What tone is 杆 in 扶杆？ According to pleco 杆 in the third tone means shaft or arm, while in the first tone it means pole or staff. 扶杆 is in one of our exercises. It is not contained in any of the pleco  dictionaries I own (PLC, CC, TL, UNI) and seems to mean armrest. I guess it is the third tone.

The transcript of the relevant snippet reads:

  坐地铁对我来说也有问题，地铁的扶杆太低，⋯

Let's talk in terms of Traditional Chinese here, which I feel is going to be much clearer.

「杆」is not pronounced gǎn. The valid pronunciations listed in dictionaries are gàn and gān.
「杆」pronounced gān means pole or rod.
「桿」is only pronounced gǎn, and is a synonym of「杆」when it is pronounced gān, in the sense that「桿」can mean pole or rod.
「桿」(gǎn) also means lever or handle.

This is not hard to remember if you consider that「干」is never pronounced in the third tone, and the other common character which uses「旱」as a phonetic component,「趕」(gǎn), is also pronounced in the third tone.

Simplified Chinese merged「杆」and「桿」into one character.

The「杆」mentioned in the text is the horizontal bar referenced in the image above (扶手橫桿/扶手横杆), which should be pronounced gǎn. From Panlex:

Searching héng gǎn or hénggǎn  results in 横杆 with definitions cross-bar, rail, overarm
Searching  héng gān turns up no results
Searching  hénggān results in 横竿

(You can check Panlex's dictionary sources here by filtering with the key 'cmn'.)


When to use 看 and 见？ I know 看 and 见 both mean "to see". But they are used differently in different words. Like 看书 看电影...etc. and 见面 见识...etc. (Or do Chinese people say 见书 见电影 or 看面 看识?)

Is there a rules to use them differently?

In Classical Chinese, 见 describes the action that you get visual information. It implies the result, but has no duration. 见 is more like to see, 看 is more like to look (at).

In modern Chinese, you probably will not use 见 as a verb. Instead, you say 看见, which consists of a verb 看 and a particle 见. In Classical Chinese, we say 不见, but in modern Chinese, we say 看不见 (cannot see) or 没看见 (did not see) depending on the context. 见 serves as the result complement of 看 here.

The 看 in 看书 and 看电影 does not mean to perceive with the eyes. You'd better take them as collocations.

见 can be used as a verb when it means to see/meet someone, or to see something unusual and widen one's knowledge. For example, 见客人, 见世面, etc.

见面 (to meet) literally means to see someone's face. 见识 literally means to see and then to know something. But I think dictionaries will simply list them as compound verbs, because you cannot guess their idiomatic meanings from their literal meanings.

In short, 看 and 见 either have different grammatical functions (verb vs particle), or have totally different meanings.


How will translate "谁让你" into English? How will translate "谁让你" into English? For example,

  我不得不服从你的安排。 谁让你是我的老板呢？

谁让 expresses weak causality with a mood. Depending on the context and the tone, the mood can be humor, banter, sarcastic, helplessness, complaining or something else. Accordingly the translation can be "since", "after all", "only because", "God knows why", etc.

In your example, it seems the speaker is just grumbling or expressing helplessness in a cool mood. I would use "after all" in this one.

  I have to listen to you. You're my boss, after all.


What is the grammatical function of 到 in 这些的确是铁匠会用到的老式钉子 ? How does 到 contribute to the meaning of the expression:
这些的确是铁匠会用到的老式钉子.

Is there a difference between sentences with and without it:

这些的确是铁匠会用到的老式钉子
这些的确是铁匠会用的老式钉子

用到 = 用得到 where 到 is resultant compliment for the verb 用. 到 here means 'occurred; reached; accomplished' in the sense that without it, it sounds like 'attempted'.
With some other verbs, the differentiation is more prominent, e.g.

抓老鼠 (try to) catch a mouse.
抓到老鼠 (manage to) catch a mouse.

When it comes to 用 the difference is mostly in certainty level but very trivial:

这些的确是铁匠会用的老式钉子
These are true old fashioned clinch nails that a blacksmith might use.
这些的确是铁匠会用到的老式钉子
These are true old fashioned clinch nails that a blacksmith would use.

Side note, 用到 could also mean 'use (...) towards' where 到 is a preposition meaning 'towards; for', as in 把时间用到最重要的事情上. It's unrelated to this question though.


How old is the term 哲学 as a name for philosophy? This zh.wikipedia article describes the etymology of 哲学 by first relating it to the English word from the Greek meaning "love of wisdom."  But then that article also refers to ancient Chinese.
Is this a term in classical Chinese?  Or is it more recent?

The wikipedia page you quote literally says "1874年，日本启蒙家西周，在《百一新论》中首先用汉语词“哲学”来翻译philosophy一词". So "哲学" as a word is as old as that.
The Classical Chinese occurrences are about the word "哲", not "哲学". They are not exactly the same thing.


What does 助人者得人助 mean? 助人者得人助。

I am mostly concerned about the meaning of 者. Its explanation is very blurry on YellowBridge, and there's no article on its usage in he Chinese grammar wiki.

助人 = help people
助人者 = those who help people
人助= people's help
得人助 = get people's help

者 http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/591/
[1] he who; those who
[2] a particle combining with some words to form adverbials

Some example terms with 者
死 = dead; 死者 = deceased (person)
長 = elder; 長者 = elderly (person)
偽善 = hypocritical; 偽善者 = hypocrite (person)
違抗規則 = defy the rule; 違抗規則者 = those who defy the rule (person)
Edition:
Example for  [2] a particle combining with some words to form adverbials-
"兵者，凶器也" 。
兵者=(definition of) army;
凶器也 = is instrument of destruction


Pinyin capitalization when sentence starts with a number The first letter of a sentence in Pinyin is to be capitalized. Does this remain true if the sentence starts with an arabic numeral? For instance, Google Translate turns "23万人" into "23 Wàn rén" instead of "23 wàn rén", as one may expect from European languages.

This may be hard to answer definitively. (It might be documented in the ISO 7098:2015, but it's behind a paywall.)

In any case, it would be natural to transliterate a sentence beginning:

  23万人...

as

  25 wàn rén...

We certainly know sentences start with capital letters:

  6.3.1 句子开头的字母大写。例如：
  - Chūntiān láile.（春天来了。）
  - Wǒ ài wǒ de jiāxiāng.（我爱我的家乡。）

  中华人民共和国国家标准，汉语拼音正词法基本规则，2012。
  (Basic Rules of the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet Orthography, 2012.  Source.)

In the given example, the sentence starts with 2 (not 万).

It also seems reasonable to believe that pinyin follows English capitalization, like it does for other forms of capitalization (start of a sentence, people's names, etc.).

Some related observations...

It is possible to use Arabic numerals in pinyin, the above document contains this example:

  635 fēnjī（635分机）
  (extension 635)

along with examples where the pinyin corresponds to what is pronounced:

  èr fēn zhī yī（二分之一）
  èr líng líng bā nián（二〇〇八年）

I didn't find a definitive example where a numeral in Chinese was transliterated to its pronunciation in pinyin.

And there's also examples of place names where Chinese characters are converted to numbers in pinyin:

  二马路 (2 Mǎlù)
  三环路 (3 Huánlù)
  中国地名汉语拼音字母拼写规则（汉语地名部分），1984。
  (China Place Name Hanyu Pinyin Letter Spelling Rules (Hanyu Place Name Part), 1984.  Source.)


How to introduce "Husband" in social occasions? Some common words are 先生 or 老公,

Are there any other options that would be more socially appropriate?

老公 is more for casual conversation. e.g. 這是我老公

先生 can be used in a more formal situation. e.g. 這是我先生

In a even more formal situation, you can use 外子.  e.g. 這是外子


If a response to a question was "我很喜欢看法国电影," would the question be "你很喜欢不很喜欢看法国电影？" or "你喜欢不喜欢看法国电影?" On a test I had for my Mandarin 1 class, for a certain part of it, the instructions were, " Look at the answers below and write an appropriate question using the V 不 bù / bú V pattern." For one of the questions of that part, the answer was "我很喜欢看法国电影." Since the person in the answer stated that they liked watching French movies a lot, I thought the question asked whether they liked French movies a lot. I thought that if I wrote "你喜欢不喜欢看法国电影?," they probably would have just said whether or not they liked watching French movies or not instead of clarifying that they liked watching them a lot. Therefore, I wrote, "你很喜欢不很喜欢看法国电影?" Would this make sense or would "你喜欢不喜欢看法国电影?" actually fit as the question that corresponds to the answer given? I appreciate all the help I can get, and an explanation would be amazing, thank you!

I understand your train of thought and it is reasonable: you wish to make the distinction between asking 'whether the person likes French movies a lot', and 'whether the person likes French movies (at all)'.

Chinese allows such a distinction by asking: 你很喜歡看法國電影嗎？ and 你喜（歡）不喜歡看法國電影？ respectively.

Rather, I would say it is the requirement of your test that bounds your options, not Chinese. That is because the form V+不+V rarely (dare I say never) permits a verb that is prefixed with an adverb of extent (e.g., 很); the asker is only interested in receiving a yes-or-no answer (think of that as asking, do you V? Or do you 不+V?). Of course, it is at the answerer's discretion that they add an adverb of extent for the sake of emphasis (i.e., 'Yes, I like French movies, and I tell you additionally that I like them a lot.'). In short, you ask a question strictly in 'yes-no', but you answer it with much liberty.

Moreover, the construction V+不+V is a succinct one, which makes 很喜歡不很喜歡 unideal and odd to the native ear. In fact, one is allowed to only repeat the first character of the verb, as in 喜不喜歡, 討不討厭.

The principle of succinctness is further demonstrated in compound verbs. One repeats only the first verb in the compound and not the rest: e.g., with 喜歡吃 (to like eating), we say 喜不喜歡吃, not 喜歡吃不喜歡吃.

The difference between 是不是+V and V+不+V

Curiosity's answer is perfectly valid in this context, but that does not suggest 你喜不喜歡看 is interchangeable with 你是不是喜歡看.

是不是+V is used primarily for confirmation, and in that there is assumption. 你是不是喜歡看法國電影？ contains the asker's assumption that the other person likes French movies. In fact, 你是不是不喜歡看法國電影？ assumes the opposite, e.g., when the other person is showing signs of disgust. V+不+V does not work in the negative sense, nor does it contain any assumption.

We can use a verb in the past tense with 是不是, whereas V+不+V is relatively tenseless. E.g., 他是不是殺了人？ means 'Did he kill someone?' Whereas 他殺不殺了人？ is ungrammatical. 他殺不殺人？ is grammatical and may mean 'Does he kill people?', as if the asker suspects he may be a killer, an instance where 'to kill' is habitual.


What does the Chinese symbols mean? I'm trying to find a translation of the ankle tattoo on the photo below.

CC-CEDICT

姊〔姉〕
PY zǐ
ZY ㄗˇ
OLD VARIANT OF 姊 zǐ (or jiě) {zi2}
1 older sister
2 Taiwan pr. [jiě]

KEY

(variant of zǐ 姊) elder sister


About the last non-repeated sentence in 爱人是行船人 The Min song mentioned in the title has the following lyrics (conformed to the "guidelines" of 台湾闽南语常用词辞典):

  在阮的心目中
  伊是一个男子汉
  在阮的一生中
  只爱伊一人

  伊的船只已经欲出航
  毋知何时才会阁再入港
  虽然装着笑容
  来共伊相送
  阿～～心爱的人
  暗中目箍红

  踮故乡真稀微
  孤单一个过日子
  踮海边轻轻来
  叫着伊名字

  阮的心肝已经缀伊去
  毋知何时才会阁再相见
  虽然装着笑容
  来共阮安慰
  阿～～心爱的人
  心肝像针威

  (Repeat first verse and first "chorus")

With the help of the above dictionary, I get the following Tai-lo:

  Tsāi gún ê sim-bo̍k-tiong
  I sī tsi̍t ê lâm-tsú-hàn
  Tsāi gún ê it-sing tiong
  Tsí ài i tsi̍t lâng

  I ê tsûn-tsiah í-king beh tshut-hâng
  M̄ tsai hô-sî tsiah ē koh-tsài li̍p-káng
  Sui-liân tsng-tio̍h tshiò-iông
  Lâi kā i sio-sàng
  Ah~~ sim-ài ê lâng
  Àm-tiong ba̍k-khoo âng

  Tiàm kòo-hiong tsin hi-bî
  Koo-tuann tsi̍t ê kuè li̍t-tsí
  Tiàm hái pinn khin-khin lâi
  Kiò-tio̍h i miâ-lī

  Gún ê sim-kuann í-king tuè i khì
  M̄ tsai hô-sî tsiah ē koh-tsài sio-kìnn
  Sui-liân tsng-tio̍h tshiò-iông
  Lâi kā gún an-uì
  Ah~~ sim-ài ê lâng
  Sim-kuann tshiūnn tsiam ui

  (Repeat first verse and first "chorus")

I render this in English as follows (note that this is not literal because it's supposed to fit the original tune):

  As far as my thoughts go
  He is a hero for me
  As far as my days go
  I'll love him alone

  His boat's already about to leave
  I don't know when he can come back on land
  Though I make a happy face
  As I see him off
  Ah~~ he's my one love
  I'm crying secretly

  Back home I'm so lonely
  Living my days all alone
  And on the beach I call
  Call his name softly

  My heart has gone off to sea with him
  I don't know when I can see him again
  Though I make a happy face
  I now comfort myself
  Ah~~ he's my one love
  (My heart is strong like a needle ??)

  (Repeat first verse and first "chorus")

First of all, if there are any glaring mistakes in the above (keeping in mind it must fit the tune), please let me know. This question focuses on the sentence 心肝像针威. Now, 心肝 has a number of meanings, from "heart" to "character" to (in Min) "mind" to "darling", so that's already a choice to make; 像 means "like"; 针 means "needle"; 威 is given as "power" by Wiktionary. Hence my translation in brackets. But what does this mean? Is ui supposed to be 偎 as in this song, with which this would be "Heart like needle cuddle", or in English "My heart feels like a needle is cuddling to it", implying utmost pain due to the needle stinging the heart? But then why do captions get it wrong? Also, I am skeptical of this guess since 偎 is not ui but ue (says Wiktionary at least), so it doesn't rhyme… Maybe it's even another character?

Cross-posted on Quora this morning, and the answer came in soon. I was told "ui" means "prick" (the verb, not the noun), so I turned that into Mandarin 刺, and my reference gave me 揻, with precisely that sentence as an example: 心肝像針揻。Sim-kuann tshiūnn tsiam ui. (心像被針刺一樣。); (other example: 揻一空　ui tst khang(戳一個洞)). So that's it.

Literal translation: My heart feels like pierced by a needle.
Singable translation: A needle's piercing my heart.


What does 系 in 日系车 and 德系车mean? Does it mean style here? If so, the Chinese word should have been 风 as the shortened version of 风格.

The other meaning might be department, as in a college, like department of foreign languages, but it is obviously impossible in this context.

If it means "made in Japan" or "made in Germany", many vehicles are actually made in China, if they are imports, could they be so named as 日系 or 德系？

系 could be 'a system', 'a series' in its original meaning.

In this case, 系 could be understood as where those car brands from.

Toyota, Honda cars are 日系車. GM, Tesla cars are 美系車. BMW cars are 德系車. Other car brands in Europe except for Germany are 歐系車. 德系車 is independent because BMW and Mercedes-Benz are much famous brands in the world.

Another case, Volvo was sold to Chinese firm. We still call Volvo as 歐系車 because the brand Volvo was started in Europe.


List of verbs followed by 給 According to this page, 給 usually precedes the verb.

On this page, it says 給 sometimes follows the verb, and often these exceptions are single-syllable verbs.

1) Is there a list of these exceptions somewhere? If not, are there suggested rules for knowing when 給 should follow a verb instead of precede it?

2) The two pages lists conflicting examples for 發. One example lists 發 as preceding the verb; the other lists 發 as following the verb.

Preceding: 请 把 那些 照片 都 发给 我

Following: 我 给 你 发 了 一 封 邮件

Is there a mistake in these examples, or can 發 both precede and follow a verb? If both, when does it precede and when does it follow?

You can place 给：

before the main verb when it's used as a preposition (usually "to")
after the main verb when it expresses the result of an action

In the first case you are not expressing the result of the action, just the target of the action:

  照片，我给你已经发好了 --- I already sent you the pictures (to you)
  你打算什么时候给你父母介绍你的女朋友 --- When do you plan to introduce your girlfriend to your parents?
  我不知道怎样给我的领导提建议 --- I don't know how to provide suggestions to my boss

In the other case you are expressing a result that stems from the main action, and you can find some implied temporal order in it, sometimes explicitly marked by other particles:

  照片，我已经发给你了 --- I've sent you the pictures (results in you having them)

  申请单必须提交给商务局批准 --- The request form must be submitted to the commerce bureau for approval (results in them having it; which leads to the approval)

I don't think you can find an exhaustive list of the verbs that support either construction. What you can do is to consider whether 给 expresses a target or a consequence/order. For verbs that support both, usage depends on what meaning you want to emphasize. In your examples:

  Preceding: 请 你 把 那些 照片 发给 我 --- (result of sending: I have the pictures)
  Following: 我 给 你 发 了 一 封 邮件 --- (target of sending: you, not someone else)


What's wrong with 空调制冷得不太好 meaning "The air conditioner cools poorly"? I thought

  空调制冷得不太好

would be perfectly fine, using the grammar structure

  Subj. + Verb + 得 + Complement
  Chinese Grammar Wiki

But there's no hits on Baidu for "制冷得不太好" which is a strong indicator that something is wrong.  I don't know what though.

Question: What's wrong with 空调制冷得不太好 meaning "The air conditioner cools poorly"?

It seems it's correct to say

  空调制冷效果不太好

(See Baidu search for "空调制冷效果不太好".)  That's fine and makes sense to me, but I don't understand why 空调制冷得不太好 is not also okay.

You’ve got the concepts down but the problem here is that 冷 is not a verb. So now you’ve got 得 modifying 冷 and not 制.

Often times with words like this you might see repetition of the actual verb like:

• 说话说得

• 跳舞跳得

• 写字写得

This way it’s the verb that’s being qualified.

This isn't a very common phrasing but here are some examples I found online:

  制冷制得很快

  制冷制得比较柔

  调制冷制得好不好一样

  这两天制冷制得有些不顺利


How do you say "cookies", in the sense of website cookies? How do you say "Cookies" in Chinese?

I mean website cookies.

I often see "cookies" or 曲奇 but I would like to know which terms is mostly used.

We also say "Cookie(s)" actually, because in Chinese "Cookies" is "存储在用户本地终端上的数据" which is an explanation rather than a word, and it's too long.


Does expression ”宁愿...也不...“ belong only to book style or I can use it in simple conversation？ I just met in book such sort of expressions with ”宁愿...也不...“. I understand it like "rather...than...", but my question is: is it only book style or spoken as well, can I use such form in simple conversation?
Thank you!

When the context calls for it, use it in conversation, according to a quick survey of 2 friends!

我宁愿坐火车去。
I'd prefer to go by train.
我宁愿买二手货。
I prefer to buy second hand.
我宁愿跟铅管约会。
I'd rather date a lead pipe.


I did (Something) as much as I would in (X amount of time) In english there is a common expression that is "I did (something) as much as I would in (A period of time)". Generally in this pattern the period of time is a large period of time - and the expression is used to express a sense of being impressed.
I'm trying to figure out if Chinese has an equivalent expression - or a similar way of expressing the meaning.

For example, how would I say "I laughed more today than I usually would in a week"
Could I say:
"今天我笑得比正常的一个礼拜多“

You own answer is almost correct. I'd add one character to make sound more natural:
今天我笑得比正常的一个礼拜**还**多


What is a polite way to ask to 打包 (dǎbāo) "take away" my meal? Is 我想打包 acceptable? After learning about being polite by using 用一下, 用一用, and 用用 (etc.) instead of just 用 (see my previous question), I'm a bit more careful when asking for things.

The other day I was at the cafeteria and I wanted to 打包 (dǎbāo) = take away, so I said:

  我想打包
  Wǒ xiǎng dǎbāo

But it doesn't following one of the polite forms above, so I'm worried it was a bit blunt.  Nevertheless, 打包一打包 and 打打包包 seem overly long (and I'm not sure they're correct) and 打包一下 seems strange to me since I will be permanently taking away the food.

Question: What is a polite way to ask to take away my meal?

No, just say

"Hello! Waiter! I need (my food to be) taken away, is that ok?"
你好，服务员，我要打包，可以吗？

or

"Hello! Waiter! Can you help me package (my food)?"
你好，服务员，能帮我打包吗？

I don't know how you talk about this in English-speaking country, but I will use that sentence in China.

打包一下 is ok. This action only happened once, once it's done, you'll take away your food, the waiter knows about that. This putting your food into a bag action will not last very long.


Why 明 for tomorrow and next year but 下 for next month? I would like to understand why you can say 明天 and 明年 but not 明月, or why you can't say 下天 and 下年 but you say 下月. From the dictionary, 明 and 下 both seem to mean "next".

Maybe the logic behind is "just because the language evolved like this"? Like in english we say next month and next year but instead we say tomorrow.

The first impression in people's mind on the term 明月 is 'bright moon' not 'next month'. I can understand, to avoid confusion, people would choose to say  "下一個月" or "下月" instead of "明月"

We do say "下一年" or "下年" along with "明年" for "next year"

As for saying 明天/ 明日 instead of 下天/ 下日:

明天 is specifically referring to "the day after today" = "tomorrow". There can be no day between 今天 and 明天.

Meanwhile, 下天/ 下日 sounds like you can fit some days in the middle, e.g. 下個下雨天. 下個元旦日.

In any case:

昨天|今天|明天

去年|今年|明年

上一年;上年|今年|下一年;下年

上一個月;上個月;上月|今個月|下一個月;下個月;下月

上週|本週|下週

上個星期;上星期|今個星期|下個星期;下星期

are all accepted terms by people.


質: when to pronounce in 2nd tone or 4th (Mandarin)? In Mandarin, sometimes 質 is pronounced with the 2nd tone (e.g., 質地, 特質) and other times it's pronounced with the 4th tone (e.g., 質疑, 質量, 品質).

Here are two words pronounced with the 2nd tone:

質地 http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/11242/
特質 http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/48232/

There doesn't appear to be a clear pattern.

Does anyone know any rules for when to pronounce 質 with 2nd tone vs. 4th tone?

You should always pronounce the 4th tone in the standard mandarin.

Sometimes, I heard people wrongly pronounced the 2nd tone in the words of 质量，质地, which is probably acceptable to a native ear. But again that's wrong pronunciation.

But if you pronounce the 2nd tone for 质疑，品质, it's really bad (at least to me).

An interesting observation, in a online dictionary, I search for 质地， and it's marked the 4th tone for simplified and 2th tone for traditional one.  So, I doubt this could be regional thing as fefe suggested in his/her answer.


What are the common ice-breaker sentences in Chinese? There are sentences in English like "What's up?" "What's going on?" "how have you been?" to begin a conversation with or to greet people (friends or relatives)

So what are the common ice-breaker sentences in Chinese?

Here are a few ice-breaker sentences:

最近怎么样？（Literally "recently how"? = How've you been recently?）

最近好吗？（Literally recently good?）

最近忙什么？(Literally recently busy what? = What have you been busy for?)


How should I understand 集合? I looked up the definition for 集合 in Baidu but I'm not sure how to use it. My example is like this:

  其博大宽泛的特性集合，～

The context of this sentence is that it's describing PHP, a popular programming language. My translation thus far might look like this: Its ubiquity ..., with ubiquity being my translation for 博大宽泛 (i.e. widespreadness, popularity, etc.). I don't understand how 集合 works here. The definition I have for 集合 is 'assembled', 'set', 'brought together'.

The full passage is like this. It's technical, but I don't need help translating the technical part of it, just help understanding the grammatical aspect:

  其博大宽泛的特性集合，简捷友好的语法结构以及对不同操作系统和Web服务器的支持，已经使它称为～

Thanks!

‘集合’ refers to set when it comes to math.

‘集合’ refers to a collection/bunch of when it comes to your sentence, which means a bounch of features.


What part of speech is 到 (to) when used in 两只饿到眼绿的老鼠正在房梁上打架? I was having trouble with the sentence

  两只饿到眼绿的老鼠正在房梁上打架

because I could not understand the usage of 到 here. After I spent some time thinking I figure the meaning is that the rats were hungry to the extent that their eyes turned green (a metaphor of some sort?) but if that is indeed the case, what would you call this type of word? In English I believe the word "to" used in this way is called a preposition but I haven't seen anything online about the usage of prepositions in Chinese.

You are essentially correct. Here, 到 is a preposition that, depending on context, can represent "to," "(up) until," or "up to."

e.g. 到目前为止 : up until this moment

工作到天亮了 : work until the sky becomes light

从周一到周四 : From Monday to Thursday

In your particular example, there seems to be an implied “的程度" at the end of the descriptor which is omitted, i.e. one can write 两只饿到眼绿的程度的老鼠正在房染上打架, and in order to prevent a sentence from being clunky, this has been omitted since it's clear from context what is being said here.


How common are the following Chinese names: 王朋 & 李友 & 高文中 & 白英愛? My Chinese coursebooks are full of them! Context: my Chinese course uses a series of books (called 'Integrated Chinese') in which the following are among the most commonly used names:

王朋
李友
高文中
白英愛

It makes me wonder how common these names are in real life? Thanks for clarifying!

王朋 and 李友 sounds like 'Tom' and 'Joe' in English.
高文中 is not as common as the two above.
白英愛 sounds like a Korean name to me, very fashionable, There is a Korean pop star called 李英爱,  as I know Chinese people do not tend to use 爱 in their name in old tradition.


How to practice reading for beginners? Are there any good magazines (or perhaps books) that can be used to practice reading for beginners? I feel that my Chinese level is good enough to read simple sentences but it's still impossible to read newspapers or normal magazines, so I'm looking for something easier to practice. Any suggestion?

Edit: Just started reading a "Chinese Breeze Graded Readers" book and I confirm they are quite good, and it's relatively easy to find a book that matches your level.

There are books specifically designed for learners, such as the Chinese Breeze Graded Readers. These books are small, have constrained vocabulary, and relatively simple stories, but not so basic that you don't feel some sense of accomplishment after reading one. I read the book 错，错，错！ which features police officers investigating a suspicious suicide. The plot would make a terrible movie but it was still fun to read.


The etymology of 便当 in Chinese The following excerpt is from the top answer on 知乎:

  丈夫每天吃自己做的便当（没错，是他自己做的，不是他妻子做的）她吃大餐，去一次美容院就能花4.2万。看表情就知道，这位太太毫无愧疚之心，可能还觉得自己萌萌哒。两人摊牌后，妻子没有道歉，而是要求丈夫以后更努力工作赚钱。最后以这男人跳下站台自杀，妻子改嫁结束。

The 便当 here means a bento-box. However, since it is clear that "bento" in English is a loanword from Japanese, I feel that it is a loanword from Japanese in Mandarin as well, not a word that had been incorporated into Japanese.

However, the Japanese word is 弁当, not 便当. So my question is:

Is my assumption correct that it is a loanword from Japanese?
If that is true, then why is it called 便当 in Chinese? And when did it start to be called as such?

I try to make a rough translation here:

  便当， originated from the Southern Song Dynasty, meaning "convenient
  things, convenient, smooth".

  When introduced into Japan, it became “便道”、“辨道”、“辨当”.

  Later, when the term “便当” was transplanted back to China from Japan,
  it's referenced to 弁当(bentou/bento).

  The term 盒饭, (that is 盒装餐食), is used in mainland, while
  便当 is usually used in Taiwan.

  However, there is a nuance between 盒饭 and 便当. 便当 is more delicate than
  盒饭.  盒饭 is usually just simple and normal food.


Does 住 人 mean "people living in the area" or "real live people, as opposed to puppets and fictions"? I see various written sentences that refer to 住 人 .

The dictionary says this means "living people," but 住 seems to be "live" in the sense of "I live in Beijing," or "I reside in Beijing."

So if the sentence says "There are 住 人  here," does that mean, "There are people who reside in this area," or "There are living people here, but in the other room there are only non-living things such as puppets"?

Thanks.

Edit:

Okay, when I originally posted the question, I saw the characters on  banner ad and didn't bother clicking the ad.

Since that time, I found another copy of the banner ad and noticed that they used more than a few Japanese characters.  I clicked through and found the game that the original ad was advertising.  It seems to be "Inhabitant Love" which makes no sense to me.  It seems to be hosted in Taiwan, so the major language of the site should be Mandarin.

I am putting a link to an imgur screencap.  I think the red-outlined slogan is "Which one do you want to choose (選擇) today?"  I think the yellow text says "Just want to be with you."

This makes little sense to me.  I understand that dating sims involve characters, but why call them "inhabitants"?

http://imgur.com/ZQqVu1R

Second Edit:

http://www.nciku.com/search/zh/detail/主人/1319943

Wait a minute.  I misread the characters.  It isn't "Inhabitant People Love," it's "mistress love."  Or possibly "master love," as in, the player gets to be the master of a household and the maids are his romantic conquests.

I need to recognize what's actually written, not what I'm looking for.  I had been studying different characters and I saw the characters I was looking for, not what was actually written. Sorry about that.

It would help if you provided the sentence in question.

Baidu (http://baike.baidu.com/view/1402096.htm) gives two definitions for 住人 as a noun, meaning either residents or, in the right construction, a group of people demarcated by the preceding description

ABC has 住人 as a separable verb meaning to "accommodate or put up people"

现代汉语词典 doesn't list 住人

And since 住 is a common complement, it could be that 人 is the object of V+住

It could also appear in 同住人, meaning husband and wife, and in 常住人口, meaning permanent residents


What does this announcer say after the words 改变？ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0D-ot2tso8

This is that somewhat controversial commercial for laundry soap.  It's at about the :40 second mark.  Is he saying 帅哥？

Thank you,
Rachel

No. He's not saying the word "帅哥". What he says is "改变，只需一颗俏比洗衣溶珠" as  @NS.X. comments.


I want to purchase this jacket for my son but it has this symbol on it. Can you help? I have a picture! Help what does this symbol on this jacket mean?

悟 (wù) is a buddhist concept, especially in chán (禅), and means "realize", "awaken", especially in the word 悟空 (wùkōng): awake in the emptiness of existence.

The monkey 孙悟空 (Sun Wukong) is a character in the classic novel Journey to the West, and is often portrayed in Chinese and East Asian culture. The same goes for many other buddhist concepts.

In this instance, it is related to Japanese manga.


What's the role of 了 in this sentence: 你要是喜欢我就给你买了 Is it an aspect marker? Is it a specific grammatical construction with 就 or 要是? Is it there just for emphasis? I can't work it out...

I think the key is the usage of 了. In my opinion, 了 here works like a result complement,  which indicates the status changed.

Semantically, they(with or without 了) denote the same meaning.

我买 vs 我买了:

我买 is like saying "I will buy" in English.

我买了 is like "I will have/get it bought. The status changed from not bought to bought.

Another example is 我走 vs 我走了. 我走 is I am going. 我走了 is I will be gone. The status changed from staying here to be gone.

Hope this could help you out.


Why is there no 了 in 以前我住在这儿 I am used to hearing phrases like this:

  我住在这儿

To say "I lived here [before]", however, it seems you can't use 了 at all:

  以前我住在这儿

Why is this not "以前我住了在这儿"? Is there a formal reason why 了 is inappropriate to use here?

This will not answer your question but shed some light to the mystery of the 了 particle.

了 does not mean past tense. It denotes **CHANGE**.

以前我住在这儿。
This sentence points out no change. It only says that once you were living there.

Your friend calls from the kitchen: 吃饭了！
This one points out a change, namely that we are ready to eat the meal. It is not past tense, it's in the present, but a change has occured, so wo use 了.

行了！
You can use this sentence to say 'Fine with me!'. There is absolutely no past tense here, it just says that I have made up my mind, so now we have a change from the previous undecided situation to one with a resolution.

别吵了！

Stop quarreling! Here you see, an imperative really has nothing to do with past tense, yet there is a 了 in the sentence because the speaker orders the ones he/she speaks to, to make a change from quarreling to silence.


What's the meaning of 龙舟队分哪个两个组？ What is the meaning of this sentence?

龙舟队分哪个两个组？

Moreover, is 分组 a separable verb 离合动词, or is it a verb and a noun?
I haven't found grammar references that explain the verb in question. I'm confused because 哪 is in the middle of the supposed separable verb.

龙舟队分哪个两个组？

I think it is a typo.
remove the extra 个 and write 龙舟队分哪两个组?(dragon boat teams divided into which two groups?) make the most sense

龙舟队分[哪两个组]?

龙舟队分[男子组和女子组]

龙舟队分[成人组和少年组]

龙舟队分[业余组和职业组]

It is wrong to use 个 (a) as a classifier for 两个组 (two groups)
Similarly:
你說的是哪兩个隊 (O)
你說的是哪兩隊 (O)
你說的是哪个隊 (O)
你說的是哪隊 (O)
你說的是哪个兩隊 (X)
你說的是哪个兩个隊 (X)(X)


地 pronunciation variation May I know how the rules governing the pronunciation of 地?
In the song, 吻别, the singer pronounces 地 as di.

冷得连隐藏的遗憾都那么地明显
leng de lian yin cang de yi han du na me di ming xian

However, a quick check with the Oxford Chinese-English Dictionary suggests that 地 is pronounced de when used

[with an adverb or adverbial phrase]

while the pronunciation of di is used when referring to distance, position, etc.
Is my interpretation of the Oxford Dictionary wrong?

Very interesting question.
Like what @AwQiruiGuo has said, 地 should be pronounced as [de] (in speech, that is). And indeed the mentioned singer does not speak perfect Mandarin.
However, this questions has more complicated background and should not be simply explained as the personal accent of the singer. Because in the case of songs, pronounciation variation kicks in.
Chinese Mandarin is a tonal language. But when the lyrics were sung, rhythm and beats can alter the tones. I'll take the lyric in the question as an example: Dictionary says 那 should be pronouced in 4th tone, but in this song, 那 is in 1st tone. Just listen to this song, and imagine what it would sound like if 那 is sung in 4th tone.
In lyric, when a charater is on the downbeat, it is accented (stressed). If we mark all the downbeats, the lyric in the question will look like this:

冷得[连]隐[藏]的[遗]憾都[那]么[地]明[显]
The characters in square brackets are on downbeats.

In Chinese phonology there is a concept called 平仄, which deals with the arrangement of characters in poems(诗) and lyrics(词) according to their tones. 词 is an art form with strict metrical foot which is comparable to English poetry. You have to write each line of lyrics with specific number of syllables in specific stressed/unstressed order. The guideline of how you arrange the stressed/unstressed syllables was of course the original rhythm and beats of ancient songs, which unfortunately were most - if not all - lost in the history.
Ancient Chinese pronounciation was different from modern Chinese but you can roughly interprete 平 as stressed (1st and 2nd tones in modern Mandarin) and 仄 as unstressed (3rd, 4th and 5th tones in modern Mandarin). Although pop music does not follow ancient meters any more, rhythms and beats still impact pronounciation because it's only nature that people pronounce stressed syllables on downbeats.
With this in mind, now take a look again at the downbeat characters in the mentioned line of lyrics:

冷得[连]隐[藏]的[遗]憾都[那]么[地]明[显]
连: 2nd tone, stressed. In this song, it sounds like 1st tone, still stressed.
藏: 2nd tone, stressed. In this song, it sounds like 1st tone, still stressed.
遗: 2nd tone, stressed. In this song, it sounds like 1st tone, still stressed.
那: 4th tone, unstressed. But in this song, it sounds like 1st tone, stressed.
显: 3rd tone, unstressed. But in this song, it sounds like 1st tone, stressed.
now back to 地 in question: shoule be 5th tone, unstressed. But in this song, it sounds like 1st tone, and is altered from [de] to [di].

Because [de] was 5th tone which is a very light one, if simply pronouced as [de] in 1st tone it just doesn't feel right. So traditionally when you want to stress [de5] you make it [di1]. And not only 地, but even 的 also follows this rule. I think this usage traces back to Chinese Opera. For example in The Legend of the Red Lantern (红灯记) there are some famous lines of lyrics：

穷人的孩子早当家
都有一颗红亮的心

where 的 is pronounced as [di], even if it's not on downbeat.


What are compound words called that are composed of words with similar meaning? Compared to classical Chinese, there are mostly words composed of more than one word/character.
Especially the subgroup of VO-compoundwords (Verb Object) made from two characters have some special features, like the group of the lianheci.

One subgroup are VV-compoundverbs composed of two characters with similar or near synonyme verbal meaning.

for instance: 磨 = rub, 蹭 = rub， 磨蹭 = rub.

Is there a specific term for this group of compoundwords?
Do they have some special grammar rules unique to them?

You've asked an interesting question that the answer heavily depends on the example in your question.

When you see 磨蹭 as 'dillydally, stall', i.e. not a simple add-up of the characters, it is 联绵词 (binomes, see Baidu, Wikipedia). 联绵词 are words consist of two characters that are similar in pronunciation and/or meaning, but the meaning of the word is different from the individual characters (exceptions exist like 蝴蝶). You can find more information in the link. Some examples for verb binomes: 徘徊, 犹豫, 挣扎, etc.

When you see 磨蹭 as 'to rub' i.e. rhetorical repetition, it is 同义复词 (synonym-compound, see Baidu). Note 复词 means 'phrase' instead of 'word', usually they are created on demand (although idiomatic 'set phrases' exist) and dictionary doesn't list them. This type of phrase has no grammatical significance over other types of phrase.


What is the appropriate response to "Your Chinese is so good!" A lot of the time, Chinese people will respond to a foreigner speaking Chinese with "wow your Chinese is so good!" What is a polite way to respond without sounding rude or full of yourself? Especially when you have studied Chinese for multiple years and you would like to just have a normal conversation.

是嗎？ (or 有嗎？ or 真的嗎？) 我覺得沒有很好吔。
Really? I do not think it's very good.
Really? I don't think my Chinese is very good.

or

沒有啦！謝謝你。
No. Thank you.
Not at all. Thank you.

You don't have to worry about this.
It's just like somebody asks a foreigner, "Where are you from?".


What is a good English translation of 相见亦无事，别后常忆君。 I see this sentence in a question about friendship, and I like this answer the most, who can give me a good English translation.

Thank you.

Growth in longing comes from a place of absence


What's the difference between 証 and 證? I realized 证 could be 証 and 證. Is there any difference between them?

In 繁體字 證 and 証 are two different characters. As stated in 教育部重編國語辭典修訂本 of Taiwan,

  證

  verb
  1 告發。說文解字：「證，告也。」論語˙子路：「其父攘羊，而子證之。」
  2 用憑據、事實來表明或斷定。如：「證明」、「證實」。莊子˙秋水：「證曏今故，故遙而不悶﹑掇而不跂，知時無止。」

  noun
  1 憑據。如：「人證」、「停車證」、「借書證」。
  2 病症、症候。如：「三焦辨證」、「血分證」。列子˙周穆王：「遇老聃，因告其子之證。」

and

  証

  verb
  諫正。如：「証諫」。戰國策˙齊策一：「士尉以証靖郭君，靖郭君不聽。」

  =>「證」的異體字（07937)

So if you are using 証 for its only rarely-used meaning of admonish, remonstrate, then it cannot be replaced by 證.

In other cases 証 is used as an 異體字 (informal) variant of 證, acceptable but less preferable.

However, this post from Taiwan maintains that 証 is an erroneous form of 證 out of the reason of orthodoxy (despite the fact this variant is widely accepted).

Another post from HK gives more references. (It's written in Cantonese, though.)

In 簡體字 there is no such trouble since both of them are simplified to 证 (according to 新华字典).


Did any pidgin terms survived in Chinese? (or any topolects?) I've been looking through some of the words in《红毛通用番话诠释》
Here's a little sample

This pidgin words are based on Cantonese.
I'm curious if any of these pidgin words actually made it as loanwords into any Chinese topolect or language.
The closest one I can think of is 多時 which was a pidgin word for toast, but it is mostly written as 多士 now.
A lot of pidgin is written in Cantonese, which I know very little about, it is hard to determine if anything got adopted into the local language or not.

The link in OP is a very interesting read. Since there are several very long vocabulary lists, I just glanced through them really quickly, and I noticed in 《红毛番话》（拟名）抄本 at least one term that is still in use.
The term is 沙律, which means "salad". Though salad is usually called "沙拉" in Mandarin today, it is still called 沙律 in Cantonese as far as I know.
As this 抄本 has many food-related terms, it is quite possible that more of them survived today, but sadly I don't know Cantonese well enough to tell.


What's the difference between 听 and 听听? 你们在聊什么？我想听。
你们在聊什么？我想听听。

I think 听 is stiff, and 听听 is more casual.
How do I express that diffeneces in English?

Double verb will make your speaking sounds more casual, natural, cute, free,

Your username reminds me the meme


N+ T Assimilation in natural Mandarin I've been noticing that sometimes when a t or d follows a final -n it becomes n. For instance, one friend (from Nanjing) pronounced 今天 Jīntiān as Jīntnian, and another (from Beijing) pronounced 运动 yùndòng as yùnnong. Searching around it seems others have noticed this too.

When in casual speech does this change occur? Since the neutral tone is prevalent in native Mainland Mandarin speakers how are homophones understood? Like 今天 vs 今年

I think that a lot of these phenomenons that you are describing among the different questions you’ve asked recently and especially this one, have something to do with:

连读

This is similar to a liaison in linguistics. I’m not sure if this is, in actual fact, the correct term or not, but it is at least what a layman might call it.

This is a particularly northern way to speak. Some examples include:

意思 = yisss / here 思 has its /s/ sound merged right into the of “yi”
认识 = rensh / almost sounds like the English “wrench,” again the /i/ gets obliterated

I asked a similar question before here:
Where can I find a list of (acceptable) 连读 words?
You can have a look and see if it helps you any.


Chinese Characters on table from thift store Does anyone know what this says? (My apologies if it is not Chinese).

Beautiful scene of a lotus pond.

荷塘: lotus pond.

Source: http://baike.baidu.com/subview/1725417/7633674.htm

秀色: beautiful scene

Source: http://baike.baidu.com/subview/203608/8935087.htm


What would a straight Chinese man say to describe another man as "very gay"? My current story is about Kong Lin, from her husband's perspective.  Kong Lin has a long-term male friend (among other friends).

I want her husband (straight Chinese guy) to describe him by something along the lines of "he is very gay", an obvious-from-first-glance kind of gay.  (And leaving the reader to infer that her husband does not perceive him as a "threat" to his marriage.)

Question: What would a straight Chinese man say to describe another man as "very gay"?

In Chinese, we have 同性恋 = "same-sex love", but I don't believe it's a simple matter of adding a 很 before that.  Judging from Baidu search results, 很同性恋 doesn't seem to work (nor does 非常同性恋 nor 明显的同性恋).

On CC-EDICT, there's a bunch of slang (like 弯男), but I want to avoid anything offensive or insulting.

Arh hah, let me tell you the new generation expressions!

『同性恋者』is too formal to address a gay man. I would say it's equivalent to "homosexual".

The popular terms to the concept in Chinese have nothing to do with their original meanings, just as "gay" now has nothing to do with "joyous", but instead, they directly take after English counterparts.

他显然并非直男。
Obviously he is not a straight man.

Comment: Now in Chinese net community, the word 直男 is stigmatized by extreme feminists, referring to conservative, male-chauvinistic men. So it's now not a strict equivalence to "straight" in gender preference aspect.

他看起来给给的。
He looks like a gay.

Comment: Don't suspect!  It is actually a transliteration of "gay", and it IS the most common expression. And for this reason, often it's used unchanged as "gay".

他看起来gaygay的。
他一看就是弯的辣～

Comment: To avoid being seemingly harsh, often we use some tricks to soften the tone to show our innocence and acceptance. As in example, 辣 is a homophonic substitute to 啦, and a cursive ~ conveys (somehow) cute tone.

他明显就是基佬。

Comment: WARNING! Many homosexual people may feel offended by addressing them 『基佬』. It's derogatory. The etymology of 『基』meaning homosexual related is now hard to determine. Here are two explanations: 1. 基 in Cantonese is pronounced very similar to "gay". 2. In ancient Chinese, 㚻 （ji1）is the character for homosexual practice, which has evolved to 鸡, finally to 基. But whatsoever, 基佬 in Cantonese （as in Mandarin now）is derogatory. However, 基 used alone is not derogatory, as in 『腐眼看人基』.

活学活用，EXAMPLE（轻小说文风）：

我的新同桌似乎是个基佬。自上次座位轮换他与我同桌以后，我上课时常能感受到侧方的异样目光。原本我不是很在意，但偶然投以回视，发现他正奇异地注视着我，那是什么神情？稍有些怯退又探寻的眼神，像是由于实在太过喜欢（？）但又害怕主人发现而盯着鸟笼的橘猫所表露。四目相对，他疾速收回双眼，这次轮到我凝神注目，看他有何动作。果然，不到一分钟，一双黑眸又瞥到我这里，但发现我居然正在看，便泄气地折返。诶呀呀，这也太给了啦！我思忖着自己有什么优点呢？瘦高、匀称、四肢颀长，嗯唔，算是分明的五官吧！此后很久我都不再察觉他偷瞄了，突然稍有不习惯。课正讲到无聊的部分，我不禁端详起同桌来：嗯嗯，头发浓黑茂盛、粗硬，短茬勾勒出圆润的后脑，深颔，嘴唇饱满，隆准……还不错，我想着。至于眼睛嘛……我移动目光向眉眼看去，正接上他深邃的瞳仁——我大吃一惊：“你你你看我干嘛，好好上课啦！”他没有回应，只不过缓缓转动眼珠向我扫射，眉梢轻挑，下巴微抬——“啊，被我发现了～”，他一定是这样想的吧！我感觉皮肤有些干燥，摸一摸脸，居然滚烫！明明，明明是他先的，我有什么紧张的呢！“但他确实还挺好看的……”停停停停！这一句是从脑海哪个角落冒出来的？难不成我要给魂觉醒，从此被掰弯了？我十八年来都是钢铁大直男哎哎哎哎！“哪里有★那么多可爱的女同学，你看上哪一个了？”啊，不要再这样想了！正当脑内挣扎之时，我忽略了右方，浅浅的笑意。

Nah~ I used all four ways to express "gay". May this short paragraph help your own writing!


How to write " moving on" in traditional Chinese? I'm getting a tattoo in Chinese and I have everything already I'm just missing the "moving on" part. How should I translate it?

"Moving on" can translate some Chinese idioms, such as 堅持不懈,一往無前,堅持到底,奮勇向前, these are traditional Chinese. These idioms mean " always move forward bravely" 勇敢地一直向前进.

Hope this answer can help you.


Is 不仅仅 the correct word? In the following sentence:

  这家小资的咖啡店本身不仅仅是一间咖啡店，还是首个提出咖啡情绪疗法的品牌。

I know 不仅 means "not only", and 不仅～还是 means "not only ~ but also ~", similar to English idiom.

However, this sentence uses 不仅仅, not 不仅. I wonder if it is a typo, or correct sentence. In that case, what is the difference between 不仅 and 不仅仅?

Yes, 不仅...而且/还是...  is equivalent to "not only... but also...". I think 不仅仅 fits here. Because the author really wants to emphasize the achievement of this coffee shop, which is '首个提出咖啡情绪疗法的品牌'.

Example:

  他不仅是一个模特，还是一个大学教授。

This just tells you that he has two jobs.

But if you say,

  他不仅仅是一个模特,还是一个大学教授

this means that being both a model and a university professor is really impressive.


Difference between 很 and 挺 As far as I know, both means “very”. I would like to know if there are any further differences that exist between them

極 = extremely

很 = very /quite

挻 = quite/ very (colloquial)

甚 = quite/ very

頗 = quite/ considerably

挻 is mostly a colloquial term

  We can place all these adverb directly before an adjective

Examples:

極強 (extremely strong); 很強 (very strong) ; 挻強 (quite strong); 甚強 (quite strong)

  we need to add the adjective marker '的' to all these [adverb + adjective] structures before a noun

Examples:

極強的對手 (extremely strong opponent); 很強的對手 (very strong opponent) ; 挻強的對手 (very strong opponent); 甚強的對手 (very strong opponent)

  If the noun is placed before these [adverb + adjective] structures, we don't need the adjective marker '的' (except for 挻)

Examples:

對手極強 (opponent is extremely strong ); 對手很強 (opponent is very strong ) ; 對手甚強 (opponent is quite strong)

  Even the noun is placed before 挻強, we still need to use the adjective marker '的' after it

Example: 對手挻強的 (opponent is quite strong)

We don't usually say 對手挻強

  compound words: 極為; 很是; 甚為; 頗為, (挻 doesn't have one)


Why is it 出差去 and not 去出差? I read this sentence :

  前几天爸妈出差去了。

which translates to :

  A few days ago, my parents went on a business trip.

in English.

This might sound stupid but why is it “出差去” and not “去出差” when it’s “go on a business trip”?
Or perhaps, both phrases are just the same?

Also, is there other cases where words are reversed like this?
I have yet to know much about Chinese but what I mean is, when you look at the words order, it might be just fine (?) to translate it as “去出差” (go on a business trip) without having to reverse the words order into “出差去”.

adding some thoughts here as a native speaker:

You can say 前几天爸妈去出差了。There's no semantic difference to me in this case.
Under the hood, the syntax are different. In 去出差, 去 indeed means "to go", and the phrase's nothing more complicated than the literal translation you've mentioned: "go on a business trip".
But in 出差去, it's the 出差 that's the verb. 去 following verbs, just adds the feeling of "already gone". For example, 他吃晚饭了 means he's had dinner, while 他吃晚饭去了 means he's left for dinner.
出差 business trip itself already carries the meaning of gone/left. Therefore in this case, it actually doesn't make a big difference with or without 去 in the end.
Just like "go" in English, 去 sometimes can be tricky in terms of pragmatics. In user3306356's example 咱们看电影去。 看电影去 has a more cheerful, friendly tone compared to 咱们去看电影。In fact, the 去 + verb sounds so decisive that I rarely hear people use it without adding a 吧 in the end to soften the tone, when proposing an idea in daily communication.


What is the meaning of 有本事？ Context 1: - 看我不打死你 - 你打呀！有本事你就打呀！
Context 2: 傅文佩！你别躲在里面不出声！我知道你在家。你有本事抢男人，怎么没本事开门啊？开门！
Context 3: 怎么着？有本事你再回去你哥哥的公会啊？
Context 4: 有本事你开开呀？你敢开我就敢跳！
The literal meaning is having the ability to do something, but this word seems to be used often in arguments, and its most relevant expression in english is?

"本事" is ability or skill.
However, "没本事开门" does not literal mean that she "does not have the ability to open the door". Considering the context, it is more like she "does not have other abilities (social power, combat power?) to make her courageous enough to open the door" (for the aggressive visitor), i.e., she "dares not open the door".
Considering the phrase is often used in sentences like somebody "有本事" do something "呀": This sentence is an aggressive taunt or provocation, so a more relative English expression is "dare".
有本事你就打呀！ -- Hit me if you dare!


What does 相逢是首歌 mean? Google translate:
"Meet is the song"

But that doesn't make sense in English, could somebody try to come up with a better translation?

I see 相逢 probably means "come across" here
and 首歌 is really unclear what it means "first song?"

I want to say it means "I came across a song"

But it's just really unclear to me

It's from this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeuHZjz1FZY

It does not make sense in Chinese either when it is without any context.

After reading the lyrics, it just means "(Our) meeting is like a song". And "you and me are the singers of the song". It is metaphor.


Position of 在 电脑上 in "他常练习在电脑上用汉语写东西" My Chinese text has this sentence.

  他常练习在电脑上用汉语写东西.

As I think, 在电脑上 indicates the "place" that all actions ("练习","用汉语写东西") take place. So what I do not understand is, why 在电脑上 (PLACE) is put after 练习 (VERB). It should have been put after 常.

Please explain to me. Thank you so much.

In "他常在电脑上练习用汉语写东西",  the location '电脑上' is placed before the verb '练习'

  他常 (he often)

  在电脑上(on computer) -- location

  练习 practice -- verb

  用汉语写东西 -- relative clause

~

  In "他常练习在电脑上用汉语写东西" ,  the location '电脑上' is placed before the verb phrase '用汉语写东西'

  他常(he often)

  练习 (verb)

  在电脑上用汉语写东西 -- relative clause

~

  在电脑上 location

  用汉语写东西 -- verb phrase (the verb is 写)

Both sentences mean "He often practices writing in Chinese on a computer". The difference is in the first sentence the location '在电脑上' is a relative phrase for the main verb '练习' (在电脑上练习) ; and in the second sentence, the location '在电脑上' is a relative phrase for the verb in the relative clause '用汉语写东西' (在电脑上用汉语写东西)


Must verb always be before 下去? I want to say:
我吃下去 = I continue eating.

Must verb always be before 下去?
or is 我下去吃 also correct?
The same for other verbs like 等.
我等下去 = I continue wating.

or is 我下去等 also correct?

As other answers stated, 下去 can function as a directional/result word particle for 'down'  e.g. 吞下去; It can also function as a verb for 'go down' e.g. 我要下去
But when 下去 is functioning as an adverb for "continue". It must be placed after a verb. e.g. 等下去

I want to say:

我吃下去 = I continue eating.

To avoid confusion, you can write "我(繼續)吃下去" or simply "我繼續吃".
Another way to make "我吃下去 (I continue eating) not ambiguous is to add more context. For example, 我再吃下去也不會喜歡上這東西


Glyph origins of the character 拜 I've seen somewhere that it was two hands together greeting someone. It makes some sense since the left part does look like 手, but the right part doesn't, and I don't remember any other characters that have it.

What's the real story about the character 拜?

「拜」was originally「」, comprised of「手・扌」and「」.

  「」(please read this in both meaning and sound as「禱」) depicts flowery adornments used in dances and religious prayer/rituals.

  商甲佚32合集1439西周金番生簋蓋集成4326秦簡日甲61背　篆說文解字　今楷

The combination of「手」(hand) and「」(flowery adornments used in dances and religious prayer/rituals) indicated the meaning to conduct obeisance.

西周金沈子它簋蓋集成4330秦簡睡・秦153

In the character「」, the bottom part of「」was sometimes corrupted into something that looked like「手」.

秦簡日甲166

Similarly, the top part of「」, which is「卉」, was sometimes removed. This leads on to the modern form of「拜」.

東漢隸鄭固碑　今楷

References:

季旭昇《說文新證》
小學堂
國學大師

郭沫若《甲骨文合集》
中國社會科學院考古研究所《殷周金文集成》


What is the difference between 参加 and 参与？ I have been using these interchangeably, until today I was corrected, being told that one "参加活动”， not "参与活动“. I then looked up the definition, but it wasn't too helpful. How do I know when to use which?

参与，亦作“参预”或“参豫”。预闻而参议其事；
参与，also as “参预” or “参豫”. Listen something and talk about something.

参加。指的是以第二或第三方的身份加入、融入某件事之中。
参加 means join in something as a part of it.

So, mostly, 参与 has a meaning of organize some people and plan something,
it often has a mean of initiative, such as:
他参与了此次军事行动的谋划工作。(Which means he is one of the commanders.)

As for 参加, which is just join in something as a guest or [third] part people, such as:
他参加了此次军事行动。(Which means he may be just a soldier.)

Besides, we often say : 这个事情我不参与. means do your own business, I don't care about it.


Is it ok to use 他 as a gender neutral personal pronoun (instead of 她) when the subject is known to be female? Is it ok to use 他 as a gender neutral personal pronoun (as it used to be before 她 was introduced) even if I know that the subject is female?

  Example: 他是我妹妹　vs　他是我妹妹

First of all, there is only 他 in ancient Chinese. The invention of the font 她 comes from the influence of foreign languages in 1900s.

And there is no word in ancient Chinese contains the usage of IT as a gender neutral personal pronoun. Consulting foreign languages we borrow 它 as IT. 它 is actually the ancient word of 他. 它 means "other" in common use.

Therefore, when you use 他/她/它, try to think about it in your language and that's all clearly.

But someone uses 他 instead of 她 online, that's because they type too quickly to select the word...


What is the etymology and glyph origin of 餵? I was surprised to find out about the character 餵 (wei4, 喂) because it doesn't seem to have a meaning other than an expression to answer the telephone. Since the telephone was only invented in the last hundred years or so...this must be a relatively new character. Is this accurate? If so, how was the character/sound developed?

喂 means feed(verb) originally besides answering telephone.

Regarding the origin of the character, according to CiYang

(1) (餵、喂是近代的“餧”字) 喂食    餵 and 喂 are modern writing of 餧
餧,饲也。——《玉篇》    餧 means feed(verb)

It's a new character derive from 餧.

P.S. The most popular usage of 喂 may be a character for answering phone. But it is also a derivative from the common usage of saying hello in a rude way.  Because of this, in fact, there are many people claims that answering phone with 喂 is impolite, we'd better say 你好/您好 instead. If you call public service number like customer service hot lines, you always hear the operator answering 您好.


The meaning of a Chinese inscription found under a little sculpture I bought a figure of a taoist wise some years ago, and in all these years I have been unable to decipher the tiny seal (1cm x 1cm) under the figure.
It is an important figure in my life and I would be extremely thankful if somebody could help me to understand the meaning of the text. The figure is holding some kind of receptacle (a bowl) in his hand and has a cloud carved on his back.
I have been looking at the dictionary to decipher the characters under 林, and the most similar characters I have found are ji 己, and qiǎo 丂… but I am not sure if these can be the correct ones… I guess it is very difficult to "translate" a proper name…

Edit: found clearer picture of seal

A Chinese seal usually follows the format of XX之印 “The Seal of XX” or XX制印 “The was made by XX” (where XX is a name). This seal follows the latter format.

The top part probably is the name of the seal maker and the upper part of the top-right character is 林. The bottom two characters are most likely to be "制印", meaning "made the seal". Will complete this answer after finding out/confirming all the characters on this seal.

Seal carving dictionary:

http://www.internationalscientific.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?characterInput=%E8%BB%8A&submitButton1=Etymology


Where should I put a neutral tone in 雪白雪白? 雪白雪白
(1) xuě-bai-xuě-bái (such as 漂漂亮亮)
(2) xuě-bái-xuě-bai

If ABB and AAB adjectives also have neutral tones, please let me know where tones should be.

Not all words apply neutral tone.

雪白雪白: xuě-bái-xuě-bái

漂漂亮亮: piào piào liang liang

You see in 漂亮, 亮 is a neutral tone, while 白 is the second tone in 雪白.

Checking in dictionaries is a good way to make sure you apply neutral tone correctly.


Difference between 就要。。。了 and 要。。。了 （1）明天他就要回来了。
（2）明天他要回来了。

I wonder if both sentences are different. Can anyone tell me the difference between 就要。。。了 and 要。。。了?

In practice, I doubt if anyone really says 明天他要回来了 although there seems to be no grammar mistakes in the sentence. 明天他就要回来了 or 明天他就回来了 is more likely to be used colloquially.

I think it probably because the way Chinese expresses this is different from English.  If we want just to express "he will be back tomorrow", we   would say 他明天回来.


Which word processors and websites support vertical writing of Chinese? I am aware of 好讀, which allows you to read Chinese novels displayed vertically.

Is there a convenient (preferably free of charge) word processor if I wish to type a Chinese document vertically?
When I browse a Chinese website, it there a way to convert the writing to the vertical direction?
Which website(s) display Chinese vertically?


Difference between duìbùqǐ and duìbuqǐ I have seen examples that show 对不起 as duìbùqǐ and duìbuqǐ in pinyin. For instance:

对不起，我踩到你的脚了。
duìbùqǐ, wǒ cǎi dào nǐ de jiǎole.

对不起，我听不懂。
duìbuqǐ, wǒ tīng bù dǒng.

Similarly, I have also seen the same issue with 没关系 as méiguānxì and méiguānxi.

Why is the neutral tone being marked as a falling tone in these words?

This is only a pronunciation variation in spoken Chinese. Most untrained Chinese people may not even notice the difference between them.

There is no difference between the two variations in your examples.

It's like asking what is the difference between "I'm going to do ..." and "I'm gonna do ...".

Note: There are word that would carry different meaning using neutral tone or not. E.g, 东西 means "east and west" when pronounced as "dōngxī" (without neutral tone), and means "thing" when pronounced as "dōngxi" (with neutral tone).
In a dictionary, a word that must be pronounced with a neutral tone will be explicitly noted with a neutral tone.


Should one write “妳好" when addressing a female? With traditional Chinese characters it is correct and proper to address a female as “妳”.

If I have a simple question, I think it's clear I should use the female form.

  妳最近好嗎？

But to say "hello", “你好” feels more like a set phrase.

So my question is simple,

Should I write

  妳好

when addressing a female?

Or just use the gender-neutral

  你好

Yes you can definitely use “妳好“ when addressing female.

However notice that in Chinese there isn't a strict usage defined to differentiate addressing male and female. If you use "你" instead, the reader will not (and probably should not) assume a male is addressed in the context.

In other word, "你好" is perfectly fine to address female without any grammatical concern.


How to say "Hopefully we can treat each other with more X" Is there a general template for translating, "hopefully we can treat each with more X" where X is some noun.

Examples:

Hopefully we can treat each other with more consideration.
Hopefully we can treat each other with more generosity.
Hopefully we can treat each other with more thoughtfulness.

Is this different for Cantonese and Mandarin?

These translations don't quite feel right (for consideration):

希望我們可更互相體貼
希望大家對大家有更多體貼

A:
English grammar: [1. hopefully] [2. we can] [3. treat each other] [4. with more (n)]
Chinese grammar: [1. hopefully] [2. we can] [3. with more (n)] [4. treat each other]

[1. 希望] [2. 我們能] [3. 以更多(n)] [4. 互相對待]
[1. 希望] [2. 我們能] [3. 以更多寬容] [4. 互相對待]
[1. 希望] [2. 我們能] [3. 以更多體諒] [4. 互相對待]
[1. 希望] [2. 我們能] [3. 以更多體貼] [4. 互相對待]

B:
English grammar: [1. hopefully] [2. we can] [3. treat each other] [4. more (adv)]
Chinese grammar: [1. hopefully] [2. we can] [3. more (adv)] [4. treat each other]

[1. 希望] [2. 我們能] [3. 更(adv)] [4. 互相對待]
[1. 希望] [2. 我們能] [3. 更寬容地] [4. 互相對待]
[1. 希望] [2. 我們能] [3. 更體諒地] [4. 互相對待]
[1. 希望] [2. 我們能] [3. 更體貼地] [4. 互相對待]

C:
English grammar: [1. hopefully] [2. we can] [3. be more (adj)] [4. with each other]
Chinese grammar: [1. hopefully] [2. we ] [3. with each other] [4. can be more (adj)]

[1. 希望] [2. 我們] [3. 互相之間] [4. 能更 (adj)]
[1. 希望] [2. 我們] [3. 互相之間] [4. 能更寬容]
[1. 希望] [2. 我們] [3. 互相之間] [4. 能更友好]
[1. 希望] [2. 我們] [3. 互相之間] [4. 能更體貼]
You can replace 希望 with 但願; replace 能 with 能夠 or 可以; replace 更 with 更加
(A)is a less common way to speak in Chinese compare to (B) or (C)

~

Cantonese:
[1. 希望] [2. 我地能夠] [3. 以更多(n)] [4. 互相對待]
[1. 希望] [2. 我地能夠] [3. 更(adv)] [4. 互相對待]
[1. 希望] [2. 我地] [3. 互相之間] [4. 能夠更(adj)]

[1. 希望] [2. 我地能夠] [3. 以更多寬容] [4. 互相對待]
[1. 希望] [2. 我地能夠] [3. 更寬容噉] [4. 互相對待]
[1. 希望] [2. 我地] [3. 互相之間] [4. 能夠更寬容]
You can replace 希望 with 但願; replace 能夠 with 可以; replace 更 with 更加


Proper Way to Address a President in a Formal Letter I am supposed to write a formal letter in Chinese addressing a president concerning  the rise of hunger in the country. I am not sure how to address someone in the said position but I have knowledge on other positions.

President of a country (e.g. The United States) is called 总统 in Chinese

A President or Chairman of a political party (e.g. Communist Party of China ) is called 主席

To formally address The President of a country in writing, you should use an honorific like 阁下 or 先生 or even 大人 and call him 总统阁下; 总统先生 or even 总统大人 (kind of too old fashion and too humble if you ask me)

Example:

奥巴马(name) 总统(title) 阁下 (honorific)

习近平(name) 总书记(title) 阁下 (honorific)

Edit:

Sometimes people would call 習近平主席/总书记 as 'President Xi'

Even Wikipedia refers 習近平 as 'President'

President of the People's Republic of China


Is it possible to use 过 with specific time words? This is somewhat similar to this question: When to use 了 and when to use 过 to express past actions or events. I understand that the 过 particle helps express the idea of having had the experience of something. my question is would you use it with a specific time?

举个例:

我知道我可以说：

我去过中国。

我可不可以这样说：

我去年去过中国。

If the later is possible, what would it mean?

Yes,两个都可以。比如:去了北京与去过北京大体意思是一致的。但是，“去了北京”有已经回来与没有回来两种可能，而去过北京则结果只有一个，那就是现在已经不在北京了！谨记：过的语句后可以加了字，反之不可以！!

Edit (Translation):
Yes, both are possible. For example, 去了 Beijing and 去过 have roughly the same meaning. But, 去了 Beijing has two possible meanings; went and already came back, or went and still hasn't returned. However, 去过  Beijing only has one, you have been but you are no longer there! Remember: You can put 过  at the end of a sentence but the reverse is not true!

(Comment by editor) Im not sure if the last sentence is translated correctly or maybe the OP meant something else. Possibly you can put 了 at the end but not 过。


Seal & Calligraphy translation I was wondering if anyone could help with the translation of this seal (image has been flipped), and the characters on the side as well.

No knowledge here, but have tried handwriting the seal characters in google translate and think they may be 霄籁? Heaven Music?

Thanks in advance!

Seal:

范霞
A name. Its pronunciation is dependent on where the artist comes from, so I won't give one here.

Calligraphy:

一九六四秊（年）七月秉昌刻于香江
Carved at 香江 (location) on July 1964 by 秉昌 (another name)

Not sure about the last character「江」.

All of these proper nouns (names, locations) refer to multiple places/people in the East Asian cultural region, so only you (who knows the context) would be able to fully get the background information of the object.

Thanks @TangHo and @水巷孑蠻 who mentioned that 香江 is a poetic name for Hong Kong and that 秉昌 is the first name of a famous seal carver (陳秉昌) from Hong Kong.
In that case, 范霞 is probably a Chinese name, and is the customer who requested their seal carved by 陳秉昌.
Still no translation, but I'll provide Cantonese and Mandarin Romanisations for 范霞:

Cantonese: Faan6 Haa4
Mandarin: Fàn Xiá


What is the meaning of 背会? I have encountered the following sentences in my textbook, which use 背会.

我还没背会这篇文章。
今天不背会这篇课文就不回家。

But what does 背会 mean? The textbook seems to say it means memorize, but of all the dictionaries I have and from the result I googled, it seems that there is no word registered as 背会.
Anyone can clarify it...?

背会 and 会背 are not the same.

背会 verb + result, memorize/recite it until you know it (by heart)

会背 auxiliary verb + verb, able to recite from memory

我还没背会这篇文章。

I still have not learned this essay by heart yet.

今天不背会这篇课文就不回家。

I won't go home until I've learned this text by heart today.


How to type PinYin on Windows without the actual letters being typed out as you construct a word? The reason I'm asking is that I want to practice typing in Chinese on TypeRacer, but it's currently very inconvenient to use. If the word I'm trying to type is "你好", it warns me that I've made a typo as soon I type "n", because it doesn't match "你". How do I make it so that only Chinese characters are outputted as I am typing?

That is the problem of TyperRacer, not the IME or you. I suggest you using platforms created by Chinese speaking people, which could be optimized for Chinese practice.
For example https://dazi.kukuw.com/keyboard.html


How to translate "inclusive" and "exclusive"? In my iOS app, users can select a start date and an end date to search for stuff posted in that range

I added a little footnote thingy that says:

  The start date and end date are both inclusive

I just want to tell the user that stuff posted at the start date and the end date will be in the results of the search.

If you don't understand, here's another example,

  My age is between 1(inclusive) and 100(exclusive)

This means that my age can be 1 but it can't be 100.

How can I translate "inclusive" and "exclusive" into Chinese?

I tried

  开始日期和结束日期会被包含在搜索结果中

But it sounds kind of long. Is there a more concise translation? Also, how can I translate the second example?

  我的年龄是介于1（包括）到100（不包括）之间

That just sounds weird.

I think Chinese people just don't use the straight forward translation of these two words to express this kind of situation.

The start date and end date are both inclusive.
起止日期均包含在内。

You didn't mention anything about "search result" in your English version so why bother that in Chinese?

My age is between 1 (inclusive) and 100 (exclusive).
我的年龄在 1（含）至 100（不含）之间。

Excuse me? Why don't you just say your age is between 1 and 99 inclusive? Your age is a float?
By the way, just in case you are going to release your app - your punctuation in English was wrong, there should be a space added before each left bracket. Better review these things carefully before your publish an iOS app, in order not to lower the overall user experience.


What does the phrase 'holding in the palm of hands' in chinese mean? I've read that phrase in a lot of stories and in a lot of different form; could you tell me the official form of that phrase (or maybe idiom) and its meaning?

The common word is  掌握 (hold in one's palm) meaning " have possession and control of something"

Example:

掌握軍國大權 (hold control of the government and the armed force)

掌握有力證據 (holding/ have possession of powerful evidence)

There's also an idiom
玩弄於股掌之上 (to toy with someone on one's thighs and palms)- meaning: " play someone like a fiddle"

Another idiom mentioned "in the palm" is  "掌上明珠" (pearl in one's palm). It means " treasured daughter"


Are children's books a good starting place for beginners? I was wondering if Chinese children's books might be a good starting place for adult Chinese language newbies (regardless of whether it be Mandarin, Cantonese, Wu, whatever), in particular for westerners whom the Chinese language is completely different from their own.

Does this sound like a good starting point, or are adult brains simply not wired that way?

There is one main difference between children's books and adult foreign textbooks:

Adult foreign textbooks are designed to give foreigners the best chance to communicate in simple everyday circumstances.

Children's books start with the very basics and require longer to get to the same place, however they provide you a much more solid base and a far wider range of knowledge.

So it depends on your aims. But if you are in for the long haul: I started with foreign language books and after a year was handed a set of Chinese primary school books. This gave me a huge benefit when going to the next level.


Why is there a special pronunciation of 论 just for 论语? The character 论 has pinyin lùn for all uses except in 论语 where it is
lún.  Is there some known historical reason for this change in pronunciation?

After a bit of research, I've come across a possible explanation.
According to this source from the 语言文字报 Journal of Language and Writing (not sure the English name is correct) it appears that the character 论 was archaically used with the meaning of to edit, to compile as in the  word 论纂 lun2 zuan3, same as 编撰 bian1 zhuan4. The reference given is the scholar Lu Xun who in his teaching materials for a class at Xiamen University, talked about the Analects:

﹝ 孔子 ﹞ 既卒 [...]， 门人又相与辑其言行而论纂之， 谓之《论语》
[After Confucius' death], the disciples revised each other's notes [of the master's teachings] and compiled a book, which they called "Edited words".

So if we take this for good, the 论 lún in 论语 is a legacy of the archaic 论纂 (to edit, to compile) as Confucius' disciples compiled his teachings into a volume that later became known as 论语, which literally means “edited words".


What is the point of 的 in '你也是大学生？你是什么专业的'? I'm trying to understand 是。。。的 constructions. The page on such constructions at Chinese Grammar Wiki explains one way to use 是。。。的:

This is the most simple way to use 是 with 的: you drop the noun and let
的 represent it. This usage requires context; otherwise the other
person won't know what noun you are referring to. Having the 的 take
the place of the noun is sort of like the way we say "one" or "it" in
English. It's a basic substitution, but it's one that is very common
and very helpful in everyday Chinese.

And gives these examples:

你 也 是 大学生 ？你 是 什么 专业 的 ？  Nǐ yě shì dàxuéshēng? Nǐ shì shénme zhuānyè
de?  Are you also a college student? What's your major?
我 是 中文 专业 的 。
Wǒ shì Zhōngwén zhuānyè de.
My major is Chinese.

I don't understand this. 的 does not represent the noun - 什么 does. Is it better to say that 的 just follows at the end of the sentence, rather than that it actually represents the noun?
(Chinese Grammar Wiki article accessed here: https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/The_%22shi..._de%22_patterns:_an_overview)

The hidden noun that Chinese Grammar Wiki refers to is 大學生 (college student). They argue it is short for

你是什麼專業的大學生？

Which is kind of true. 什麼專業的 is adjectival on 大學生, specifying what kind of major the college student is (pursuing).
A better way to look at 是...的 according to its function (emphasis) is to just delete 是 and 的 and see if the rest makes sense on their own:
是...的 omission

(1.1) 你是什麼專業的？
(1.2) 你什麼專業？
(1.3) 我中文專業。

All of the above are grammatical. Sentences (1.1) and (1.2) mean semantically the same, except the former gives emphasis on 什麼專業 and has the nuance of courteousness.
In sentences (1.2) and (1.3), 什麼專業 and 中文專業 become adjectival nouns. They are placed after the noun as a verbless predicate, i.e. in the form of N+Adj., which can sometimes be a stand-alone sentence. Think of 你好嗎[吗], where the speaker greets the listener (literally) if the statement 你好 (lit. you good) is true (by the yes/no question particle 嗎). Adj+N, on the other hand, is the only correct way to position the adjective when we want to create a nominal phrase. So:
N+Adj. vs Adj+N

(2.1) 高個[个]子 tall stature
(2.2) (他)個子高。 lit. (His) stature is tall.
(2.3) 中文專業的我 I, a Chinese major

Only (2.2) is a sentence. (2.1) and (2.3) are only nominal phrases. 的 is required for pronouns (2.3). And now:

(3) 他個子是高的，不是矮的。 lit. His stature is tall, not short.

Sentence (3) emphasises the stature of the person the speaker is referring to. In that case, it would be hard to sensibly add any noun after 的. Perhaps 個子, as in 他個子是高的個子 (lit. his stature is a tall one), but that is very poor style of writing.
Finally,

(4) 他是我的。He is mine.

In certain occasions such as that of sentence (4), reduction into 他我* would not make any sense. Adding a dummy noun 東[东]西 (thing) then suffices, as in 他是我的東西, showing possession. Again that is for understanding, writing it would not be stylistic.
Whichever method (adding a dummy noun or deleting 是的) you choose is fine, as long as it makes sense.


Are Cantonese and Lao related? I have a friend who is Lao and I've noticed that a lot of the same words in Lao and Cantonese sound the same. The grammar itself seem different, but the numbers are similar.

Is there much relationship between the Lao and Cantonese language?

Lao is a member of the Tai–Kadai language family. This family does include some languages spoken by minority groups, including the Zhuang languages of Guangxi. Several languages in this group have words which sound familiar to Cantonese speakers. (I remember traveling to Thailand and being shocked by how similar Thai numerals are to those of Cantonese.) Nevertheless, the historical relationship of this language family to Sino-Tibetan (the language family which includes Chinese dialects like Cantonese) is a matter of some debate. From Wikipedia:

  The Tai–Kadai languages were formerly considered to be part of the Sino-Tibetan family, but outside China they are now classified as an independent family. They contain large numbers of words that are similar in Sino-Tibetan languages. However, these are seldom found in all branches of the family, and do not include basic vocabulary, indicating that they are old loan words (Ostapirat 2005).

That these languages share many similar words is not surprising because of the historical proximity of these communities, but it appears most linguists believe that there isn't a deep connection between the language families.


冰雪聪明... only for girls? Is the expression 冰雪聪明 (bīng xuě cōng míng) really only used for girls? The literal translation is "snow smart" and I understand it means something along the lines of "extremely smart" but the times I've tried using it for boys/men I'm told it's only for girls.

冰雪聪明 always describes that someone is very clever and smart. It comes from 唐·杜甫《送樊二十三侍御赴汉中判官》诗：“坐知七曜历，手画三军势。冰雪净聪明，雷霆走精锐。”. But 冰雪聪明 is not only for girl.
冰雪聪明 can be used to describe the child too----冰雪聪明的孩子, but be careful when you use it to describe adult, especially male adult.
Other examples in ancient articles:

以冰雪聪明的文章，写雷霆精锐的思想，这种议论，就容易动人听闻了。（清·曾朴《孽海花》第十回）
姬冰雪聪明，靡不淹悟，类多韜匿不言。(清·陈孟楷 《湘烟小录·香畹楼忆语》)

Source：
為何叫冰雪聰明


In novels, what would be a good english translation for "師祖"? 師祖

As in heads of martial schools, or masters of martial schools. I suppose "founder" can do, but it doesn't sound right. "Elders" is taken by another word, and "master" only seems to work for a specific master, so I don't think that's right either.

If you're going to go with a romanization of the English such as "sifu" you should probably go with standard Pinyin (i.e. Shizu）, rather than some other lesser-used romanization system like Wade-Giles or Yale. Perhaps "Grand Masters" of "Founding Masters" might work well in English. The term seems to be plural (although I have no context) so make sure you use the plural form.


How do you translate "美容的" for food? In Chinese you can use "美容的" to describe certain kinds of food that are said to benefit your looks. I've never heard "cosmetic" use to describe food's effects on a person, only the visual appeal of the food itself, so I'm wondering if there is a more appropriate translation.

美容：make oneself more beautiful
美容的食物：beauty foods, beauty-enhancing foods
I even found this:
营养美容:  nutritional cosmetology
关键是将有助于美容的食物放在手边”，他说。
He said, "The key is having beauty-enhancing foods at hand."
试试这些家庭常见食物的美容用途吧。
Try the beautifying effect of these common household foods.
浆果：不同种类的浆果如蓝莓，黑莓，树莓，小红莓以及草莓都是超赞的美容食物哦。
Berries: different kinds of berries such as blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, cranberries, as well as strawberries are all super beauty foods.
协会有专家为你解答体育按摩、常见病的穴位按摩以及营养美容保健等各方面的问题。
Our association has an expert to answer questions on all kinds of problems relating to sports massage, acupuncture point massage for common illnesses as well as nutritional cosmetology, health care etcetera.


Does this type of colloquial compound adjective translate directly: "got-rejected dance" 做我被拒绝的舞蹈! Doing my "got-rejected" dance!

Final answer:

被拒绝后，我气得直跺脚跳 "我被拒绝后的舞蹈!"

Not colloquial, normal.

跳他们不让我表演的舞蹈。
Dance the dance which they would not let me perform.

[relative clause]

A relative clause is an extended, trailing adjective. Chinese knows no relative clauses. Chinese puts these kind of things first. Case considerations precluded the use of such adjectives before nouns in Western languages.

Dance the [which they would not let me perform] dance.

Dance the dance [(which) they would not let me perform].

跳 [他们不让我表演的] 舞蹈。

Ah, well, in that case:

I stamped my feet in anger at my rejection. = I danced my "I've-been-rejected" dance.

被拒绝后，我气得直跺脚.


what does this phrase mean 我偏不信邪 what does this phrase mean 我偏不信邪?
the English literal translation is "I don't believe in evil" but that doesn't make sense to me.

偏: (6) [adv] wilfully; deliberately; persistently
不信 = don't believe
邪: (2) disaster; misfortune (caused by evil spirits)

我偏不信邪
I, despite everything, do not believe there are supernatural coincidences
I insist, I do not believe there are supernatural coincidences

For example: You lost seven coin tosses in a row by choosing head, and for the eighth time, you still insist on choosing head, because having tail win eight times in a row is not scientific, the only way it could happen is there's some evil spirits power at work. And you don't believe there are evil spirits.
Well, if I lost seven coin tosses in a row, the most logical explanation I can think of is -- the other guy is cheating.


What's the meaning and part of speech of 两种 in this sentence? 喝彩有正彩，倒彩两种。

It's a sentence from an article about 喝彩. What's this "两种" (two types) semantically and grammatically? I understand it (probably wrong) as: cheering has a positive shade, booing two types.

喝彩有正彩，倒彩两种。

It means: there are two types of cheering, (namely) positive cheering and negative cheering(booing).

The sentence can be rephrased as 喝彩有两种(形式)，正彩，倒彩。


Is there a serial verb construction in classical Chinese? Serial verb constructions are several verbs in sequence constituting one single predicate to describe a whole event.

Example from Wikipedia:
我(I) 坐(sit) 飞机(aircraft) 从(depart) 上海(Shanghai) 到(arrive) 北京(Beijing) 去(travel)

我 坐飞机从上海到北京去

Wikipedia has several categories of serialization. I'll try to provide one example for each. With my lousy word-for-word translations. Note that there is no strict definition of the categories; Even serialization itself don't have a strict definition.

Auxiliaries

From 《老子》:

  道可道，非常道。 -- Tao can tell, not common tao.

Verbal complements

In one of 元稹's poem:

  垂死病中惊坐起 -- Almost dying sickness inside shockingly sat got-up.

Coverbs

In 苏轼's 《水调歌头》:

  我欲乘风归去 -- I want take wind return leave.

Other cases

王安石's poem:

  明月何时照我还 -- Bright moon what time shine me return.


Looking for a translation of '舒适性‘ and '安全性'? 该品牌汽车以优良的舒适性和安全性赢得了众多车主的喜爱。

This brand of automobile uses first rate *comfortness and *safetyness to win many car owner's favour.

安全性

safety; safeness -ABC
safety, security -KEY

I would just translate both as safety and comfort.
I guess you want to try and translate the 性 as accurately as possible but if you look at the definitions above they don't get super "-ized" or "-ness"-y.


words where it is important to distinguish between the neutral tone and the citation tone I'm working through the HSK vocab lists, and sometimes I find it hard to remember if a character should be pronounced with the neutral tone or with the citation tone.
It would help if I knew when it's important, and when it isn't; if I knew when "getting it wrong" could lead to confusion.
For instance, I believe 结实 can be pronounced jie1shi5 or jie1shi2, with two different meanings depending on whether 实 is stressed or not ("solid; sturdy" or "to bear fruit"), so here the neutral tone seems to be important. Whereas with 姑娘, it doesn't seem to matter whether 娘 is pronounced niang2 or niang5.
Still, I believe there are also cases where getting it wrong with using/not using the neutral tone could make it harder to be understood, even if there is no ambiguity.

Examples:

东边,西边 and 里边: it seems most dictionaries give the second character as
bian5 rather than bian1. But if you were to say li3bian1 rather than
li3bian5, could that make it harder to be understood?
欺负 to bully: qi1fu5, not qi1fu4
时候 shi2hou5, not shi2hou4
云头: yun2tou2, not yun2tou5; cloud. Here there seem to be more words ending in 头 that are pronounced xxxtou2 than words pronounced xxxtou5.

The section "Second-syllable Stress" in this blog post has some bearing on this topic.

Perhaps what I'm looking for is guidance about characters commonly used as suffixes with the neutral tone, but that also can occur as suffixes with one of the other tones. For example, 子,头 and 边. Also perhaps there are some rules of thumb or some "gotchas" that could be helpful.

I'm aware this topic is related to variant pronounciations, regional accents and dialects; it seems to be quite tricky.

Zhang and Yang (2007:84-89) describe several instances where pronunciations in the neutral tone and the citation tone of a word may coexist:

When contrasting polysemy (辨義). Usually, the neutral tone marks informality or figurative speech.

東西 dōng xi means 'thing; item', but dōng xī means literally the East and West (the cardinal points, or more broadly speaking, the Orient and the Occident).

買賣 mǎi mai means informally 'a transaction', but mǎi mài means 'the collective act of buying and selling'.

When contrasting 'parts of speech' (詞性, lit. the nature of the word). These words are semantically similar (or related). In general, the citation tone is regained when a noun becomes a verb, an intransitive verb becomes transitive, or when the word becomes part of a compound word (e.g., a compound noun, or an idiom). That is to say, the citation tone is needed for complex, derived instances.

差使 chāi shi as a noun means 'an errand runner', but chāi shǐ as a verb means 'to assign (sb. sth.)'.
避諱 (the verb 'to taboo') pronounced bì hui is intransitive, but transitive when pronounced bì huǐ, as in 有所避諱 (having something to apply a taboo on), 避諱名字 (to taboo a name).
利害 (the noun/adjective 'profits and losses') pronounced lì hai is a stand-alone word, but is a constituent of compound words like 利害關係 ('an interest', here the meaning inclines to 利, see 偏義複詞) when pronounced lì hài.

When contrasting formality. These words are semantically identical. The neutral tone is used frequently in colloquial settings.

聰明 (the adjective 'clever'): cōng ming (colloquial) vs cōng míng (formal).
打扮 (the noun 'manner of dressing'): dǎ ban (colloquial noun) vs dǎ bàn (formal noun; or the verb 'to dress up' by rule 2.).

As a result of dialectal differences. In mainland Chinese, some words must be pronounced in neutral tones. In Taiwanese Chinese, however, neutral tones are scarce.

Certain suffixes ～子, ～頭, ～巴 etc.
Directional complements ～上, ～下, ～去 etc.
Particles ～的, ～着, ～一～ etc.

Quasi-neutral tones are permissible in speech to contrast intonation. These words have weakened tones in the face of other stressed components in a sentence. However, they are not documented neutral tones in authoritative exhaustive lists.

家中光景很是慘淡。(hěn shì > hěn shi): in the presence of the stressed adverb 很 indicating the severe extent of poverty, 是 should be read lightly.
你就在此地，不要走動。(zài > zai): in the presence of the stressed adverb 就 indicating the immovability of the listener, 在 should be read lightly.
還說呢，快開始吧。(hái > hai, kuài > kuai): in the presence of the stressed verbs 說 and 開始, indicating the speaker's impatience, adverbs 還 and 快 should be read lightly.

Reference: Zhang Bennan & Yang Ruowei (2007). [普通話連讀音變]. Hong Kong: Commercial Press.


Why does 写 not have a dot on top? Many hanzi have a roof on top, including a dot.  From the HSK2 list, we have:

  客 家 字 完 室 安 它

The commonly used hanzi 写 is unlike these because it does not have a dot on top.

Chinese-tools.com lists hanzi with the radicals 宀 and 冖.  On the list for 冖, the only other one I've seen before with 冖 on top is 农, although I would never had realized.

I'm wondering if there's a reason the hanzi 写, in particular, does not have a dot.

Question: Why does 写 not have a dot on top?

(Another exception I can think of is 买, which has the radical 乛 on top, but it has a counterpart 实 with a roof.)

The, new, Outliers dictionary provides some insight as to how 寫 became 写:

FORM
写 is shorthand for 寫. The top part, 冖, is a common abbreviation for 宀. The bottom part is a shorthand abbreviation for 舄 (see the diagram below for how that works).

which is referenced from:

邵源、邵冠勇，2010《簡化漢字解說》，济南：齐鲁书社 2010年12月第一版。

It also continues:

COMPONENTS
冖
In 写, 冖 is an empty component. It was originally 宀 “building,” a meaning component, hinting at the original meaning “to move something from one location to another.”

The simplified version is just simply old shorthand that was in turn made into a Chinese simplified character.


What's the technical term for "cryptography based on elliptic-curve pairing"? The study of modern crytography is more than just about keeping information secret - public-key cryptography studies methods to exchange secrets in open public (key exchange, public-key encryption) and guaranteeing the authenticity of messages (digital signatures).
Even beyond that, is a vastly larger realm with the likes of identity-based encryption/signature, attribute-based encryption, etc. All of which are enabled by elliptic-curve pairing.
I'm expected to report to my superior about those and teach newly hired staff about how to use them. So the question is how should I translate the terms such as "pairing-based cryptography" and "elliptic-curve pairing"?
I don't want to repeat the mistake like that of FireFox translating "key exchange group" as "密钥交换组" (inside its developer tools for inspecting network connections) when the formal mathematical term for "group" is "群". So when Google Translate says "配对", I suspect that such generic term is not what the scientific community use.

Pairing is either 配对 or 对, even in cryptography. 椭圆曲线对 is used in the SM9 standard. But 椭圆曲线配对 is also in common use.
There's a book entitled 《基于配对的密码学》.
Using "对" alone sounds more technical, but also (in my opinion) phonetically confusing or inelegant in certain contexts.


Difference between 可能 and 能 I’ve always wonder what is the difference between the word 可能 and 能. I know it both means can, possible but is there any difference between them?

Literally 能 (néng) talks about capability, whereas 可能 (kěnéng) talks about possibility.

Often 能 is used where "capability" takes on a practical sense (not necessarily about being physically able to do something).  Typically, 可能 is used when deciding if something is a suitable thing to do.

We do the same thing in English: I can swim (capability) vs. I can swim in Summer (possibility).

能 and 不能

  我能游泳。
  Wǒ néng yóuyǒng.
  I am capable of swimming.

This literally implies I am physically capable of swimming.  It doesn't express whether or not I want to go swimming, if I'm allowed to go swimming, and if swimming is a suitable activity (although some of this will be clear from context).

A example where 能 describes a literal capability is:

  罗根不是他的真名,并且还不能游泳。  (source)
  Luōgēn bùshì tā de zhēnmíng, bìngqiě hái bùnéng yóuyǒng.
  Logan is not his real name, and he cannot swim.

An example where 能 describes a practical capability is:

  戴隐形眼镜能游泳吗？  (source)
  Dài yǐnxíng yǎnjìng néng yóuyǒng ma?
  [If someone] wears contact lenses, can they go swimming?

Of course, wearing contact lenses has no effect on one's ability to swim.

可能 and 不可能

  你可能游泳。
  Nǐ kěnéng yóuyǒng.
  You could possibly go swimming.

This indicates the possibility of going swimming; the person we're saying this to may or may not be able to swim.  An actual example is:

  你可能游泳或者骑自行车 (source)
  Nǐ kěnéng yóuyǒng huòzhě qí zìxíngchē
  You could go swimming or ride a bike

Another example is:

  春节期间的水温比较低，我觉得不可能游泳。 (source)
  Chūnjié qíjiān de shuǐwēn bǐjiào dī, wǒ juédé bù kěnéng yóuyǒng
  During Spring Festival, the water temperature is comparatively low, I feel it is not possible to go swimming.

In this example, we could change 不可能游泳 to 不能游泳 to talk about a practical impossibility.

Note: I'm a Chinese learner too.  I tried to ensure this is correct, but please let me know if I've made a mistake I'm unaware of.


Use of Preposition or Verb with telling time In English, when telling time, a verb is used: "Now it is 9 o'clock." Additionally, when telling at what time, a preposition is used: "I will meet with the principal at 4 o'clock." In Chinese is a verb used when telling time (i.e.: 现在是九点 vs 现在几点), and is a preposition used when telling at what time in a sentence?

Use the verb "是" to tell 'what time it is'
e.g. 现在是九点 (it is nine O'clock)

~

Use the preposition "在" to tell 'at what time'
e.g. 在九点鐘 (at nine O'clock)

'at' in "I will meet with the principal at 4 o'clock." is "在" in Chinese
我會(I will) 在(at) 四點鐘(four o'clock) 會見 (meet) 校長 (the principal)”
preposition [at] + [time] = [在] + [時間]
At four o'clock = 在四點鐘
On Sunday = 在星期天
At the first of July  = 在七月一號
In 2020 = 在二零二零年
You can use 於 (more literary) instead of 在 (more colloquial)


What translation of "carrot" sounds like "Robert"? I'm trying to complete some Chinese homework, and in it, one of the assignments includes a comic. We're supposed to write a story based off the comic. The comic includes a girl introducing various friends to her Chinese grandmother. The friends are Sara, Rose, and Robert. The grandmother, being fluent in Chinese, misinterprets the various names as "salad" (I assume "沙拉")，a form of meat (I assume "肉丝"), and "carrot". I have no idea how "Robert" sounds like any form of "carrot" in Chinese. The various translations I've found are 胡萝卜, 红萝卜, and 胡萝匐, none of which sound anything like "Robert". What other translations of "carrot" are there?

It's 萝卜, not 胡萝卜.

BTW there're many terms for 萝卜 in Chinese, such as 胡萝卜, 红萝卜, 白萝卜, 青萝卜, 水萝卜, and so on.


Why is 有 used in 你的表有一点儿快? I have the following sentence:

  你的表有一点儿快。

I understand this sentence to have the meaning in English of "Your watch is a little bit fast." But if I were put this sentence into Chinese, I would say "你的表很快"， or "你的表一点儿快". Why is there 有 the first sentence, and what is its meaning/grammatical purpose?

你的表 (your watch) is the topic

有一点儿快 ( is a little bit fast) is the comment

in '有一点儿快',  '有' (having) indicates 'possession' of a condiction or ability, which is 'being faster than normal'

therefore, the literal translation of the sentence would be 'your watch is having a problem of being a little bit faster than normal'

[(topic) + (comment)] sentence structure is different from typical S+V+O structure like "你的表(subject) 行(verb) 快了 (adverb)"

Since 你的表有一点儿快 is a [(topic) + (comment)] structure, '一点儿快' describes something the watch possesses, therefore you need '有' to indicate this possession


Meaning of the expression 黄毛小儿 Is 黄毛小儿 a sort of idiomatic phrase? Literally it would mean a "yellow haired child."

I saw it on a TV drama, but from the child in question was definitely not yellow haired. Since the speaker  was speaking rudely, I'm assuming 黄毛小儿 is supposed to have a derogatory meaning and probably means something like a naive or foolish child.

naive or foolish child

This is right (except maybe foolish is a bit harsh). 黃毛 literally refers to foetal hair (alternatively 胎毛), the hairs on a newborn that will fall off later. The hair is unpigmented which contributes to its name (in contrast to the black colour found in most East Asians). The metaphor here is young/immature/inexperienced/silly.

Similar phrases include 黃毛丫頭 (specifically for girls, as 丫頭 refers to the hairstyle of girl servants in the olden times).


What are the Hokkienese lyrics in the Wax Chattels song "Cede"? I was reading a review of the new album Clot by Wax Chattels. There was one sentence that caught my attention:

The vitriolic choruses of "Cede" are in Cheng's native language — Taiwanese Hokkien — and are an indignant confrontation about Cross-Strait relations and self-determination.

The song is available on Bandcamp to stream, but there aren't any lyrics. And the Genius page for their album says:

Cede Lyrics (Missing Lyrics)

I tried listening by ear but I can't tell what's English and what's not.
Ideas?

The lyrics can be found as subtitles on the bottom of their music video for the song. It's a funny mix of Australian English spellings and traditional Chinese writings, so I've kept it as it is written in the video. I'm just not sure if the Chinese matches up 100% to the Hokkien because sometimes formal writing is used in places of colloquial readings.

Your
lies
are
not my life
your
censorship
isn't
ownership
我是誰呢
你不知道
胡作非為
你的宣傳
我的身份
我的事情
我的國旗
我的決定
Labour
camps
soft
power
hiding
history
your money reeks
我有尊嚴
我有本錢
我會成功
我會成功
我是誰呢
你不知道
胡作非為
你的宣傳
我的身份
我的事情
我的國旗
我的決定


What does the expression 方便倒是方便 mean? "方便倒是方便" seems like a fixed expression, and from context it seems to be rejecting "is it convenient?" as a reason for doing something. I can't find an actual definition, though.

方便倒是方便 roughly means though it's convenient. Usually it goes like 方便倒是方便, 可是 ... ... It implies there could be some other negative factors or concerns (though it's convenient).

E.g. (quote from online):

  方便火锅方便倒是方便, 其安全性又是另外一回事。


Is this clear? 我们等了一段时间，其间我们没观察到任何直接和明显的副作用, ... (waiting around for side-effects) From my writing in Writing critique request: Zhou Ziwang gets an injection from the "doctor", this part seems particularly problematic:

  Original version: 没有发现了立即而明显的后果，...

I intended for (but clearly fell short of) something along the lines of:

  [We] did not observe immediate and obvious side-effects, ...

By side effects, I'm thinking like feinting, pain, loss of movement, etc.  Toosky Hierot explained how 后果 is inappropriate, and user3528438 mentioned being unsure about 发现 here.

So let's try again:

  Modified version: 我们等了一段时间，其间我们没观察到任何直接和明显的副作用, ...

I've added a bit more to clarify that we're sitting around for a little bit and simply watching what happens.  For something to be observable, it needs to be both "immediate" (e.g., it doesn't happen 1 hour later) and "obvious" (e.g., it's not "we've just destroyed your liver").

Question: Is this clear?

(Also, I want to say thank you very much for all this help!)

"直接" in "其间我们没观察到任何(直接和)明显的副作用" should be removed, because there's no such thing as 'indirect side effect'

If you meant "immediate", the correct word is "即時" --> "其间我们没观察到任何(即時和)明显的副作用"

"我们等了一段时间，其间我们没观察到任何明显的副作用"

You can use 並 (actually) to strengthen the connection between the two phrase

"我们等了一段时间，其间我们並没观察到任何明显的副作用"

Change 没观察到  to 沒有观察到

没 mainly used for "without + object"
沒有 is more suitable for "have no + object"

"我们等了一段时间，其间我们並沒有观察到任何明显的副作用"
"我们等了一段时间，其间我们並沒有观察到任何即時和明显的副作用"

You only need to state the subject "我们" once here

"我们等了一段时间，其间並沒有观察到任何明显的副作用"
"我们等了一段时间，其间並沒有观察到任何即時和明显的副作用"

Edit:
Other user rewrote the sentence in a more native way in his answer. That reduced the length of the original text greatly. In that case, I would just write "等了一會，見沒有異狀，医生就走了" (After waited for a while, seeing that there are no abnormalities, the doctor left.)
I don't know which the OP prefers, but I think it would be more beneficial for her, if I don't stray too far away from the original sentence that she came up with with her current writing ability