "i"

勿 - do not

復 - anymore

敢 - dare to

見 - ask for meeting you

in the same sentence, 弟子齊宿而後敢言 is roughly:

i used to respect (you, mr 孟), therefore i dare to persuade

弟子 - literally "disciple", it replaced "i"

齊宿 - in 漢 dynasty, it was interpreted as "used to respect"¹

而後 - therefore

敢言 - dare to persuade

no "i", get it?

¹齊﹒敬也﹒宿﹒素也:


我爱去饭店吃饭。我想去饭店吃米饭，可是我觉得我会去家吃苹果: Does this make grammatical sense? I am just practicing writing. Does this make sense?

我饿死了！我爱去饭店吃饭。我想去饭店吃米饭，可是我觉得我会去家吃苹果。

我饿死了！ - I am so hungry (O)
我饿死了！ 我爱去饭店吃饭 - I am very hungry! I love to go to restaurant to have a meal (X)
The two clauses do not seem to be related

~

我饿死了！我想去饭店吃饭 - I am very hungry, I want to go to restaurant to have a meal (O)
The first part is the cause/ reason and the second part is the result/reaction. The two clauses are related

~

我饿死了！我想去饭店吃饭，可是我觉得我会回家吃苹果。(O)

米饭 specifically means 'cooked rice', 吃米饭 in this sentence should be changed to '吃饭' (having meal)
去家 should be 回家 (go home) unless it is "去 someone's 家"


Where to put the time phrase? 你运动多久一次？ or 你多久运动一次？ Does an adverb of frequency usually occur after the verb? How should I say "how often do you play sports?"

  你运动多久一次？

OR

  你多久运动一次？

Actually a frequency adverb should be put before a verb. For example:

我(Wǒ)常(chánɡ)常(chánɡ)游(yóu)泳(yǒnɡ)。 （ I always swim.)

我(Wǒ)周(zhōu)末(mò)偶(ǒu)尔(ěr)去(qù)逛(ɡuànɡ)街(jiē)。( I go for shopping on weekends occasionally.）

And “ How often do you play sports ？” could be translated as:
你(Nǐ)多(duō)久(jiǔ)运(yùn)动(dònɡ)一(yí)次(cì)？( how often = 多(duō)久(jiǔ) ）


How to say "obscene": translate 下流 or 輕佻? I want to describe people wearing clothing as totally indecent and obscene, for instance because the clothing doesn’t remotely cover the buttocks. I am not talking about ordinary mini skirts or hot pants.
I definitely want to sound judging and don’t care to be nice to the person in question, but I don’t want the word in itself to be vulgar / unsuitable for use in writing.
I checked dictionaries for 'obscene' and found 下流. My Chinese friend says 下流 is very, very bad and out of proportion and recommended 輕佻, but dictionaries say this means 'skittish, flippant, giddy, frivolous'. These words seem much too cute to me, almost like I am not scolding the person.
How to grasp the difference between the two words?

'Obscene' is not 下流(no class/ bad taste) or 輕佻 (frivolous)

One definition of obscene is 不堪入目 , it is used to describe perverted, immoral act or behavior

For example: Taking a child from his mother and claim it is all for enforcing the law (which is not true) is an obscene (不堪入耳- too perverted and immoral to the ears) argument

Another definition of obscene is 淫褻 or 不雅 (also means 'unsightly'), it is used to describe extreme sexually suggestive content or display

I would describe the skirt 不雅, 不堪入目 or 淫褻 if I was judgmental, but I rather call it 大膽 (bold) or 開放 (open)

暴露 (revealing) is also a fitting description of that skirt

Edit: from all the answers: "下流, 輕佻, 不堪入目, 大膽, 開放, 淫褻, 變態, 不三不四, 有伤风化" are all 'subjective opinions' (you can't say any of them is wrong, but you can disagree with all of them)

Only 暴露 is  an 'objective description' (it is a correct statement based on fact. You can't argue with fact, that skirt does expose a lot of skin)


Translation: Chinese relative names + numerals into English Working on some translations but always come across things like:

  李二嫂

  王二叔

  三奶奶

  张幺伯儿

For 李二嫂 I think I came up with something like: The Li family's second eldest son's wife, which sounds stupid in English. Should we opt for something more like Mrs. Li?!

幺伯儿 and 二叔 might just be better off as uncle.

三奶奶 might just be great grandmother.

Is there a good way to deal with (translate) these surname + # + relative name names?

What about this construction:

Jack the Ripper

So we can have something like

Uncle Wang the Second

Etc.

PS: yes, Mrs. Li the Second cannot precisely convey the meaning of 李二嫂; even Uncle Wang the Second is a little ambiguous. I doubt whether there is actually a concise expression in English, so maybe I will leave a footnote to explain it in the article/book/etc.
PPS: According to the wikipedia entry Chinese kinship, there were translations like

Second Uncle
—Yang, Rae (1998), Spider Eaters: A Memoir, University of California Press, p. 46, ISBN 0-520-21598-2, retrieved 2009-07-14, "The letter became evidence of Second Uncle's yearning for the Nationalists to come back."

Thus, Second Uncle Wang sounds quite reasonable too.


Is "v" ever an acceptable English rendering of ü? IME's often use v in place of ü for entering pinyin.

nü can be typed as nv to get 女, etc.
lüe can be typed as lve to get 略, etc.

Sometimes in English though you will see v in place of ü.

For instance: 吕洞宾 might be rendered as Lv Dongbing.

As far as I know this is totally wrong and is an unacceptable rendering of 吕, I might be totally wrong though.

Is "v" ever an acceptable English rendering of ü?

AFAIK (I'm a native English speaker) the letter v is never used in English writing to render the sound represented in pinyin by ü.

However in software that uses pinyin it is standard practice to use the letter v as an alias for ü.

From Wikipedia (link):

  Since the letter "v" is unused in Mandarin pinyin, it is universally used as an alias for ü. For example, typing "nv" into the input method would bring up the candidate list for pinyin: nǚ.

There are indeed some cases where people mistakenly use v in Pinyin instead of ü. It does seem to be a mistake, probably induced by the IME typing convention.
This blog post gives an example in a street sign in Beijing.


Please help identify characters in my seal on a modern brush painting I am trying to find information on the characters in the red seal in the lower right corner of a painting.It is on paper and seems modern. I suppose it is a signature, Thanks for any information

The seal read 李麟 /Lǐ lín/, It is a name of a person
李 means 'plum' (family name)
麟 as in 麒麟 (Kirin)
麒麟 is one of the four spirit beasts in Chinese myth (the others are 1.dragon  2.phoenix and 4.tortoise)

Note:
Google Translate translates 麒 as 'mythical unicorn'; 麟 as 'female unicorn' Which mean 麒麟 is the general term for 'mythical unicorn', but the image of 麒麟 in Chinese culture is quite different from the unicorn in the western myth which we call 獨角獸 (one-horned beast)


Doubts on some words in a Deng Lijun song I just listened to the song 无奈 by Deng Lijun, and there are three points where what I hear doesn't match the lyrics I have:

At the end of the sentence at 1:30-1:37, my lyrics have 痴情 | chïqíng, but I hear either qiqi or qiqing;
The 仍藏心底 | réng cáng xïn dî at 2:59-3:01 sounds to me like ying can xin di;
The 选择 | xuânzé in the sentence at 3:14-3:18 and 3:27-3:31 sounds like suanjia to me, and given that shortly before we have a 选择 which actually sounds like xuanze I am fairly certain it must be another word.

Is that all just me mishearing or am I on to something?

Also, another video of the song has 00:41-00:47 captioned as 看着你一脸惘然 眼眶是泪滴, my lyrics have 看着你一脸茫然 眼眶是泪滴, and I'm not sure if I hear mangran or mengran. Can you confirm my lyrics have it right? Is 一脸茫然 a chengyu?

Here are my conclusions:

The 痴情 is supposed to be 戚戚 | qi1qi1, as suggested here;
The 仍藏心底 is supposed to be 隐藏心底 | yin3cang2 xin1 di3, as suggested here;
The 选择 at the end is supposed to be 三角 | san1jiao4, as suggested here;
The 惘然 is supposed to be 茫然; I only draw this conclusion because it seems to me "blank" fits the context better than "suddenly", since "your face is blank and there is tears in your eyes" is what would result from 茫然, whereas with 猛然 you would have "on the whole face" (一脸) and "the eyes" (眼眶), two contradictory complements of place.

The three "here"s above all link to the same link provided in Jason Swift's comment.


Why does the usual Verb-Object order seem to have been broken here (很高兴为您服务)? The sentence 很高兴为您服务 (hen gaoxing wei nin fuwu) breaks down as:

hen  |gaoxing |wei |nin |fuwu
very |glad    |to  |you |serve

But the usual word order in chinese is Subject Verb Object, and here the object (you) precedes the verb (to serve). Why is it not hen gaoxing wei fuwu nin?

The usual Verb-Object order depends a lot on the verb used in the sentence.

I don't see any unusual word order here. 服务 is a verb that requires preposition  为 to be used before an object. This verb is put after indirect object afterwards.

我_I (Subject) 很_very 高兴_happy 为_to 你_you (Indirect Object) 服务_serve (Action).

Similar case:

我_I (Subject) 很_very 高兴_happy 跟_with 你_you (Indirect Object) 结婚_marry (Action)


How to show exasperation? If I were to write "aiyaa, 这是太贵了!“

Wondering how to show exasperation in writing? Or how to write the aiyaa?

You can just say 哎呀，太贵了！ to express the meaning.


For 或, what semantic notions underlie "tool or weapon on a pole" (戈) + "mouth" (口) + "territory" (1)? I consulted p 399,  ABC Chinese–English Comprehensive Dictionary (2003) that It substantiates Wiktionary's definitions. I can't access the "slightly revised through July 2005" ed.

How did 戈 + 口 + 1 compound to mean

or; either ... or ... (used to list alternatives)

perhaps; maybe (mostly found in news headlines)?

occasionally; sometimes

Please answer separately for each of the 3 meanings. CUHK doesn't expound. I quote Yellowbridge for completeness.

Synopsis  : 甲骨文象有納柲的「管銎斧」或「柲帽」之形，是一種兵器。後來柲形與「◎」分離，可能是變形音化，以「◎」（「員」的初文）作為「或」的聲符。
Elaboration: 甲骨文象有納柲的「管銎斧」或「柲帽」（參見下面的「其他圖片」）之形，是一種兵器。（李學勤、謝明文）商代晚期的金文與甲骨文同，後來柲形與「◎」分離。謝明文認為「◎」的脫落可能是變形音化，以「◎」（「員」的初文）作為「或」的聲符。「◎」的周圍或加上飾筆，「柲」形又演變為象「戈」形，為《說文》小篆所本。後來的人根據訛變的字體，又誤把疆域、國家之類的假借當作「或」的本義或引申義，於是把「或」附會成一個會意字，故《說文》云：「或，邦也。从囗从戈，以守一。一，地也。」
　　「或」在甲金文中多用為人名、國名或族名。如《合集》4268：「乙亥卜，永鼎（貞）：令或來歸。」季老或盉：「季老或乍（作）文考大白（伯）□□。」
　　「或」也假借作副詞，訓為「再」、「又」。如《屯南》2991+620+2291「其或幼（？）盂田」，「幼」是和祭祀有關的動詞，全句意謂在盂地之農田再一次舉行幼祭。（謝明文）[妾子]壺：「或[目又]（得）[户臣貝]（賢）[左犬]（佐）司馬賈。」
　　「或」還表示區域、疆域。如《輯佚》690+《合集》36182：「遇（?）夷方率伐東或。」表示遭逢夷方率兵攻伐東土。又如㝬鐘：「㝬其萬年，畯保四或。」黃金貴指出西周金文的「或」都讀為「域」。大西克也進一步認為春秋金文乃至郭店楚簡、楚帛書等資料中的「或」、「䧕」、「宀或」等都應讀為「域」，表示地域、領域，而不是表示國家。如《上博竹書一．緇衣》簡7：「亖（四）或（域）川（順）之。」《郭店簡．緇衣》簡12作「四方[川心]（順）之」。「四或」和「四方」都泛指天下。

There is a misunderstanding on the Wiktionary description, which shouldn't have inappropriately linked 口 and 一; these are listed for their shapes rather than their functions. The description

Ideogrammic compound (會意): 戈 + 口 + 一, “territory”.

means the separate parts which look like 戈 + 口 + 一 are combined together into one glyph to mean territory. The two meaningful components to take note of are 「戈」 (picture of a dagger-axe) and 「囗」 or 「丁」 (picture of fortifications surrounding a settlement).
Territory is now written with the derivatives

「國」 (region, country), through the addition of another semantic 「囗」
「域」 (territory, region), through the addition of semantic 「土」 (earth, soil)

西周金或作父癸方鼎集成2133
「或」 was originally a compound of 「戈」 (dagger-axe, representing military power) guarding 「囗」 or 「丁」 (picture of fortifications surrounding a settlement; see Characters' original forms that have no independent usage for further discussion). The original idea was basically that of a defended settlement.
西周金保卣集成5415西周金尊集成6014西周金禹鼎集成2833
Some variants added strokes surrounding 「囗」 or 「丁」, emphasising the region's boundaries. Compare 「疆」 (originally field boundaries (畕), with lines added surrounding the fields later) or 「畫」 (to draw the line between fields (田), now written 「劃」).

Early on, 「或」 became used for a phonetic loan meaning someone, something. The meaning either, or is a semantic extension of this phonetic loan meaning. Schuessler suggests that this meaning of 「或」 (Baxter-Sagart OC: /*[ɢ]ʷˤək/) is etymologically related to 「有」 (/*[ɢ]ʷəʔ/, there is, exists). The other senses are either further semantic extensions or from compound words like

或許 (maybe)
間或 (occassionally, sometimes)


造反有理　革命無罪: What are the standard English translations of this? Perhaps one is "To rebel is justified / Revolution is no crime."

This however does not seem to me to fully capture the phrase.

I was wondering if there are perhaps other standard translations?

right to rebel! right to revolution!

or

Rebellion justified, Revolution legitimated!


How to type these old and rare Chinese characters? I've tried to google these old Chinese characters using their closest approximations but still haven't found out any. I want to find these characters so that I can copy and paste them instead of taking photos of them every time needed. They are:

PS: I just added 3 more Old Chinese characters because before that I didn't have enough reputation to upload more than 2 images. So, at the beginning, there were 2 images but after adding 3 more, now there are 5 images.

If you're having trouble displaying the following characters install the Hanazono font.
zisea

unicode码：2C686

zisea

unicode码：29AC1
拼音mao4

石 毛 doesn't seem to have much of a record as far as I can tell.

No results found for “⿱石毛”.

where ⿱ means top/bottom components in order of: 石(top) 毛(bottom)
 日 also doesn't seem to have an exact match that I can find, but this website seems to say it's this:

⿱日[T]

they say it's a combination of  日 but the character looks more like 干 than 于, not sure if it will work for your purpose.
zisea 肰

肰
unicode码：80B0

How to find characters?
1
I used zisea's 两分 to find both characters.
For the first one I searched 羽 能 (with a space in the middle)

and for the second I searched 高 毛 (with a space in the middle).

If you can figure out the two major components you can pretty much find any character you want, unicode or non-unicode.
2
笔顺
zdic sou suo page explains it like this:

请输入正确的笔顺编码：李→1234521
笔顺说明
笔顺名称   一（横）    丨（竖）    丿（撇）    丶（点）    乛（折）
笔顺编号   1   2   3   4   5
注:一（提）归为一（横），亅（竖钩）归为丨（竖），丶（捺）归为丶（点），各种折笔笔画归为一（折）——《现代汉语通用字笔顺规范》

 for instance is 丶一丨フ一丨フ丨フ一ノ一一フ which equates to 41251252513115
if you search for this on zdic select 字典 and then 笔顺 you'll get something like this:

3
google components
" 日" google search

If you try an exact search (quoted) for the components you are looking for you might also find what you want. That's how I found  referenced as a combination of the two, obvious, components of your character.


Comparing forms of humble self reference Because of one of the languages I grew up with, I have a strong desire to avoid using 我, especially when something follows that could constitute praise.
I am always conscious that my language skill and brush writing are terrible, but everyone seems to expect that I have some skill. Especially in such context I want to use a word that indicates I am aware of my shortcoming. Until now I usually chose 不才。
Furthermore, in a lot of set phrases I use 在下。

在下以為
在下的意思是
在下陸迪

I know that there are many alternatives. My 茶友 used 鄙人， my Cantonese friend always uses 某人 and I have seen 本人。
Could you please elaborate on which one I should use, ideally with examples? I don't care if these all sound extremely old fashioned, as long as they don't sound 虛偽。But my low skill is apparent, so 虛偽 should not be a problem.
If there are differences for men and women, please teach me those, too. I especially want to know about the men, because most of my friends are ladies.

If you want to use 謙稱 with accuracy, you'll have to learn how to use 尊稱 too! You can't have the yin with the yang. Learning all this is a big job, with not much payoff, except a reputation for nice writing.

If you're determined to try, be wary of all internet stuff; I found one sort of okay thing from Hong Kong's Civil Service Bureau here

There are also books on 應用文 in Taiwan; these focus on various types of 'applied writing': letters, invitations, minutes, notices, etc. They include a lot you probably don't want to mess with.  There are a few old handbooks of letter writing I've seen around, look for titles like '尺牘大全'. I know of ONE book in English: "Business and correspondence Chinese : an introduction", by Liang, Haft, and Mulder. Good luck on finding it. There is also a technical study by 曹湘洪: 当代汉语私人书信称谓, 起始及结束语社会语言学硏究 alas, for sociolinguists, not epistolarians.

Generally, most modern writing that tries to use 謙稱/尊稱 winds up sounding like an American actor in a British costume period piece. If you just want to have fun, go ahead, just be aware you might wind up sounding even funnier than you want to.

I also feel that in this case, Wikipedia is not a reliable source. The article on Chinese Honorifics mushes together generic terms with highly specific terms, all taken from dynasties randomly scattered across Chinese history, throws up etymologies without any sources, and ends by explaining that to use 老子, meaning "I, your dad" is a way of "referring to oneself as superior"; hence, "when used towards a person less well known or on formal occasions, both terms are considered to be incredibly rude." Yep, Chinese are pretty subtle people...


What is a professional looking Chinese font that could serve as an equivalent for italics? What is a professional looking font that is good to use as italics?

The italics function in a word processor merely slants Chinese characters, and is unsuitable for professional looking documents.

I’ve seen some documents or books that use a Kaiti typeface that might be considered an equivalent to italics.  I've looked at a number kaiti typefaces and haven’t found one with the right look yet.  Any recommendations?

Chinese script has no concept of “italics”. Of course, it is possible to slant characters, but – as you state – this is not a very professional solution. Given that you main body font is 宋体 (Songti, the equivalent to a serif font for Latin characters probably), it is a good idea to use another style like 楷体 (Kaiti) or 仿宋体 (Fangsongti). I personally like the latter, but because the Kaiti style is heavier, it will be probably more likely be perceived as different than the Fangsongti style which is not that heavy. To my knowledge, a Kaiti style is used more often than Fangsongti in Chinese printed matter (at least in books).

All these styles are available from very different vendors. So, it is actually up to you to choose a nice combination. The fonts below are „Songti SC“ (which I like better than the older „STSong“), „Kaiti SC“ and „STFangsong“ that all ship with the current macOS and are designed by Changzhou SinoType Technology Co., Ltd.

From top to bottom: Songti, Kaiti, Fangsongti.

However, switching between fonts is probably only a good idea if you start a new paragraph, because it may be difficult for the reader to recognise the font change. For emphasis of single words, you could use a heavier font (粗体, bold) or you could use emphasis points, which are small dots placed under (or in vertical typography to the right of) the relevant characters. However, emphasis points are – at least to my knowledge – used only rarely and it may be difficult to typeset them depending on the software you use.


Are there any original sources documenting the simplification process? I am familiar with the most common ways characters are simplified, but sometimes I am not completely sure what the thought process was. For example, with 邊 to 边, 力 is not a novel phonetic component, nor does it resemble the 草书 form of 邊, and as far as I know it's not a historical variant, so it appears like a mostly arbitrary replacement to me.

The 简化字总表, the list of simplified Characters published by the Chinese government, is the only original source I know of regarding simplified characters, but it only shows what the simplified characters are, and provides little explanation for the reasoning. Is there any source that documents the reasoning behind simplification? I imagine there was a committee that discussed it, and there had to have been some written correspondence about it. Are there any sources like that available to the public?

Simplified Chinese is no stupid command from "communist overlords". There was a committee discussing simplification, and they did choose simplified characters with academic discretion. I have found this semi-official book for explaining the sources of almost each simplified characters, plus the history of Chinese character simplification from Qing Dynasty:
《简化字溯源》(Tracing the Source of Simplified Characters), published by Language & Culture Press, 1997. (It's not an English book, but this is all I can think of. )
You can borrow it from a library, or buy it online for about $6.
Edit:
For those who think Simplified Chinese is a brutal command from the "red evils":
Chinese simplification is a process that started thousands of years ago, which has been performed by various regimes, not just the Communist China.
Lishu(lit. "slave script") is the best-known simplification in Ancient China, promoted by Qin Shihuang. Before that, Xiaozhuan(lit. "minor seal (script)"), which is more complex with round and delicate curves, served as the official script (after Qin unified China).
In 1935, the KMT government had drafted a proposal of simplifying Chinese, which contains about 500 characters as the "first batch". Most of them were accepted by the current Simplified Chinese. It was rejected because Dai Li, the head of intelligence, strongly opposed the proposal with the reason "Simplified Chinese is abomination to the ancestors".
The current Simplified Chinese was sometimes called Yi-Jian ("First Simplification"), because there were Er-Jian ("Second Simplification") during the early 1980s, which was really a disaster. The Second Simplification was made in a hurry, with a lot of simplifications that may cause confusion, violate the principle of making Chinese characters, or be just too ugly. People around China also invented their own simplification arbitrarily, which brought more confusion. The Second Simplification was terminated in mid-1980s, and the standard Chinese script was rolled back to the First Simplification.
What I'd like to say is, Simplified Chinese we use today may be imperfect, but they're so widely used and tested in daily life, and it is the best existing solution besides Traditional Chinese, with less complexity, and introduces minimum confusion. It can be left today because it is based on extensive research and respect to the principles.


Some Simple Translation Sentences Involving Key Grammar Phrases: 是， 像， 过 ， Direction Phrases I was wondering if someone could make sure my translations for these sentences are correct.
Thank you very much. Use

The book I'm reading now is a birthday gift given by a friend. Use 是

我现在读的书是朋友送给我的生日礼物。

The person who asked you to dance looked like my friend when he smiled. Use 像

那个请你跳舞的人笑的时候看起来像我的朋友。

We've met before, but we've never spoke to each other. Use 过， 见面，说话，从来没

我们之前见过面，但是我们从来没跟彼此说话。

The place I live is to the north of the student center. Use 的地方，在。。。的北边

我住的地方在学生中心的北边。

The language lab is inside the building to the south of the computer center. Use 语言实验室， 计算机几种心，在，南侧
I'm not sure how to translate this one.

祝你中秋节快乐！
My attempt:
1. The book I'm reading now is a birthday gift given by a friend Use 是

Yours: 我现在读的书是朋友送给我的生日礼物。
Mine: 我现在在看/读的小说是朋友给我的生日礼物。
2. The person who asked you to dance looked like my friend when he smiled. Use 像

Yours: 那个请你跳舞的人笑的时候看起来像我的朋友。
Mine: 那个邀请你跳舞的人笑起来的时侯好像我的朋友。
3. We've met before, but we've never spoke to each other. Use 过， 见面，说话，从来没

Yours: 我们之前见过面，但是我们从来没跟彼此说话。
Mine: 我们以前见过面，但是从来没和对方说过话。
4. The place I live is to the north of the student center. Use 的地方，在。。。的北边

Yours: 我住的地方在学生中心的北边。
Mine: 我住的地方在“学生中心”的北边。
5. The language lab is inside the building to the south of the computer center. Use 语言实验室，

Yours:
Mine: 语言实验室在“电脑中心”南边的那栋楼里面。


Radical meaning vs characters in use The radical 阜 and its other form 阝, used on the left, supposedly means mound or dam. Looking at image web search hits for 阜 or 阝, I get nothing related to dam or mound.

When I look up the Chinese translation of the words dam and mound, I get 水坝, 大坝, 土丘. None of which even contains 阜 or 阝.

What is going on? Are the Chinese trying to fool me? :)

Yes you do, you just have to look further down the results of Google image search (and I wasn't expecting the top most images =.=). However, I don't think 阜 means dam, but it does mean mound, though in 99% cases it would be 土丘 or some other words because 阜 does not appear in conversational Chinese as far as I know. You get images related to ears because 阝 looks like an ear.


How do you ask "Will you see your child next Sunday" in Chinese using verb not verb structure? What will be the difference between 你下个星期天会不会见你的孩子 and 你下个星期天会见不见你的孩子 ?

I am learning these sentences on Duolingo :) and was given the meaning of 你下个星期天会不会见你的孩子 as "Will you see your child next Sunday?".

It would be great if anyone can explain how different would the other sentence (你下个星期天会见不见你的孩子) mean be from the first one.

And can these both sentences be equally written as 你下个星期天会见你的孩子吗?

the second has two verb. 會見and 不見(or maybe the sentence just ignore the conjunction.this is not formal)。
Here is correct grammar

你下个星期天见不见你的孩子

just take 会 away and the sentence will be perfect and have the same meaning as the former sentence.
or add conjunction

你下个星期天见或是不见你的孩子

And can these both sentences be equally written as 你下个星期天会见你的孩子吗?yes


二 Mandarin pronunciation vs. other dialects and Japanese Since I started learning Japanese a while ago, I always found the onyomi pronunciation of 二, being 'ni', unusual compared to the Mandarin pronunciation of 'èr'. The Old and Middle Chinese pronunciations are also closely related to the Japanese pronunciation, with their respective pronunciations being '*ni[j]-s' and 'nyijH'. The Hakka pronunciation of 'ngi' and the Wu pronunciation of 'nyi' are also very similar to the Old and Middle Chinese and Japanese pronunciations.

If anyone could enlighten on why this disparity exists in the pronunciations of 二 between Mandarin and other dialects of Chinese, I would greatly appreciate it.

Here there's some other people asked the same question. 忆珩 and Nimmer provided answers that maybe very helpful to your question:
忆珩:

二、耳等字属于日母止摄三等，日母古音是个舌面的鼻音ȵ，本来是从泥母n中分化出来的，后来北方方言中日母鼻音消失并且卷舌化成了ʐ，其中止摄三等字变成了零声母的er。而在南方吴语、闽语等方言里日母又归回了泥母n，就是现在这种状况了。简单的说大致就是这么个历史过程。
至于说历史因素，应该是宋金对峙导致的南北方言分离（这使得现在北方方言的几大特征都是在元朝开始显著起来），地理因素自然就是长江了吧。

Nimmer:

要了解这个问题必须有一些汉语音韵学的背景了。”二“是日母止摄三等，上古的声母应该是n。到了中古时期以前的发音应该是ȵi。”ȵ“是一个跟n接近的鼻音。对于日语中古的读音，各家有分歧。应该不是”ȵ“，就是”ȵʑ“。在北方，这个鼻音发生了擦音化，在元代变成了ʐʅ。之后成了现代的ɚ
在北方话的发展过程应该是这样的：ȵi>ȵʑi>ʑi>ʐɨ>ʐʅ>ɻʅ>əɻ>ɚ

In Middle Chinese, 二's initial was ȵ. During the time when the northern China was ruled by Jin Dynasty and southern China was ruled by Song Dynasty, the separation makes the northern and southern Chinese language evolves on different path.
In Mandarin, ȵ first became ʐ and then further shifted to zero consonant. Notice that characters with initial ȵ are pronounces as nj-. The medial is j/i. Though ȵ disappeared eventually, the medial persists in various forms. Eventually, this medial becomes ə and then becomes an erhua ɚ.
In various southern Chinese languages, each of them evolves in their unique path. But due to the official status of Mandarin, southern Chinese are greatly influenced by the phonetical change is Mandarin. So roughly speaking, we quite often can observe that some southern Chinese maintains certain characteristics of Middle Chinese. That's why 二 still maintain the original initial ȵ, or it's variant n in some regions. (But notice that sometimes character with initial ȵ in Middle Chinese could have other initial such as ʐ or ə in southern Chinese.)
As for Japanese on'yomi pronunciation, a great majority of them still maintains the origin pronunciation at the time the kanji was adopted into Japanese. That's why on'yomi shares many characteristics as Middle Chinese.


Is 委员会 a commission or a committee? According to Xinhua News Agency, China Daily and other official media outlets of English language of China, 中央纪律检查委员会 is Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, but 中央政法委员会 is Committee of Polictical and Legal Affairs,发展和改革委员会 is National Development and Reform Commission,中央直属机关工作委员会 is Work Committee for Departments Directly Under the CPC Central Committee.

Commission and committee are both used to mean 委员会, what is the difference?

A commission is a group appointed by the government to accomplish a certain task. The commission can cease to exist when the task is completed (e.g., the 9/11 Commission, which investigated the events surrounding 9/11). Or the commission can be ongoing indefinitely (e.g., the Securities and Exchange Commission, which oversees Wall Street).

In government, committee is a group of people who meet to make a certain decision or to gather information and produce documents. Committees, too, can be short-lived or long-term.

A committee can also be a commission, and vice-versa. Because the term "commission" is more specific than "committee," a group of people that fit both descriptions would usually call themselves a commission. For example, when a crisis affects a city or state, the mayor or governor will usually appoint a commission to gather information, make decisions/recommendations, and accomplish certain other tasks.

Sources:

https://painintheenglish.com/case/3801

https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-commission-committee-and-council


Sort by date translations? I am translating my diary app to Chinese.

In my app, there's a search feature that searches for the user's diaries. The user can adjust some search options. one of the options is how the search results should be sorted. The user can choose

Earlier → Later
Later → Earlier

If Earlier -> Later is selected, June 25 will be ordered before June 26, and vice versa.

I am kind of stuck on how to translate these two choices, even though I am a native speaker...

I tried

更早 → 更晚 but the 更 seems weird. If I remove it,
早 → 晚 it sounds like morning to night
时间升序排列 it sounds a little technical. And since most people don't have a concept of "a later date is a bigger date", it won't make too much sense to people
较早 → 较晚 this is fine at first but then I thought that users might think that it does not show very early results. You know, it's only 较早.

So what can I translate this into so that people won't misunderstand it?

What about 按日期顺序 and 按日期倒序?
These are the ones I usually see.


Use of 不太 and when is it necessary? I suspect that 太 has a similar function in negatives as 很 does in negative sentences.

Some Chinese speakers have corrected some of my negative sentences in include a 太.

e.g.: 他不高兴 was corrected to 他不太高兴.

How necessary is this use of 太?

What is it's function?

太 -> too, extremely, very

他不高兴 -> He's not happy -> He's unhappy

他不太高兴 -> He's not very happy -> He's a little unhappy


Writing sheets generator When I was in China I bought some writing books for practicing Chinese handwriting. This is good but have 2 disadvantages.

Size of cell is too small for brush and too big for roller pen. Must
be for some fat marker.
Characters themselves are not the ones I am learning and interested in.

So my solution is — Web service — Chinese Characters sheets generator.

You choose your favorite font (some nice classics).
Select size - roller, marker, brush.
Type in characters to learn.
Press 'process' - you get PDF page with cells and first cell has
your character with pinyin.

My question is: are there any such tools so I do not have to reinvent bicycle?

One such website is: http://www.hanzigrids.com

Another website is http://cop.yes-chinese.com/hanban/tzg/ but it has less features and you can't choose your font.


How to translate 乎 in classical Chinese texts? I know that 乎 usually expresses doubt and is sometimes translated using rhetorical questions. But is it always true? I am wondering how should it be translated in such a case: "而有以通乎性命之全". The full sentence is:

惟人也，得其形氣之正，是以其心最靈，而有以通乎性命之全

For the sake of clarity - the sentence is preceded with another one that contains the following statement: "然体有偏正之殊".

is it always true

no. only when 乎 is at the end of a verse, then it might be interpreted as doubt, rhetorical question, or guess.

http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?ccd=hj97ow&o=e0&sec=sec1&op=v&view=0-1

in the verse

  而有以通乎性命之全

"乎" means 於, a preposition (at, in, from, . . . etc).

  惟人也．得其形氣之正．是以其心最靈．而有以通乎性命之全

i would suggest to interpret the verse as:

only the homo sapiens (惟人也),

get (得) the upright (正) body (形) & vital energy (氣),

therefore (是以), its (其) mind (心) is the most (最) divine; (靈)

and (而) depends on [such upright body and vital energy] (有以), [homo sapiens ] succeed (通) in (乎) the complete (全) life (性命)

have fun :)


Why does 人 have a different tone when it's part of the word 大人? The pinyin for 人 is rén but when it's part of 大人, it's written as dà ren. This is the only word with 人 where that happens (at least in the list of words I went through). Why is there a change in tone?

Google Translate: 人 / rén/ ; 大人 /dàrén/. I don't see the different pinyin for 人

~

  CantoDict :

  人/ren2/

  大人 /da4 ren5/2/

  (1) adult; grown-up

  (2) Your Honour; Your Excellency

  (3) [literary] Dear (Father/Mother)

  (4) great man; person of high rank or noble mind

  Note:

  1: Pinyin da4 ren5 is used for first two meanings; da4 ren2 for latter two.

  2: "Your Honour" is mainly used on a judge.

In Mandarin:

人 on its own is pronounced as /rén/
When 大人 meant "adult" or "your Honour" 人 is pronounced as /ren/.
When 大人 meant "Dear" or "great man" 人 pronounced as /rén/

So, you only need to remember 人 pronounces differently as /ren/ only when you mean to say 大人(adult) or 大人 (your Honour). In all other instances 人 is pronounced as /rén/


Using 比 (bǐ) for comparison I know how to use 比 in simple sentences like

  哥哥比姐姐高 (my big brother is taller than my big sister)

Would it be used for other sentences like

  You learn more words by listening than by reading.

"哥哥比姐姐高" is correct. The next sentence "you learn more words by listening than by reading" can be translated like:

  听力比阅读更能提高你的词汇量
  ting li bi yue du geng neng ti gao ni de ci hui liang


The position of 已经 in "have been doing something for some times already" Since 已经 is an adverb I thought I'd always have to put it before the verb like in:

  1) 这对老人已经相爱三十多年了

  2) 他已经睡四个小时了

But I found a sentence on my book that say:

  他们恋爱已经一年多了

It should translate to "They have been in love for more than 1 year already", right? Then why 已经 is placed after and not before the verb?

已经 (already) can be placed before or after the verb in both Chinese and English if it is followed by a time period

这对老人(已经相爱)三十多年了 = this old couple have already been in love for more than 30 years

这对老人相爱(已经三十多年了) = this old couple have been in love for more than 30 years already

他(已经睡了)四个小时了 = he has already been sleeping for four hours

他睡了(已经四个小时了) = he has been sleeping for four hours already

他们(已经恋爱)一年多了 = they have already been in love for over a year

他们恋爱(已经一年多了) = they have been in love for over a year already

If it is not followed by a time period then 已经 (already) must be placed before the verb

Example:

(已经问)了他' (had already asked him)  cannot be changed to '问了他已经'

(已经问了)他一年' (have already asked him for a year) can be changed to 问了他(已经一年)

In short, when there's no time period at the end, the adverb '已经' must be placed before the verb; if there is a time period at the end , then 已经 is functioning as the adverb for the omitted verb '经过' or '有' in 已经(经过/有)一年

They are in fact two different types of Chinese grammar structures

"已经问了他" is a [verb + object] structure with '问了' as the verb and '他' as the object

"问了他已经一年" is a [topic + comment] structure, in which, '问了他' is the topic and '已经一年' is the comment


What's the difference in pronunciation between kuàir and kuàr? 块儿 (kuàir) = a slice, etc.
跨儿 (kuàr) = "trans", in the sense of "transgender".

Reading these aloud, I don't notice a distinction in pronunciation, but it seems like there should be.

Question: What's the difference in pronunciation between kuàir and kuàr?

They have the same pronunciation.

The wiki page on Erhua lists the IPA of both finals ("uar" and "uair") to be [wɐʵ]


Which is "with" and which is "and" in 与,和,就,跟,同,并,及 In Chinese there are a lot of conjunctions:

  与,和,就,跟,同,并,及,乃(廼迺),而,也,共,又,亦,且,兼

all of which are usually and lazily translated as English "and".

Question: I wonder which of those glyphs is definitely exclusively "with" and not "and"?

Apendix:

The difference between "and" and "with" can be seen in the example:

  A and B go to school.

That is A can go withiout B or with it.
It's a statment that A go to school, B goes too, but it's not implied that they do it TOGETHER holding hands.

  A with B go to school.

Now, here it's stressed that they do it together and not alone.

As a result "with" is more specific than "and". "And" can include "with" but not vice-versa.

Some characters need to have the meaning in combinations

与,和,同 is similar, you can say "我与你一起去"， or "我和你"， "我同你"
"和" is most frequent. "与" is slightly formal.
"同" sounds like literature or ancient Chinese, but you can still use it.
Here "一" also means "together" but you can only use it in "一起"， "一同"
unless you are writing ancient Chinese.

"跟" means follow. "我跟你去" you can think it as "and", but it's more like follow.
It's also used as together orally, but "follow" is the source of the meaning.

也，亦 are more used as conj. mainly for "same".
You can use "你去，我也去" or "你去，我亦去", but "亦" sounds very ancient

"而且" is usually used together as prep. or conj., to connect facts:
"这杆笔便宜而且好用" "这杆笔便宜而好用" "这杆笔便宜且好用"

就，乃，共 is mainly used in ancient Chinese as "and".
Frequently in ancient Chinese， 就 means approach and 乃 means then
They are still uncommonly used as "and" even in ancient Chinese
共 usually means share or total， it's sometimes used "and"
but "共同" is used in modern Chinese as adv.， usually formal: "我和你共同前往"

兼 is mainly used as prep. to connect titles in modern Chinese, meaning "also".

及 is usually formal, and used as prep. in third person: "李雷（以）及韩梅梅参观了学校"

To make it short:
和 -> and prep.
而,且 -> and conj.
兼,也,亦 -> also
跟 -> follow
及,与 -> with
同,一,共 -> together


What's the meaning of 人 in 他们人退休了? What's the meaning of 人 in 以前他们工作的时候忙得没有时间唱。现在他们人退休了。?

人 is an appositive of 他们. You can just delete it without changing the meaning!


Appropriate responses to unexpected gift? I have been on the receiving end of an unexpected gift. Actually I was in a restaurant and the owner (who knows I am learning Cantonese/Mandarin), just gives me some dong gua tong (soup). I didn't order it and the situation made me wonder what is the appropriate phrases for receiving unexpected gifts. I recall that in Cantonese one can say doh je! instead of m goy (or m goy sai) and I think in Mandarin xie xie might suffice but I'd like to ask what other appropriate phrases exists?

I am sure many variations may work but I'd appreciate some more insight if there are phrases which might be more appropriate than others.

Since you are using the reference "dong gua tong" (冬瓜湯, white gourd soup), I assume the restaurant owner is a Cantonese speaker.

The following are some commonly used responses to express your gratefulness from receiving a gift in Cantonese/Mandarin. The last two are not quite suitable in your case. They are generally used when you receive something which is bought by others as presents.

乜咁客氣呀! / 你太客氣了!

That's very generous of you!

多謝晒! / 謝謝你!

Thank you!

乜咁破費呀, 多謝晒! / 要你破費真不好意思, 謝謝啦!

Thanks so much for spending money on buying this gift for me!

多謝晒! 我好中意呢份禮物呀! / 謝謝! 我好喜歡這份禮物!

Thanks! I really like this gift so much!

Note

In general, the difference between "唔該" and "多謝" in Cantonese can be summarized as follows:

唔該

Used to express your thankfulness towards someone who did something to help you out.

多謝

Used to express your thankfulness towards someone who offered you something without requesting anything in return.

The aforementioned difference in Mandarin is not as obvious as it does in Cantonese. You may use "謝謝" in both situations. The phrase "勞煩你了" or "麻煩你了" in Mandarin is similar to "唔該" in Cantonese. "勞煩你了"/"麻煩你了" can be literally translated as "Have you troubled/bothered".


Proper translation of "定位" to English? This question is about choosing a proper English word for a Chinese phrase.

Let there be given the sentence "What is the "定位" in the market of our products?" Then, what are the proper English words for "定位" in the given sense?
I might just use such as "placement" or "position" for it, but I am really not sure about the propriety.

I really need your help.

Typically one would "position" a product in the marketplace. If you are in the act of doing something (process is active now) then the phrase would be "positioning" [a/our/the] product in the marketplace. I would suggest you take a look at your proposed word choice in Jukuu.com. Plugging in the word for "position," yields the following usages:

"Positioning" on the other hand seems to give something closer to what you want. BTW - Here are some sample sentences, just to be sure (the website has many more).

1.  Their segregated positioning subtly and silently indicates that caution should be taken in their use.
它们相对分离的位置微妙而无声地提示着用户，即使用它们时应该小心。
-- 来源 -- About Face 3交互设计精髓 好评(14)  差评(0)

2.  In a fixed-head magnetic disk unit, a support and positioning element for a read / write head.
在固定磁头的磁盘机中,用于支撑和定位读/写磁头的部件。
-- 来源 -- 英汉 - 辞典例句  好评(17)  差评(5)

3.  global positioning system
环球定位系统,[港]全球定位系统
-- 来源 -- 英汉 - 翻译样例 - 行业 好评(10)  差评(0)

4.  The accurate positioning of an entity relative to a reference.
相对于参考基准把某个实体精确定位。


How to say replica as opposed to fake The only difference between a replica of a van Gogh painting, and a fake van Gogh painting, is that the replica claims to be a replica while the fake claims to be real.

This is a subtle distinction, and because people could feel insulted if I confuse the two, I want to be sure to get it right, and not just trust a dictionary.

So, if I want to buy high quality replicas of say, Ming dynasty furniture, how should i describe that in Chinese?   I do not want genuine historic antiques, and I certainly do not want to bother with people offering fakes as if they were genuine.  I want high quality replicas.

My concern is not talking with dealers.  My concern is when I ask a hotel clerk, or a shopkeeper who does not have what I want, where I might find what I want.  They should not think I am asking if they know any frauds or counterfeiters!

replica = 仿制品.
 fake = 赝品

赝品 used to refer to replica that is very hard to identify whether it is authentic or not. As the language evolved, it refers to those with low qualities.

So in Chinese, there is no direct mapping. Usually, you can add other adjectives to express the subtle meaning, like hello_harry suggested, 高仿, which is equal to 高级仿制品.

赝品 also limited to those replica that trying to make the same as original and sell for profit. While 仿制品 don't have good or bad in the purpose, for example, 仿制品 can be made for museum, it can also be a different size.

In your case, it seems you want to buy a  高级赝品 of furniture.


What's the reason behind the sudden influx of the English word "word" in Chinese slang? I just got a push notification:

word天! .....

and it's not the first I've gotten with the English word "word" in it.
Here's a quick baidu:

焦点资讯

新闻| Word天,这款润滑油要逆天!
1小时前 搜狐汽车

厉害word哥!武警总队高标准完成马拉松警卫任务
5小时前 凤凰网

厉害了word亲 国美超市生活百货9.9元最后一天限时秒杀
10小时前 新浪新闻

What's the meaning/reason for sudden influx in usage of English word "word" in Chinese?

word 天 is chinese slang for 我的天.

With an increasing English skill level of Chinese speakers, Chinglish or rather the Chinese counter part of Chinglish is becoming more and more common.

Names are often translated using English sounds with Chinese chracters. Ex: Stanford University = 斯坦福大學
Some store names are starting to use English sounds with Chinese characters
Bread Ice / 不賴的冰 http://sunyat.pixnet.net/blog/post/63815917-%E9%AB%98%E9%9B%84-bread-ice%E4%B8%8D%E8%B3%B4%E7%9A%84%E5%86%B0-%7C-%E5%8F%A4%E6%97%A9%E5%86%B0%2B%E5%B8%95%E5%B0%BC%E5%B0%BC%EF%BC%8C%E7%9C%9F%E7%9A%84
But these words are not limited to only English. Some even use the local dialect (Taiwanese) and convert it to Standard Chinese. 阿兜仔 is taiwanese slang for forienger (specifically white foriengers) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5WUtW0Dvik

I think overall it's just people becoming more and more creative with how they use slang.


What are the relative literacy rates in for simplified and traditional characters? I'm trying to decide whether it would be better to use traditional or simplified characters for an iPhone game I'm making. If something is written in traditional, how many people will be able to read it? If something is written in simplified, how many people will be able to read it? From my research it seems most people can read simplified.

More people can read simplified than traditional, by a significant margin. There are roughly 1.3 billion people mainland China where simplified has been the standard since the 50s and 60s. Taiwan and Hong Kong, the three places traditional is the standard, total about 32 million between them (23 million in the Taiwan/ROC, 7 million in Hong Kong, 2 million in Macau). There are a lot of people from mainland China and Chinese outside of countries where Chinese in the primary language who can also read traditional, but I have no clue on the numbers.

Most people can get by more or less when reading the other character set because there are a lot of very standard substitutions. It is however easier to read simplified if you only know traditional.

Example substitutions (some standard ones):
妈 马 语 诚 给 纽 约
媽 馬 語 誠 給 紐 約
(and some random ones):
龟 龙
龜 龍

Tools to convert between the two are readily available, although, as Ironfrost points out, these tools have a lot of problems with some of the 1:many conversion choices. Look at his comments below.

http://translate.google.com/#zh-CN/zh-TW/

http://translate.google.com/#zh-TW/zh-CH/


Does 意思意思 have an English translation？ In this context，someone wants a promotion and someone needs to 意思意思 his superior；意思意思 means bribery and it is supposed to invoke nepotism。

Does English have a word or idiom like 意思意思？

'In this context，someone wants a promotion and someone needs to 意思意思 his superior；'

fawn(v.):

Old English fægnian "rejoice, be glad, exult, applaud," from fægen "glad" (see fain); used in Middle English to refer to expressions of delight, especially a dog wagging its tail (early 13c.), hence "court favor, grovel, act slavishly" (early 14c.). Related: Fawned; fawning.

你要讨好老板， 就是你得‘fawn'. 'fawn upon someone'

'grovelling' also has this meaning and 'curry favour with someone'.

fawn:
to seek notice or favor by servile demeanor:

  The courtiers fawned over the king.

I found this: https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/1446521891194685020.html


Why 批 means "criticize" and "a batch" at the same time? Is there a story to this mutation of meaning? Or is this shift of semantics connected to phonetic considerations only?

批 [pī] is originally  (扌+), and 批 is a vulgar form since ancient times.

㧙 is another variant form, meaning wring, twist, strike at.

說文解字 informs:

() 反手擊也。左傳曰。宋萬遇仇牧于門。而殺之。玉篇所引如是。今左傳作批。俗字也。从手。聲。匹齊切。十五部。俗作批。

 thus means to strike with the hand, to slap, and also to kill.

康熙字典 adds:

《唐韻》匹迷切《集韻》《韻會》篇迷切，音鈚。《說文》手擊也。《左傳·莊十二年》宋萬遇仇牧于門，批而殺之。
又《廣韻》推也，轉也。
又示也。《唐書·李藩傳》遷給事中，制敕有不便者，黃紙後批之。
又《韻會》與(卑刂)通。削也。《杜甫·房兵曹馬詩》竹批雙耳峻。
又《集韻》騈迷切，音鼙。擊也。
又助也。
又頻脂切。與琵通。琵琶，馬上所鼓。或从手。《風俗通》批把，近世樂家所作，以手批把，因以爲名。
又《韻會》《正韻》普弭切，音庀。亦手擊也。
又《集韻》《韻會》蒲結切，音蹩。讀若敝入聲。義同。《史記·荆軻傳》奈何以見陵之怨，欲批其逆鱗哉。《註》批謂觸擊之。
又《孫臏傳》批亢擣虛。《註》批音白結反。相排批也。《莊子·養生主》批大郤，導大窾。
又《正韻》避列切，音別。義同。《韻會》通作㧙。《集韻》本作。

Here additional meanings are push, turn, peel, cut, help, and we also see that 琵琶 has been written 批把, a reminder that people always have had problems knowing characters.

http://www.zdic.net/z/1a/js/6279.htm informs of the modern meanings:

用手掌打：～颊（打嘴巴）。
刮：～凿。
口头或用文字判定是非、优劣、可否：～准。～示。～复。～语。～阅。～判。眉～（写在书页天头上的批语）。
大量：～购。～销。
量词，用于大宗的货物或数量众多的事物：一～货物。
棉麻等未捻成线、绳时的细缕：线～儿。

The principal meaning is still to hit with the hand, and to cut is also preserved as a basic connotation.

批 as a measure word or as a batch is rather recent, and might be the result of analogy or slang, for instance when bundling goods in the harbor.

Drunken Master points out that 批评 may be seen as an analogy to dissecting things in critique, but another possibility is that it just adds a slapping notion to the evaluation, since 批评 originally meant criticizing negative traits and shortcomings. Afterwards, it has yet again shifted to take on the connotation of critique in general, including praise and other positive meanings.


What does 原配手撕小三 mean? In fact, rather than asking the meaning, I want to know which components this phrase consist of.

原配手撕小三:
Is it:

原 - 配手 - 撕 - 小三
原配手 - 撕 - 小三
原配手撕 - 小三

I know 小三 mean mistress and 撕 mean to tear, so I could roughly guess the meaning. The first three words are the source of my confusion. Personally, I think it's number 1, but if that's indeed the case, what's the use of "原" here? Isn't it kind of redundant?

原 (original/ first)

配 (match)

"原配" is short for "原配夫人" (first legal wife)

In olden time China, it was very common for rich men to have multiple legal wives. And the first wife is called  "原配夫人" or simply "原配".
Nowadays, it simply means a man's wife

手 = hands

撕 = tear

The term 手撕 is most commonly seen in "手撕鸡" (hand shredded chicken)

"小三" is nickname for  "mistress" (a man's out of wedlock lover)
"(原配)(手撕小三)"  means "(wife) (tears mistress apart with her own hands)"

"原配手撕小三" describes "a man's wife attacks that man's mistress and humiliates her"
In other words: "妻子狠狠羞辱情婦"(Wife humiliates mistress severely)

"Attack" here mostly refers to verbal abuse like names calling and yelling. The term 手撕 implies some physical contact is involve. (roughed her up)


How to say 索尼大法好 in English? I didn't know what 大法 means. I did some google search and all the answers were "Dafa".

But I didn't think it is correct. What does it mean exactly?

索尼 is Sony.
大法 is borrowed from Falungong's 法轮大法.

The inventor of this saying might want to gave people some ideas on how Sony's fans follow Sony's industrial design.

How about translate to Sony cult supremacy or Sony sect supremacy?


Singing in tune translation help I sang Chinese karaoke last night... went alright... but couldn't sing in tune. I wanted to express this to my Chinese friends.... so I wanted to learn phrases/words related to singing and music, namely:

How do you say "Sing in tune", or perhaps "carry a melody"

Out of tune

跑调/走调/走音——年纪大了，王菲唱歌也开始走音了。要不我们就叫她跑调天后吧。
音调不准——这架钢琴音调不准，和你唱歌一样。
不着调/不合调——你唱歌挺不着调的。
音准差——你唱歌音准太差了。音准 is a professional term.

The phrase 不着调 has later taken a metaphoric meaning to describe an erratic person or deed. 你这人挺不着调的，办事也不着调。

In tune

Just take the negative forms and you're set:

着调/合调——你唱歌还挺合调的。
音调准——你唱歌音调很准。
音准很好/不错——这架钢琴音准很好，你唱歌音准不错。This is how a music teacher praises you.


Chinese Idiom puzzle 17 (中文填字遊戲) A New puzzle for April 2021

Launch a direct attack on the enemy’s headquarters

Makes people happy and satisfied (especially when someone gets the deserved punishment)

Notorious

Extremely urgent

Give affection unilaterally regardless of whether the other party accepts it or not

One takes on the attributes of one's associates.

Cut ties (with someone)

Who doesn't make mistakes?

One hard work for permanent comfort

"Old and not die (是為賊也) "

Live groggy like in a drunk dream. Describes people who lack goals and live in confusion

A large number of customers of a bank withdraw their deposits simultaneously over concerns of the bank's solvency

Put onto a deadly ground; to kill

Leaves behind a glorious reputation forever

Energetic and ambitious

Something catches one's attention and makes his eyes bright up

Thousands of people have one heart. Describe unity

Easily obtainable

Extremely arrogant

Regurgitate other people's wise words

Appearance and demeanor

Childhood friends

Administer a country in the monarch's stead because the monarch is a minor or is absent or incapacitated

A. Leave repugnant reputation in history forever (opposite of #14)
B. Have ulterior motives
C. Escaped from a desperate situation
D. The emperor's mother sits behind a curtain and determined the state affairs.
E. The strategy of ally with the nearby states, and attack the faraway states
F. Live broadcast
G. Completely out of control
H. Capable people do a lot of works
I. Refers to rice wine (when you scold someone for drinking)
J. Making faces
K. Cantonese term for 'chatting'
L. Anxious for success, coveting immediate results and benefits
M. Worthless
N. The most famous advisor in the Three kingdoms period
O. Instrument
P. The four sufferings in life
Q. The model for all teachers forever (praise for 孔子)
R. Large scale fire
S. "Every person dies, my heart will shine through the history books" ( from a poem by 文天祥 )
T. Naturally die at a ripe old age
U. Deep maternal love
V. Like a lifetime ago
W. Clues

直捣黄龙
大快人心
臭名远播
急于(如)星火
自作多情
近朱者赤，近墨者黑
绝交
人谁无过
一劳永逸
老而不死
醉生梦死
挤兑(提)
置诸死地
留芳百世
意气风发
眼前一亮
万众一心
垂手可得
不可一世
拾人牙慧
仪表
青梅竹马
摄政

A. 遗臭万年
B. 醉翁之意
C. 绝处逢生
D. 垂帘听政
E. 远攻近交
F. 直播
G. 一发不可收拾
H. 能者多劳
I. 黄汤
J. 挤眉弄眼
K. 打牙骹
L. 急功近利
M. 一无可取
N. 诸葛亮
O. 仪器
P. 生老病死
Q. 万世师表
R. 大火
S. 人生自古谁无死，留取丹心照汗青
T. 百年归西(老)
U. 舐犊情深
V. 恍如隔世
W. 蛛丝马迹


Question about 受 in the Lotus Sutra From Chapter 23:

  若有女人聞是藥王菩薩本事品，能受持者，盡是女身，後不復受。

Burton Watson, a famous translator, renders the passage thusly:

  If there is a woman who hears this chapter on the Former Affairs of
  the Bodhisattva Medicine King and is able to accept and uphold it,
  that will be her last appearance in a woman’s body and she will never
  be born in that form again.

Question: how does the 受 translate to "born in that form"? If 受 is not the character that is being read thusly, then how did Burton Watson arrive at his conclusion?

(盡)(是)(女)(身)，(後)(不復)(受)

(結束)(此)(女性)(身形)，(後世)(不再)(承受)

After finishing this female form, she will not take/receive it again in the future lifes.

(知道意思就好了，不要太在意細節。)


Which verbs DO NOT go with 了 and or 过? I remember reading that some verbs don't accept 了 or 过.

Side question： When I use a word like 昨天 or 以前 do I use 了 or is it redundant? e.g. 昨天我去买了一台电脑 or 昨天我买一台电脑

过 and 了 are aspect markers, and can be used with any verbs, including 过 and 了 themselves.

过 is the experential aspect, indicating that an event has taken place (or the negation thereof), regardless of timeframe (there is no tense in Chinese). 我去过巴黎二十次。 (I have had the experience of visiting Paris twenty times.) 我没去过越南。 (I have not had the experience of going to Vietnam.) 我从来没看过电影。 (I have never had the experience of seeing a movie.)

了 is the perfectative aspect, indicating that an event has been completed, again regardless of time. 我买了个新脚踏车。 (I have bought a new bike.) 吃了饭以后可以逛逛街。 (We can go for a walk after we have finished eating [future]).

Both aspects can be expressed simultaneously: 我吃过了。 They can also be used with other complemented verbs: 我看得见过了。

Aspects can be used with any verb. The only restriction is context and combining conflicting aspects. For example, using durative 着 with completion aspects 过 and 了 makes no sense.

As for your side question: since there is no tense in Chinese, it does not matter in which time frame these aspects are used. The use of 昨天 or 以前 indicates the time, whereas 过 and 了 indicate completion, regardless of time.


How do you say "proud of you" in Chinese? As in if a child does something good, their parents might say "I'm so proud of you" or "Mum is so proud of you".

The only word in the dictionary I seem to be able to find for pride seems to be about self-pride （eg. 自豪).

Google Translate translate pride as 骄傲 but I always thought that 骄傲 kind of had negative connotations like of someone being a bit arrogant or vain.

骄傲 is completely correct, you can use 骄傲 in this situation, it won't bring any negative connotations.
In some situations, 骄傲 really means arrogant, for example, "This guy is so 骄傲", "这个人很骄傲".
Below statements fulfill "Mum is so proud of you":

妈妈为你感到骄傲
妈妈为你感到自豪
妈妈为你感到光荣

To be more emphasize, you could use "无比"，it is like incomparable, for example:

妈妈为你感到无比骄傲
妈妈为你感到无比自豪
妈妈为你感到光荣无比


Alternate translations of "why are you asking me this question" 几个”Why are you asking me this question?"的翻译是什么？
What are some possible ways to translate "Why are you asking me this question?".
最明显的是（1）。
The most obvious is (1):
1) 你为什么问我这个问题？

可是我想到几个为这个意思用连动结构的可疑的办法。哪些没有语病？有一个没语病的用连动结构的句子吗？
However, there are some ways I can think of several dubious ways to use a serial verb construction to express this idea. Are any of them grammatical? Is there a sentence using the serial verb construction that does work?
A) 你为什么 把这个问题 问我。
B) 你为什么 问我 问这个问题。
C) 你为什么 给我 问这个问题。
D) 你为什么 对我 问这个问题。

An example topicalizing 你.
E) 你这个问题为什么问我。

There are several ways to translate "Why are you asking me this question?".
Your first sentence is a correct way of expression.
In China we never use any of options A, B, C, D, or E.
The following are several otehr ways to express this in Chinese, but we rarely use it in daily expression in China:

你为何问我这个问题？
你问我这个问题的原因是什么？
你问我这个问题的理由是什么？


How do Chinese speakers convey emotions by speech? In many languages, a tone conveys emotion. Thus, a word in the first tone might be perceived as conveying an easy-off emotion by a native Russian speaker; a word in the second tone might be most likely felt as a question by a native English speaker (provided both persons in both abstract examples are not familiar with Chinese), words in the third or fourth tone might be perceived by a native Russian speaker unaccustomed to Chinese as a question or command respectively.

In some languages, e.g. in Swedish (which is also a language of two-tone system, a little bit reminding that existing in Tibetan) an emotion is conveyed by intensity of speech, but not by tone.

In Finnish, which is almost a zero-tone language, an emotional meaning is conveyed mainly by a grammatical structure and/or lexical units, and sometimes by intensity of speech.

From my personal experience, I know that Chinese speakers, too, convey emotions in speech (e.g. when I was learning a Chinese verse, my teacher said that it sounds as if I were scolding somebody, so it's not about facial expression).

The question is, how do you convey emotions in Chinese? Is it possible to say something like 您好 but meaning actually 'go to hell', like in languages where an emotion is conveyed through a tone (e.g. in Russian / English)?

How do Chinese speakers perceive emotional states of each other in speech? Do they use tones, even altering them somehow, or do they use other means?

What is the spectrum of emotions covered by such means?

UPD: judging by this article, the emotional states are also culture-specific (e. g. there are no 'six basic facial expressions of six basic [Occidental] emotional states' for a native Chinese speaker) which complicates the issue a little bit.

How can Chinese express emotion if tones determine the meaning of a word? This should be one of the top 2 or 3 items on a Chinese language FAQ. It seems to be a constant source of puzzlement and a goad to much odd speculation.

The problem is that the word 'tone' when applied to Chinese does not mean what people think it does. Or perhaps people do not think carefully about what they think tone means when speaking of it in their own language.

For most people, it seems that tone is simply emotion embedded in language. This is much too simplistic to provide any insights into how we judge emotion in speech.  What is an angry or frightened tone? Put in these terms, it's purely subjective.

For Chinese tones, however, it is possible to give a much more objective statement of what they consist of.  Jerry Norman's book Chinese (published by Cambridge UP) gave what I thought was a very clear description: Tone consists of primarily of pitch, but duration and volume (Norman says intensity) are "important secondary cues." These are all relative, not absolute.

Much of what people tend to interpret as the emotional content of speech is in the departure of one of these from what has come before or what comes after.

This might seem puzzling, but perhaps a comparison with English might help. English indicates interrogative with a rising pitch. In contrast, many people interpret angry or strong emphasis with a falling pitch.  Is it possible to ask an angry question in English? I think this is not at all difficult, using increased volume and duration and perhaps less of a rise in pitch than is common.

Emotional inflection in Chinese works in similar ways, with increased or decreased volume and duration. Pitch certainly does not work the way in Chinese that it does in English, and this can make it easy to misinterpret the emotional inflection of speech for those who do not know the language.

I have often heard learners complain that it sounds like Chinese speakers are arguing or angry all the time, and this was certainly my first impression when I heard people speaking in the Minnan dialect. In fact, however, I think that misjudging emotional content is common with most languages that one is unfamiliar with.


What is the Chinese equivalent of “to pick up a girl” or “to hit on girls”? How do you say "to pick up girls" in Chinese? I would like to say: I'm going to go and pick up some girls!

Disclaimer: Question inspired by https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/40214/what-is-the-japanese-equivalent-of-to-pick-up-a-girl-or-to-hit-on-girls

Off the top of my head, I can think of 勾搭, 泡妞, 把妹 and 溝女

  勾搭

  http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/52068/

  [1] pick up a lover

*

  溝女 (Cantonese slang)

  http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/20482/

  pick up chicks; go out looking for women to chat up; dawdle away one's time with a girl; [slang] cruise (look for sexual partner)

  [variants] 媾女, 勼女, 追女仔

  溝 is most probably a loanword from '(to) court'.

*

  泡妞 (Mandarin slang)

  to pick up chicks; to go out looking for women to chat up; to chase skirts; to dawdle away one's time with girls |

  http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/40924/

*

  把妹 (Internet slang)

  http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/58867/

  to chase girls; to pick up girls

 I'm going to go and pick up some girls!

我要去泡妞 (Mandarin slang)

我要去溝女 (Cantonese slang)

我要去把妹 (web slang)

我要去勾搭女人 (literal) "女人" can be replaced by 女孩 or 女生 in Mandarin and 女仔 in Cantonese


Difference between 學習 and 學 I used Google Translate to translate "learn" to Chinese, and the first result was:

  學習

I noted that another suggested option was:

  學

So, I wonder: what's the difference between the two results?

Many Chinese words have both a 1-character and 2-character form

For example:

  eat = 吃 = 吃饭

  study = 学 ＝ 学习

  lion = 狮 ＝ 狮子

  coal = 煤 = 煤炭

Their usage is constrained by grammar and prosody

For example:

  Ungrammatical: 我喜欢吃

  Grammatical: 我喜欢吃饭

  Bad prosody ("sounds weird"): 我在学

  Good prosody: 我在学习

Sometimes the 2-character form is an expansion of the 1-character word

Dummy object for a verb (allows a transitive verb to be used intransitively):

吃(饭) <-- Grammatically 饭 is the object, but as a whole it means "eat", not "eat rice". The object is a "dummy" object.
跑(步)
说(话)

Two characters meaning something similar (you can pick the form that works best for prosodic reasons):

学(习)
煤(炭)

One of the characters is a "dummy" word that means almost nothing (for making nouns into 2-character words for prosodic reasons mostly):

本(子), 狮(子), 棒(子), ... almost anything ending in 子
(老)虎
盖(儿) ...almost anything ending with 儿
木(头)

Sometimes the 1-character form is a shortening of the 2-character word

The word was originally a mono-morpheme polysyllabic word:

蝴蝶 (you'll sometimes see "蝶" used to stand in for "butterfly" in compounds)

Prosodic considerations in Chinese

I've alluded briefly to "prosodic considerations" in Chinese. But how are you supposed to know when to use the 2-character vs the 1-character version of a word?

Sometimes grammar chooses for you:

我要吃饭 (intransitive) vs 我要吃冰淇淋 (transitive)

When you're making compound nouns, it's usually the one-character form from each word (or even further reduction)

北京大学 -> 北大
高速铁路 -> 高铁

The following assertions are supported empirically, but they are not absolute

[N N] is almost never 1+2:

1+1 鸡蛋
2+1 商业区
2+2 人民广场

[V O] is almost never 2+1

1+1 请客
1+2 丢面子
2+2 学习经济

There are exceptions to every rule!

我喜欢你 (喜欢 is basically always 2-characters, regardless of the object)

To address your question, let's look at 学习. 学 means learn; 习 means practice. As noted above, this is a case of expansion where both characters mean something similar. 学 and 学习 are identical in meaning, but one may be chosen over the other for prosodic reasons.

（论语）: 学而时习之，不亦说乎？ Isn't it a pleasure to study and practice what you have learned?


Why is 未有 used here? While reading a news article from Hong Kong, I noticed the sentence:

  XXX 未有回覆传媒查询。

(I replaced specific details that aren't relevant to my question with "XXX".) This I take to mean that:

  XXX did not respond to media inquiries.

However, why is 未有 used here, instead of, for instance, 沒有? The dictionaries I have consulted say that 未有 is to be understood as "never having existed", so is using the term here instead of 沒有 simply indicating something stronger, or does it also have some other function (e.g. being more formal)?

未有 is often used in Cantonese,while 没有 is often used in Madarin.


Difference between alveolars and alveolo-palatals in Cantonese I would like to understand the difference in distribution between the alveolar consonants s, ts, tsʰ and the alveolo-palatal consonants ɕ, tɕ, tɕʰ in Cantonese. One source told me that the postalveolars are only used before i, y, and œ and alveolars everywhere else. I listened to a few sound clips to see if this was true and I found some conflicting evidence in these examples.

凈 [tsɪŋ]
傷 [sœːŋ]
坐 [tɕʰɔː]

Is there any set of rules that fully describes where sound is used? Also, how much variation is there among individual speakers?

In essence, palatalisation of the alveolar fricative and affricate consonants occurs before front rounded vowels /y/, /œ/ and /ɵ/, with the effect strongest with /y/. It is weakly palatalised in front of /œ/ and /ɵ/, to much less of an extent than Mandarin Pinyin j-, q-, x-; however, there is some variation among speakers. See Matthews & Yip (2014) Cantonese: A Comprehensive Grammar, page 474, as well as this article from Zee (1997).

It used to occur with the front unrounded vowel /i/ as well: see the entry of palatalization in Bauer & Benedict (1997), so I'd imagine some of the older generation would preserve this form of allophony. I'm not sure if there's anything in the literature as to variation in this part of diachronic Cantonese phonology!


Meaning of these signs (Characters identified: 宁静) Could someone please tell me what these signs mean, the OCR couldn't read them.

The word is 宁静 [níngjìng]:

  ①安定 (calm)；安宁 (tranquil)：宁静四海｜地方宁静。
  ②安静 (quiet)；平静 (peaceful)：心情宁静｜宁静的灯光｜宁静的月夜。


Are used to and 以往 really the same? I have this question:

中国经济以往都是什么样的发展模式?

I would like to translate it: China's economy used to use what kind of expansion method?

以 can be 'use' and '往‘ can be 'to' in English, so that ‘used to' and '以往’ seem to be one and the same expression.

Or is the Chinese sense of '以往‘ more just 'use(d) in the past', '往‘ having the meaning 'past', not 'to' and 'used to' just fits conveniently?

以 here means

  用在方位词前，表明时间、方位、方向或数量的界限：以前。以内。（from 在线新华字典）

In a way it is similar to -wards suffix, as in backwards, in English.

往 means past.

以往 literally means before this point of time, 'past-wards'.


What is the difference between 都没有 and 不都有? Can somebody please explain the difference between 都不是， 不都是， 都没有， and 不都有， and if possible give and example of the separate occasions when they should be used?

都不是 this means all of them are not EX:他们都不是中国人 means none of them is Chinese

不都是 this means not all of them are他们不都是中国人 means not all of them are Chinese (some of them maybe Chinese)

都没有 All don't have EX:我们都没有钱 means none of us have money

不都有 not all have EX:我们不都有钱 means not all of us have money

我们不都有钱 sounds a little strange, it could be 我们不是人人都有钱.


What is the meaning “这是后话”? Does it mean 'another story'?
This is the phrase that came to my mind first.
Is there any other corresponding English phrase?

The counterpart of “这是后话” in English should be " That is a story for another time." meaning some future events are related to the story, but not the focus of the current story arc. The author may or may not revisit it in later part of the story.


Which measure word should I use with 角色？ Nciku tells me the proper measure word is 类, but a quick search on Google garnered mostly results like "哪类角色更容易赢“小金人”？“ implying that for the most part 类 is used when inquiring about a particular type of role. Does that mean that 个 is fine in most general statements?

"类" is used for describing a type (a class) of 角色.
"个" is used for referring to a particular 角色.


Why is 得 put before 我 in 搬家公司只管大件，小东西还得我亲自动手? In the following conversation:

A: 小湖，这几天你怎么没来下棋呀？
B: 为了搬家我忙得焦头烂额。哪儿有时间下棋呀？
A: 你可以委托搬家公司呀？
B: 搬家公司只管大件，小东西还得我亲自动手。

I'm sure the 得 here means "have to ~" or "must" (so it is dei, not de). However, the subject is likely 我, not 小东西.
So why is place of 得 not after 我 in this sentence? Is it OK and if that is the case, how can I know in what case should I put 得 before the subject?

Is it OK and if that is the case, how can I know in what case should I put 得 before the subject?

This is OK. You can change the order of words for the purpose of emphasis; note that the object being emphasized changes according to the position of 得. e.g.

我还得亲自动手（搬）小东西。
小东西我还得亲自动手（搬）。 => for emphasizing the object, i.e. 小东西
小东西还得我亲自动手（搬）。 => not only emphasizes the object but also the subject, i.e. 我

BTW 得 is not the verb; as you said it means "need", "have to" or "must", the verb is 搬 which is omitted. This is a kind of 宾语前置 (object fronting), i.e. change from S-V-O structure to O-S-V structure.


what is the Two-Block Haicut called in Chinese(Mandarin)? does anyone know what is the Chinese name for the Two-Block Haircut? I heard it can also be called the Dandy Two-Block haircut.
It is the one that is popularized by Korea and is shown in many Korean idols.
I would like to know the name for better describing it to my barber since my haircut is always inconsistent when I try to describe it.

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An alternate: 两块式发型


A Chinese-language joke where near-identical sentences have different meanings: how do I translate this and find the humor? My friend sent me this on WeChat, and I'm told this is an amusing Chinese-language joke:

一、请写出下面两句话的区别在哪里？
1、冬天：能穿多少穿多少；夏天：能穿多少穿多少。
2、剩女产生的原因有两个，一是谁都看不上，二是谁都看不上
3、女孩给男朋友打电话：如果你到了，我还没到，你就等着吧；如果我到了，你还没到，你就等着吧。
4、单身的原因：原来是喜欢一个人，现在是喜欢一个人。
二、附加题：
中国足球和中国乒乓球，一是谁都赢不了，二是谁都赢不了。

Question: How do I translate and find the humor in this?
This is my translation below (spoiler alert), but I don't understand much of the humor:

Winter: Can wear how much wear how much?  Summer: Can wear how much wear how much?  (穿多少穿多少)
No idea why this is funny, or how it's even grammatical.

"Left over women" arise in two ways: one is that nobody sees them (?), one is that everyone hates them (?).  (谁都看不上)
I probably didn't translate this well.

A girl gives her boyfriend a phone call: If you arrive, and I'm not there, you wait for me.  If I arrive, and you're not there, you wait for me.
I'm confident my translation is close to correct, but I don't see why this is funny (or even logical).

The reason for being a bachelor: at first, you like one person (一个人), but now you like being by yourself (一个人).
I think I've both translated this accurately, and understand the humor.

Additional question: Chinese football and Chinese table tennis: one nobody wins, the other nobody wins. (谁都赢不了)
I think the idea is that the Chinese football team always loses, so 谁都赢不了, but the Chinese ping pang team always wins, so for the other team 谁都赢不了.

I am a native Chinese speaker. Let me explain for you.

The humor: Every two sentences look the same but having totally different meanings.

  1、冬天：能穿多少穿多少；夏天：能穿多少穿多少。

Translate: Winter: Put on as much clothing as you can. Summer: Put on as fewer clothing as you can.

Explain: In the Winter sentence, 多少 is interpreted together, means "the quantity of the things that you have". In the sentence, it is exaggerated, and translate to "as much as you can". In the Summer sentence, 多少 should be interpreted separately as: 多 is an adjective "much", and 少 "a few", 多 is an adjective for 少, so 多少 means "very few".

  2、剩女产生的原因有两个，一是谁都看不上，二是谁都看不上

Background: 剩女 is a noun, means old girls (often older than 30) who are still single/unmarried. This is a slightly offensive word. 看上 means "falls in love with", 看不上 means "not falls in love with".

Translate: There are two reasons for being a 剩女: first, (she does) not fall for anybody; second, nobody falls for her.

Explain: The first sentence the "She" is an omission. For the second sentence, there is no omission, so 谁 is the body who is doing 看不上, and hence translates to "nobody falls for her".

  3、女孩给男朋友打电话：如果你到了，我还没到，你就等着吧；如果我到了，你还没到，你就等着吧。

Background: Most Chinese girlfriends are spoiled, and would demand much more from their boyfriends. And most Chinese take it for granted.

Translate: A girl gives her boyfriend a phone call: If you arrive, and I'm not there, you wait for me. If I arrive, and you're not there, you are going to wait for my punishment.

Explain: In Chinese, 等着 is a special word. In some occasions (depends on the context), 等着 translates to "give somebody a lesson". If someone is angry, he would say: 你给我等着. This means "I gonna get some helps and come back to punish you, you'd better stay here and do not go away."

  4、单身的原因：原来是喜欢一个人，现在是喜欢一个人。

Yours is perfect.

  中国足球和中国乒乓球，一是谁都赢不了，二是谁都赢不了。

Your translation and understanding are both perfect.


How is this character written: “一点一横长，二字下来口字方，两边丝绕绕，中间马大王，你也长，我也长，心字底，月字旁，打把金钩挂衣裳。” 《广安方言与民俗词典》has the following entry:

【biáng】
普通话中无“b-i-ang”发音，属于群众自创方音。象声词，本义指用力扯面中面条击打案板之声。生活中常作为口语化的象声词，如巴掌打在脸上的声音、面积较大的东西摔在地上的声音等。为了方便记忆，民间还有此字歌谣：“一点一横长，二字下来口字方，两边丝绕绕，中间马大王，你也长，我也长，心字底，月字旁，打把金钩挂衣裳。”

What character is “一点一横长，二字下来口字方，两边丝绕绕，中间马大王，你也长，我也长，心字底，月字旁，打把金钩挂衣裳。” exactly?
I get kind of lost after 二字下来口字方.

You must mean this:

,

this word simulates many things which I can't tell you guys in English


What character can "□" [fei3] meaning 呕吐 be? I've got this entry from 《广安方言与民俗词典》which goes as follows:

□
fei3
指呕吐。例：他中午吃醉酒了，fei3了一地。

□ is as Wiktionary states:

Used as a placeholder for an unknown hanzi.

There's a good chance though that this character word does have an actual representational character.
I've not been able to find any MSM fei readings that mean to throw up/to barf, etc.
Notes: fei3 is equivalent to [fei⁵³] - so almost the same as fei4 in MSM.
Any ideas on what it can be?

My leaning at the moment is that fei3 is actually a contraction (合音) of something like 发呕 or 发哕 - not that I have any proof for it but it seems to be the most likely at the moment.

I'm thinking it could be a word similar to 淝 in Cantonese.

http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/8979/

  淝
  fe4 fei4 jyutping
  fei2 pinyin
  [粵] fe4 - Cantonese only
  [1] [v] spray/sprinkle (water)
  [2] [v] shoot; gun down
  [粵] fei4 [國] fei2
  [n] name of a river in Anhui province, famous in Chinese history for Battle of Fei River (AD 383)

Examples of usage:
淝到周圍都係
淝啲成身濕


When would 产生了 be used? I don't really understand the meaning or usage of 产生了. Google translate gives 'had'. But it doesn't really seem to be widely-used. When would it be used, and why?

我和书中的人物产生了共鸣：I am able to empathize with characters in the book.

  我对学中文产生了浓厚的兴趣：I have got strong interest in learning Chinese.

  牛顿的著作对自然科学的发展产生了深远的影响：Newton's great works influence the development
  of natural science significantly.

So many examples I can give since there have been so many nouns that can be the target of the verb 产生.

I would recommend you try to pick up that list of nouns.


Mandarin equivalent of 後尾 (in the end)? In Cantonese, you often say "後尾" to mean "in the end."

What's the Mandarin equivalent of 後尾? Is it 最後？

广州话普通话 defines 後尾 as

粵
表示時間或空間上居後

with two sample sentences

佢後尾卒之簽咗字
他最後終於還是簽字了

佢排隊排到最後尾。
他排隊排到最末尾。

广州话方言词典 starts of with pronunciation

hau6 mei5

and it has the first definition:

1 後來；最後

with one example sentence in Cantonese and Mandarin

佢後尾點樣ǜ？
他後來怎樣了？

and one Cantonese example:

後尾大家都同意。

definition two:

2 末尾；最後（指位置）

and one example sentence:

最後尾樖係李樹。
最末尾的那棵是李樹。

it also lists pronuncation:

hau1 mei1

and defines it as:

後來；最後；後面

with two sample sentences in Cantonese and Mandarin:

佢後尾點呀？
他後來怎麼樣了？

你高, 企後尾啦。
你高, 站在後面吧。

Depending on the context you could choose something like 最后、末尾、后来、后面.


What's the difference between this 的and this 得 when it comes to meaning in the following sentences I know how they are used, but I don't understand how they differ in meaning in sentences like these. Eg.

他说的汉语很流利。
他说汉语说得很流利。

Kindly explain using examples if possible.

Added further:

Also, I came across this a very long time ago and had even asked a Chinese native friend why 的 is used here because it denotes possession. But she couldn't explain me very well. I feel my question is somehow related to this.

Lily 说：“我小吗？”

monster 说：“小？ 你？ 你小的不能再小了。你非常小。”

Another one of such kind is:

我不知道我做的对不对。

Now here, should this 得 be used? It's very confusing and I often come across such sentences with this 的 and I fail to understand why it's being used there.

的 generally expresses possession or modification and 得 is used after a verb or an adjective to express possibility or capability.

Here are some literal translations that should help to differentiate between the two examples that you listed:

他说的汉语很流利。
[他说的汉语][很流利]。
[The Chinese that he speaks][(is) fluent].

他说汉语说得很流利。
[他][说汉语][说得][很流利]。
[He][speak Chinese][speaks][fluently].

In general, that which comes before the 的 modifies what comes after it:

他穿的衣服很时髦。
[他穿的衣服][很时髦]。
[The clothes that he wears][(is) fashionable].

The 的 ends up forming a complex subject:

他说的汉语
The Chinese (that he speaks)
“他说” modifies "汉语".
Which Chinese? The Chinese that he speaks.

他穿的衣服
The clothes (that he wears)
"他穿" modifies "衣服".
Which clothes? The clothes that he wears.

红色的书
The (red) book
"红色" modifies "书".
Which book? The book that is red.

得 is generally used in the following pattern to describe the degree to which something is done: [Subject][Verb-Object][Verb 得][Adverb].

她看书看得很快。
[她][看书][看得][很快]。
[She][read books][reads][quickly].
[Subject][Verb-Object][Verb 得][Adverb]

With the dialogue that you provided, the "的" should actually be "得". It seems to just be a typo.

Lily 说：“我小吗？”
Lily: "Am I small?"

Monster 说：“小？ 你？ 你小的不能再小了。你非常小。”
Monster: "Small? You? You're so small that you can't get any smaller. You're very small."

With the third example, 得 should not be used. 的 is correct here, but it can be confusing because there is an implied/omitted noun. The thing being modified isn't said explicitly and all that is said is the modifier.

我不知道我做的对不对。
[我][不知道][我做的][对不对]。
[I][don't know][(that which) I did][is/is not right].
I don't know if what I did was right.

Here is another example dialogue:

A: 我要买书。
A: I want to buy books.

B: 新的还是二手的？
B: New (books) or used (books)?

A: 新的。
A: New (books).

Notice how "书 / books" is not repeated. Once the object is clearly in context, both speakers drop it for convenience and brevity. Natural human speech tends to be like this. It would seem quite odd to say everything explicitly since once something is in context, repeating it can seem unnecessarily redundant.


Difference between 月 and 月份 for the noun "A month" So, I'm trying to figure out what is a better way to simply translate "An important month". For example if I wanted to talk about the month of Ramadan I originally said

"斋月是穆斯林非常重要的一个月“
but a friend (Sean C.) corrected me to say
斋月是穆斯林非常重要的一个月份“
Could someone explain this difference? Does 月 sound incorrect in this instance?  Is there a simple way to think about the two as nouns?

Both 重要的月份 and 重要的一個月 works fine for translating "an important month". But 重要的月 minus the unit of measurement (份/一個) sounds more like you're speaking of the Moon.

The difference between 月 and 月份 is that the latter is specifying a month of the year, while the former is more ambiguous: it could refer to the moon, or a month's time. Thus 月份 could be used standalone but you would normally prefix 一個 to 月, as you did.

It is perfectly okay to say 斋月是伊斯兰最重要的一个月.

I suspect the reason your friend corrected you was because the topic was Ramadan.

Traditionally (in some parts), 九月 means September in the Gregorian calendar, while 九月份 refers to the ninth month of the traditional lunisolar Han Calendar. By extension, he might have felt the ninth month of the Islamic Hijri Calendar (which is what Ramadan is) should also be a 月份.

This isn't a matter of grammar, but rather a customary usage.


What does 为 mean here? In the following sentence:

  17日，国家统计局发布上半年中国经济数据，GDP增速为6.9%，延续了稳中有进、稳中向好的发展态势。

What does the 为 mean? How does it function in the sentence grammatically?

Means 是

e.g.

他的身高为8尺.

他的身高是8尺.


What is the difference between 們 and 们 for marking plurals? I've seen native speakers refer to "we" as both 我们 and 我們, so I was wondering if there's any difference in meaning or when to use one plural marker or the other.

我们 and 我們 are same, except 们 is simplified character, and 們 is traditional character.

See this for more details: Simplified Chinese characters


What does 赚走 mean in 赚走93.3亿美元? I'm having trouble understanding 赚走 in the following snippet:

得益于此，该企业二季度在华收入同比增长了1.9%，赚走93.3亿美元（约合650亿元人民币）。为了进一步扩大在华市场份额，苹果准备“入乡随俗”也不难理解。
中国市场不能丢！苹果在华销量暴增225%，iPhone12或支持北斗导航，2020年08月10日

I'm not sure if 赚 here means "to earn" (zhuàn) or "to swindle" (zuàn), which are largely different in meaning.  It's also possible it's deliberately ambiguous.
The 走 appears to be a complement, along the lines of 带走 = "to take away".  In this context, it refers to Apple (苹果) "earning away" or "swindling away" money from within China (在华).
Question: What does 赚走 mean in the above snippet?

走 here is a result complement that indicates 'away'
Apple is an American company, the article was written from the standpoint of the Chinese market. Therefore, it used the term 赚走,  which means 'earn (and take away)' from China --  Apple is profiting from the Chinese market
If the article was written from the standpoint of the company itself, it would use 赚得 (earn and get) or 赚來 (earn and take in)
Also: 赚取 - to earn (and take); 赚回 - to earn (and get back);赚了- to earn (completed); 赚到 - to earn (succefully)


Must Japanese people's name be mapped to equivalent Chinese characters? According to this question titled "How do we choose the correct characters for a westerner name?", the accepted answer says the following:

  It's your name and you can arbitrarily pick characters to be your name.

Other answers also say that they can choose whatever they like, by its original meaning and/or its sound.

However, Japanese people already have names written in kanji. In fact I find that any name of Japanese people are simply mapped to its equivalent Chinese characters, and it seems to be that the sound never plays a role here.

Is it true that the name of Japanese people in Chinese must follow its Japanese kanji, or is it just a convention?

Also, if that is not the rule, is there anyone who breaks this convention, say among famous people in China?

Yes, if a Japanese name can be written in kanji, it is customary to read these kanji in its Chinese character pinyin, the Japanese pronunciation play no part.

The Japanese pronunciation of "田中" is "Tanaka",  But 田中 in Mandarin is read as / tian2 zhong1/ using Mandarin Pinyin and    /tin4 zung1/ in Cantonese using Cantonese Jyuping

If you are a Japanese named 田中 (Tanaka), your Chinese name should always be 田中 (tin4 zung1) also. Picking a different Chinese name, for example 田 (tin4) so your name can sound more Chinese, is considered insulting to your heritage.

Some Japanese first names do not have fixed corresponding Kanji, for example  あかね (Akane).  In this case, we have to choose among all the Kanji that is pronounced  あかね,  and 茜 is the most common one.


Is there such a thing as a run-on-sentence in Chinese? In Chinese articles I often find these long, never-ending, main-point-less sentences.

For instance check out these three sentence-paragraphs from this news article ("请给90后创业者多一些宽容")

  尽管随后余佳文在微博上专门发文针对知呼上对其学历、融资额、用户数据等等质疑做了相应回应，但是从舆论上依然负面不断，尤其是与之前马佳佳的炒作放在一起，总的来说给人一种90后创业者“不靠谱”的感觉。

  与很多创业项目不同的是，这个被推到风口浪尖的超级课程表团队基本都是出身草根的90后，没有显赫的背景、华丽的学历、光鲜的职业履历，白手起家硬生生从零开始做到成功拿下阿里的风险投资，不管盈利多少、用户多少、融资多少，能走得到这个阶段当属不易。

  如果真有错，就错在这位90后CEO太过高调，打破了华南地区创业者一向低调务实的传统，更是广东地区的创业者罕有的登上了中国互联网圈子的头条，之前的马佳佳、郝畅、雕爷的案例基本都诞生于京城，很少有外地的案例引起主流互联网圈子的关注。

Is this just bad writing, or is there no such thing as a run on sentence in Chinese?

Actually, this is some quite advanced writing.
And no, there's no such a thing as run-on sentence in Chinese. At least not exactly as in English.
The structure used in this article is called 排比(parallelism, http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%8E%92%E6%AF%94). Parallelism is "a balance within one or more sentences of similar phrases or clauses that have the same grammatical structure."
If you look carefully, you can identify multiple groups of phrases with similar pattern describing a common subjective/objective:

这个被推到风口浪尖的超级课程表团队基本都是出身草根的90后，没有

显赫的背景、
华丽的学历、
光鲜的职业履历，

白手起家硬生生从零开始做到成功拿下阿里的风险投资，不管

盈利多少、
用户多少、
融资多少，

能走得到这个阶段当属不易。

You should also consider it phonetically. This kind of structures are usually used in a speech or a debate. Because of those similar structures, when you say it out loud, you'll get nice rhythm, stronger/firmer tone and look more confident in your content in front of your listeners. It helps with getting your ideas across or intimidating your opponents.
People are always looking for patterns in stuff (even when it's not there). Just give it to them.


The use of 放在 in a sentence I was looking at this sentence 我把雪糖放在这杯咖啡里 and was wondering if it would be grammatically sound to say 我放在这杯咖啡雪糖 to mean the same thing.

The first sentence "我把雪糖放在这杯咖啡里" is grammatically correct

[我 - subject (I)]
[把 - disposal marker that dispose the following object ]
[砂糖 - object (sugar)]
[放 - verb (put)]
[在( ~ )里 - preposition (into)]
[在(这杯咖啡)里 - relative phrase indicates location (into this cup of coffee)]

The second sentence "我放在这杯咖啡(砂糖)" is grammatically incorrect.

It should be: [我放 + (object)+  在这杯咖啡里] = "我放(砂糖)在这杯咖啡里"
'砂糖'(object) is wrongly placed after the (relative phrase that indicate location) '这杯咖啡里'. That created a '[这杯咖啡 (n)]+[砂糖 (n)] situation'
it also missed the '里' in the preposition '在 ~ 里'

to put the object '砂糖' after  '这杯咖啡' , you cannot use the disposal  marker '把'
The correct form is "我在这杯咖啡里放入砂糖"

我(subject)
在( ~ )里(preposition)
在(这杯咖啡)里 (relative phrase- indicate location)
放入 (verb)
砂糖 (object)


How to explain 讲 in 讲礼貌 and 讲卫生 In my understanding 讲礼貌 translates as 'be polite' and 讲卫生 is something like 'be clean', but how should I explain the 讲 to a new speaker? I take this as a set phrase, but is there a way to translate the 讲 in these phrases separately?

Wiktionary only provides the following meanings:

explain
discuss
talk

I don't think this fits in with either 讲礼貌 or 讲卫生, so should a new meaning be added to the above list and what should that be?

In this context  讲 is short for 讲究 which means to pay particular attention to; to be particular about.
So you can also say 讲究礼貌 and 讲究卫生.


how does the immediate constituent analysis of the phrase/sentence 聊斋志异 look like? What is the grammatical analysis of this phrase?
What are the parts of speech?
How can the whole sentence be split into smaller logical units?
Is the title itself a real phrase or real sentence?

聊斋志异 is the name of an ancient novel, which is a collection of nearly 500 mostly supernatural tales written by Pu Songling in Classical Chinese during the early Qing Dynasty.

Source: Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio

聊 means chat, 斋 means room, and 聊斋 is the name of the author's study room/studio.

志 means record, 异 means strange things, 志异 means to record the strange things, so 聊斋志异 is a stories' collection about strange things recorded by the author at his study studio named 聊斋.

BTW: 聊斋志异 could be shortened as 聊斋.


Do I drink (喝) or eat (吃) a soup in Chinese? In English you say eat soup, not drink soup. But how about Mandarin?

Drink

  這個菜湯很香！　你喝喝看！　（This vegetable soup is really tasty! You try it!)

or eat？

  這個菜湯很香！　你吃吃看！　（This vegetable soup is really tasty! You try it!)

Or are both valid?

The idiomatic way to say 'try it' in Chinese is 尝一下，尝尝，尝一尝.

You can also say 你吃一口(试试/尝尝) and 你喝一口(试试/尝尝) for eating and drinking respectively.

Your version 你喝喝看 is good too. But 你吃吃看 is not suitable for drinkings and soups. This is different from English.


An English equivalent of "還真是抬舉他了"? I understand what it means, ([I] really overpraised him or something), but I can't figure out a good english translation of it.

It has the meaning of "overlooking" or "looked up" or something, but I can't find the correct word.

An acceptable translation will be "(You) overestimated him/her".