Take away (when ordering food): is it 带走 or 打包? I was told that when you are ordering food you can say either 带走 or 打包.

However, when you are not ordering food and you mean "take this away", then you use 拿走。

Is there a difference in context or meaning between 带走 and 打包?

In my experience (Beijing), 带走 means take away or take out. 打包 means you want a doggy bag.
Update: As a result of further observation, I've found that both 带走 and 打包 mean take away. However, if you want a doggy bag you would probably say 打包.


Why there is 份 in 身份? What is the meaning of 份 in 身份? Is 份 used as a word pointing to a papers i.e. documents (passport and so on)? Or is it used as a 'division' so as to differentiate a man from man (身 body in our case)?

In the past, it was 身分, which means the social position of an individual.

http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&searchid=Z00000131140

Somehow, in modern times, it evolved to 身份. Indeed, in Taiwan, the identity card is called "身分證", while in Hong Kong, it is called "身份證".

I would say that both "身分" & "身份" have their supporters.

If you can read traditional Chinese characters, there's a pdf about the controversy over "分" or "份" in the translation of "identity card", by the law drafting division, Department of Justice, of Hong Kong.

http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/ics/clrc/crcl_48/yen.pdf

Have fun :)


Numbering for mobile verification call to China in Chinese I am making a chat application , so for number verification I need to make calls (your verification code is 1234) on the number.
I want to know if I called to China in Chinese then how the numbers are pronounced. Is it the same one two three? and then the remaining sentence in chinese?

This is the xml that is used for calling:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<Response>
     <Say voice="alice" language="zh-CN" loop="2">您的新密码是 1 2 3 4</Say>
</Response>

If this complete sentence is spoken in Chinese, other than the numbers, is it the correct way to call?

The translation for "your verification code is 1234" in Chinese should be

"您的认证码是 一 二 三 四" or "您的认证码是 1 2 3 4" in your code.

Note：

“1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10”

are pronounced as "yi1 er4 san1 si4 wu3 liu4 qi1 ba1 jiu3 shi2" in Chinese.

are written as "一 二 三 四 五 六 七 八 九 十" in Chinese.


What is the difference between 学科 and 专业? I guess below college there are only 学科, and in college or even higher (if any) both 学科 and 专业 are merged as the same. That's why this year's first-rate university and 学科 evaluation does not include 专业.

When we talk about the courses we choose in college, they are pretty much the same thing, but actually they are just different from the purposes of their courses.

学科 is for academic purpose, studying a certain science or academic field.

专业 is based on social professions and the social division of labor, learning skills and knowledge of a certain industry or business.


What is the difference between 差别, 分别, and 区别? All of them can mean difference. Are all of them interchangeable when used to mean 'difference?'

When they function as nouns to mean difference in the general sense, they are mostly interchangeable.

这两个东西的差别/分别/区别在于……
The difference between these two thingies lies in…

差别 seems to emphasize the difference itself, while 分别/区别 tend to indicate a desire to tell two different things apart (therefore the word "difference" in the title of your question should be translated into 区别). The above example sentence may have slightly different nuances depending on interpretation:

这两个东西的差别是……
What is different in one than in the other is…
这两个东西的区别是……
What distinguishes one from the other is…

BTW, although not in noun form, 差别对待/分别对待/区别对待 makes for an interesting comparison:

差别对待
to treat discriminatorily
分别对待
to treat separately
区别对待
to treat discriminatively (not necessarily with discrimination)


The question is about 问讯 (I am learning Buddhism/dharma in Chinese.)

为什么合掌鞠躬叫"问讯"？

或是说：

为什么现在的"问讯"不是用讲的？

"问"和"讯"都是动词吗？还是动词+名词？

依香光莊嚴解釋：
在漢語的構詞上，問訊是由「問」與「訊」二個同義詞所組成的詞彙。
「問」是動詞，意思是「恤問」。
「訊」是動詞，意思是「詢問」。

如果「訊」作名詞，在非佛教場合也還是可以用的。如：打聽消息。

現在的"問訊"也還是有用講的，但通常只在人少的時候。當很多人同時向佛或法師表達恭敬時，沒辦法大家都講，所以就只有身體的動作。

問訊 is composed of two synonyms, 問 and 訊.
Both are verbs, meaning "comfort and ask".

If 訊 is a noun, it can still be used in non-Buddhist cases.
Such as: to inquire about something.

Nowadays, 問訊 can still be used orally, but usually only in the cases of 2 or 3 people. When many people express respectful to the Buddha or the masters at the same time, they cannot speak all together. So they only show the body movements.


What's the etymology of 巴士海峽? The wikipedia article on the strait in English (the Bashi Strait) doesn't say.

The name "Bashi Channel" comes from a kind of sweetcane wine only produced in Batanes. The wine local name in Itbayaten is "Bashi". European sailors had drunk with Bashi during staying in Batanes, and when they passed the channel, wind and current were so strong, just like drinking bashi. So they called the channel Bashi Channel.
Otto's interview with an Ivatan on 2014.05.09
Zhihu


How do Chinese themselves enter characters into computer? Looks like Microsoft input method is either imperfect or I don't know exactly, how to use it.

Many characters are just not appear in the hint panel, for example

to enter 苹 or

to enter 汁.

Is there any way yo be able to enter ANY character?

Chinese Input Methods Introduction:
Pinyin methods.

Bing

Out-of-box on windows in Chinese language. Very elegant. Pure typing.

Sougou

Most users. Most powerful word source. Most ADs. It provides anything you want and don't want.

QQ

Powerful than Bing, less useless functions than Sogou. I use QQ 精简 edition on windows.

Google

Only if you are a geek.
双拼(Double Type) Pinyin methods
Almost all these pinyin methods support this function to turn on in settings. I'd tried to learn it, but I found I can spend my time on TVs, so I still use pinyin.
五笔 methods
Sougou support this, just like I said, it provide anything.
Another choice is 极点五笔.
五笔 is very hard to learn, I had used this method for several years but switched to Pinyin methods many years ago. It is based on the form of character other than pronunciation, but it doesn't fit the nature of character-writing.
Common usages of Chinese input method:
Choosing word: Space
prev page: - or ,(comma)
next page: + or .(period)
some methods also support number keys.
switch to English: shift key.
Insert English: just type english ,then press Enter
Special content: press key v ( some methods allow you to input emojis, radicals, even running custom scripts. i.e. google method)


是个[adj + noun] vs 是[adj + noun] A flashcard asked me to translate "Beijing is a big place". I proposed "北京是大地方“ and the answer was "北京是个大地方" (namely I omitted the 个).

1) Is my answer grammatically correct? I thought that, unlike English, Chinese does not require you to say articles i.e. "a/an [noun]".

2) If my answer is right, what's the difference between adding and omitting a 个?

So far my understanding of measure words like 个 is that the usage is to say [number][measure word][noun], or to say the type of object "this" is (i.e. 这个， 这里， etc).

For apps like Duolingo, the correct answer is the best translation, not necessary any correct equivalent translation.  In this case, the authors of the app have decided that Beijing is a big place is most closely translated to 北京是个大地方.  It's not bad, Beijing [北京] is [是] a [个] big [大] place [地方], but such clean and direct translations are uncommon.

The long structure is:

  [noun] 是一个 [adjective] 的 [noun]

Where we have:

  北京是一个大的地方
  Běijīng shì yīgè dà de dìfāng

In this structure, we can replace the nouns and adjectives at will:

  她是一个美丽的女人
  那是一辆旧的汽车

(Note we need to change the measure word accordingly.)

However, 北京是一个大的地方 (while grammatical) is rather long.  Thus we...

Drop the 一个 (see Connecting nouns with "shi").  We can also replace 一个 with just 个 (see Measure word "ge"; Omitting the Number).

So we can say either of:

  [noun] 是 [adjective] 的 [noun]
  [noun] 是个 [adjective] 的 [noun]

  北京是大的地方
  北京是个大的地方

In the case of 大的地方 we can drop the 的 (which we cannot do in general).  In general, precisely when we can and cannot drop the 的 is tricky.  As I understand, it is okay to drop the 的 in 大的[noun] (for one and two-hanzi nouns) and in most cases of single-hanzi adjectives (as in this case: 大).  （There's likely exceptions to this.)  Thus all of these are okay too:

  北京是大地方
  北京是个大地方
  北京是一个大地方

As dan notes in the comments, in the case of 大地方 it's natural to think of this as a noun in its own right.  In this case we're using the [noun] 是一个 [noun] construct with 大地方 as the second noun.  This is not generally true; something like 大机场 (big airport) would probably be interpreted simply as a short form of 大的机场.

(Side note: The most common case of dropping the 的 is to express closeness, e.g., 我妹妹, see Expressing close possession without "de", but it's not the only possibility.)

In total, that's six different grammatical ways of saying the same thing.  So the app has chosen the one they consider most faithful to the English.

In response to What's the difference between adding and omitting a 个?  If you include a solitary 个, it implies there's only one (of whatever your talking about).  This is also mentioned in Measure word "ge"; Omitting the Number.  However, there's obviously only one Beijing (so the distinction doesn't arise here).  A case where it's relevant is 我们是好朋友 ("we are good friends"): you can't add a solitary 个 here because there's two people (not one), but you can say 我们是两个好朋友.

Finally, I feel it's more precise to say 城市 (chéng shì) = "city" instead of 地方 = "place".  I also feel that 大 is an inadequate adjective to describe the "bigness" of Beijing.  Thus I would say:

  北京是个非常大的城市
  Běijīng shìgè fēicháng dà de chéngshì


Do people say “文学家？” Do people use "文学家” normally？ It feels like it could be a correct  word, but no one would say "literarist" on the other hand in english.

This is 文学家 is a "big" term. You call Shakespeare and Mark Twain 文学家, because not only did they create literary works or treatises, they also made deep influences in language and literature. You use 文学家 because you want to emphasize the latter part. This word is reserved to the well achieved.

By comparison, 作家 is a more common term. In fact, anyone with any literary work published could call himself a 作家.

This is why you get 2.5M hits for 文学家, versus 65M for 作家 in google.

Example of usage:

Discussing our favorite authors: 作家.
Talking about Shakespeare's literary achievements: 文学家.
Talking about one of Shakespeare's work: 作家 or 诗人.
Talking about George R. R. Martin: 作家. Sorry George, you might want to wait until you're dead.

So people do use 文学家 normally, but not in the sense that it is an ubiquitous term.


不能得到 vs 得不到 difference When I was trying to make this sentence : "It seems like I can't get good score even though I study hard/我虽然努力学习，但是我好像还不能得到好成绩 (I don't know if my sentence is correct tho)",

I found this word 得不到 (Idk whether it's a verb/idiom/something). If 得不到 can be used as a verb, can I change my sentence into : "...但是我好像还得不到好成绩"?

Also, I wonder why it is 得不到, not 不得到... Could you please help explain it to me? Thank you.

I like to distinguish verbs of more than one character in two categories:

可分離 (You can separate the two parts and put a character in the middle)

不可分離 (Strictly forbidden to separate the two. They need to be together)

In the 可分離 category you will find:

動賓 (Verb + Object)
動詞 + 結果補語 (Verb + Result complement)

得到 is a verb with a 結果補語 (result complement).
For this kind of verb, the first character carry the main verb part. The second character is the result.
You can negate the result if the result is not achieved by adding 不. Or you can emphasize the success of the action or ask a question about whether it succeeded or not by adding 得.
Remember that this kind of verbs is special because you can always separate the two parts adding either "不" or "得" in the middle.

說出來 -> 說不出來， 說得出來
吃下 -> 吃不下，吃得下
撇清 -> 撇得清，撇不清
聽懂 -> 聽得懂，聽不懂
離開 -> 離得開，離不開
記住 -> 記得住，記不住

You can see that 到，出來，下，清，懂，開，住 are all results here.

得到 seems a bit special, because the verbal part is already "得". You can say 得不到，but 得得到 is strange!

我雖然努力學習，但好像還是得不到好成績

動賓 (Verb Object) is also interesting:

見面 -> 見個面
吃飯 -> 吃個飯

This time, you can separate them to add a measure word. And when you think about it, it makes sense: you can count the object part.

動賓 are special because the "object slot" after the verb is already busy. It means it's forbidden to add a second object immediately after.
「我想見面王先生」 is wrong.「面」already occupies the "object slot". So you can't add「王先生」since it's a second object.
Instead, you need to use another construction which separates the two objects:「 我想跟王先生見面」

我想吃飯麵糰 is also wrong for the same reason. Here, so as to make the "object slot" free for what you want, you can actually remove the「飯」part.
我想吃麵糰
This technique can also be used with 見面. You can make the "object slot" free by removing「面」. This will allow you to put your own object right after the verb.
我想見王先生

Think of the objects in the Verb Object category (面，飯) as a default object if you don't want to specify one. This allows the verb to still be a bigram so that it becomes a bit longer and easier to pronounce and to understand.

That explains why when we say 我想吃飯, it doesn't necessarily mean that we are going to eat rice. Rice was just the default object as we didn't specified our own. It only means "I want to eat."

「不是不是！我真的想要吃飯啊」

But it could also be that the object we want to select happens to be the default one! Then the sentence above could also mean "I want to eat rice".

不可分離 category

留學
參考
害怕
活該
住院
處理

You'll see that no matter what, the two characters need to be together for the verb to be complete. They can't be separated, because they are both part of the verb meaning. You can not put any 個，得 or 不 in the middle.


Accidentally Saying Chinese Swear Words So I saw a video on youtube about a guys experience in china. He said that people can often accidentally say swear words if they say the tones wrong. Like the word "ma"

It can heard as mother but 'ma' can also be heard as horse in a foul way. Is there any pinyin/character combinations that I should be careful to write or say wrong/all together?

And for swear words, do they use the same character they use for the word or is it written differently? Also maybe describe a experience that you accidentally said a swear word in Chinese.

A story tells of an ethnic minority student who simply wanted to borrow a pen from a female comrade. Ethnic minorites in China are often as tone deaf as Westerners, and when the guy wanted to borrow a pen (借你的笔 / jie4 ni3 de bi3), it became 借你的屄 (jie4 ni3 de bi1), and the female student got all red in her face pondering the proposal of lending her cunt to that fellow...

The words and tones to look out for are the following:

cào (肏，操), which means fuck (often heard as 我操, i fuck, simply meaning fuck)
bī (屄，逼), which means cunt (often rendered as 傻屄 or 傻逼 (sha3bi1), meaning stupid cunt)

gàn is not problematic in China, only in Taiwan.

mā de (妈的) is a very mild swear sentence in China.


Correct usage for 跟。。。过不去 This question has two parts:

What's the precise meaning of this expression?
What is the correct usage?

Question (1) I understand it to mean that the person referred to (eg, 跟她过不去) is uncomfortable as a result of something deliberately done or said to her. Is this right? Is there a particular emphasis in this? Does it refer to the deliberate nature of the action/words, or an intent to anger, irritate or make someone feel uncomfortable?

Question (2) Is it possible to use the expression in reference to someone else, or only in reference to yourself? Does the meaning change in reference to an action done to oneself (ie, is it more like 何苦。。。呢？ when used in reference to oneself?

Here are some examples I have, the correctness of which I'm uncertain:

别提他妈妈的身体，你想跟他过不去吗？
别跟我提那件事，否则跟我过不去。
你天天喝醉，为什么跟自己过不去呢？

This expression means 'to make life difficult for', 'to make it unpleasant for' or 'to pick on', just giving a few possible translations from the top of my head. Therefore your interpretation is correct. I am not sure what you mean by 'Is there a particular emphasis in this?' Emphasis in what?

As for your second question - yes, it can be used either reflexively or transitively (on another person). There is nothing that stops you from doing that.

Does the meaning change in reference to an action done to oneself?. No it doesn't. You have correctly observed that 何苦呢 (why torturing yourself over this?) means the same as 为什么跟自己过不去呢 (why making it difficult for yourself?).

As for your examples,

别提他妈妈的身体，你想跟他过不去吗？ - It's ok, but needs more context to make more
sense.
别跟我提那件事，否则跟我过不去。 - Missing a subject. Better served with:
别跟我提那件事，否则*你就是*跟我过不去。
你天天喝醉，为什么跟自己过不去呢？- It's ok, but would sound more natural by adding the adverb 都 between 天天 and 喝醉.  I assume the subject is using alcohol to
forget his/her troubles. If not, then more context is required.

Just a side note, variations of this include 和。。。过不去 and 同。。。过不去.


What is meaning of the sentence 「夫非盡人之子與」? 夫非盡人之子與

I only understand this sentence from classical Chinese to a very low degree.

夫  could be some kind of sentence particle or simply mean "man".
非 and  與 often belong together, 非  negates a phrase in a sentence with
a  copula.
盡 , at least per how I know it, means "to fill" or "utmost"

So, I cannot make any semantical sense out of it, but if I tried, I would render it as:

  a man is not the child of an utmost man (god?), or is he?

Please tell me my misunderstandings and explain the real meaning.

夫 is a particle that you can ignore in this sentence.

Here, 非 is a negation, in this case as part of a rhetorical question with 與: Is it not? (or, in this case: Are we not?)

盡 in this text means all.

Now, 人之子 belong together: sons of men.

Finally, 與 is a final particle marking a question, like 吗 in modern Chinese.

The translation of the sentence is: “Are we not all sons of men?”

This is a translation without context, of course. I’d have to read the rest of this Mengzi passage to give you a better one.


Why 怕 is afraid or fear? Learning this word 怕 which is heart and bright. It means bright and blemishless heart like Brave Heart. Why this is fear heart?

「怕」 (Mandarin Pinyin: pà, Zhengzhang OC: /*pʰraːɡs/, to be afraid) is comprised of two components:

「心・忄」 (heart > emotions), a meaning hint; and
「白」 (Mandarin Pinyin: bái, Zhengzhang OC: /*braːɡ/), a sound hint.

Note that words have both meaning and sound, and you can't write every word with just a bunch of symbols representing meaning - sounds play a major role in determining what a word is.
Here, 「白」 is only a sound hint, not a meaning hint. To emphasise that 「白」 is only a sound hint, people have written the word represented by 「怕」 differently throughout the ages with different sound hints. For example,

Sound hint 「霸」 (Mandarin Pinyin: bà, Zhengzhang OC: /*praːɡs/)

Sound hint 「巴」 (Mandarin Pinyin: bā, Zhengzhang OC: /*praː/)


Strange case of 了: 他杀了一个人 vs 他杀了那个人 There are two sentences:

他杀了一个人，可是没有杀死。
他杀了那个人，可是没有杀死。

Some people say that sentence 1 is ungrammatical (better say -- illogical), while sentence 2 is OK.
Why is it so? Why 那 makes such a big difference?
P.S. the examples are taken from :

Aspect, tense and mood : Context dependency and the marker LE in
Mandarin Chinese Ljungqvist, Marita

p.s.s One guy told me that it is 一个人 conflicts with 可是没有杀死. That is, "one man" means that the killed person is unknown to the utterer but 可是没有杀死 says that the speaker somehow knows much more than the 一个人 phrasing suggests.

I'm a native Chinese user and I can tell you [very definitively] based on my understanding of my first language that these two sentences are equally illogical (unless one interprets "killed" as "attemped to kill"), but neither of them are grammatically incorrect.
They are both illogical because, "杀了" means "killed" in the context of these two statements. So e.g. the first sentence means, translated very literally (so literally that it would sound unnatural in English), "He killed a person, but (he/she) did not kill (him/her) to death.", where the words in the brackets are words that are omitted in the Chinese sentence. You should see how (obviously) self-contradictory this sentence is in English - from my perspective the Chinese statement is just as self-contradictory as the English translation of it I gave.
Similarly, the second sentence means "He killed that person, but (he/she) did not kill (him/her) to death."
The difference of these two sentences (of "那" and "一") is completely irrelevant to the determination of whether they are grammatical and whether they are logical.
Edit:
As correctly pointed out in koshiyomi's answer, if the verb "杀" is replaced with some other verb, e.g. "吃" for the two sentencces, then there is a quite subtle difference between the two sentences, because:

It is perfectly natural to say a person ate something but didn't finish eating, whereas it is unnatural to say that a person killed someone but didn't kill him/her to death.
"吃了一个苹果" means "ate one apple" where "一" usually (but not always) suggests that one whole apple was eaten, but "那" in "吃了那个苹果" simply specifies which apple was eaten, with less suggestion that the whole apple had been eaten. Both sentences can be commonly understood as suggesting that the whole apple was eaten though (in cases where it has not been clarified whether the whole apple was eaten or not).

N.B. That the sentences are illogical does not mean that they cannot be used to good effect - e.g. often contradictory sentences are utilized in literature to achieve certain effects. For example, in literature you might have something like
"He killed that person.
But no, he did not die."
where the first sentence describes something that is not true but merely apparently true. I remember that this kind of contradictory decriptions were used quite often in the Japanese visual novel Fate/Stay Night.


有一天: past as well as future? I'm told that to express something as "one day" in the future, it's 「有一天」. For example, 「我希望有一天能够说好华语。」"I hope that one day I can speak Chinese well."

Would you also use this to the English idiom "one day" in the past, such as "One day, the boy went for a walk"? Would that be something like 「有一天，这个男孩儿出去走了走。」?

Pardon the bad grammar.

Yes, `one day' can certainly be used to refer to events in the past as well.

A better translation of "One day, the boy went for a walk" could be "有一天, 那个男孩外出散步", or less literary, "那个男孩出门走路". "去了走路" is not grammatical, "去走路了" and "走路去了" are grammatical but do not fit in here.


Can 从来 mean since forever? 从来 is usually translated to "always, at all times, all along, from the past till the present". But it's usually used in the negative sense, which makes it more like "never".

I have been searching for affirmative 从来 examples (which are very hard to find) and I came across this post and it made me wonder if "since always" would be a better translation than "always", since 从来 has the sense "from the past till the present".

Using the forementioned post's example, "I always buy oranges" is somewhat different from "I buy oranges since forever". "I always buy oranges" can be something that's going on just recently, while "I buy oranges since forever" is definetely something going on from a long time ago till now.

So, my question is what do you think about the the following translations:

  I always buy oranges. 我总是买橙子。
  I buy oranges since forever. 我从来都买橙子。
  I always bought oranges (now I don't buy anymore). 我以前总是买橙子。

Thanks.

从来 is usually translated to "always, at all times, all along, from the past till the present". But it's usually used in the negative sense, which makes it more like "never".

No, it is '从不' or '从来不' that means 'never'

  it made me wonder if "since always" would be a better translation than "always", since 从来 has the sense "from the past till the present".

'since always/ from the beginning' and 'always' basically express the same meaning

'from the beginning' is the literal translation of '从来'

'since always/ forever' is the practical translation of '向来/一向'

'always' is the practical translation of '总是'

  So, my question is what do you think about the the following translations:

  I always buy oranges. 我总是买橙子。

  I buy oranges since forever. 我从来都买橙子。

  I always bought oranges (now I don't buy anymore). 我以前总是买橙子。

我(总是)买橙子

我(向来/一向) 都买橙子

我以前总是买橙子

  I have been searching for affirmative 从来 examples (which are very hard to find)

Here are some affirmative 从来 examples:

(从来)只有我欺負人

(从来)太陽就由東方升起 = 太陽(向来)就由東方升起

採訪部和編輯部(从来)都是各自獨立 (从来 can replace 向来/一向, but using 向来/一向 is more common in this context)

Edit:

  What would be the translation for 我从来都买橙子 then? How is it different from 我总是买橙子?

"我(从来)都买橙子" = " (from the beginning), I have been buying oranges"  meaning you have been buying oranges for a long long time, but again, "向来" or "一向" are better word choices.

"我(总是)买橙子" = "I (always) buy orange" (not apple, not pear, just orange)


Identifying 紫砂壶 product description (Calligraphy) I was gifted a 紫砂壶, and although I can read standard characters, I'm having a hard time piecing together this product description. Here is what I have so far, and I'm having to guess a lot:

五四三二一

　大紫此作　一
二方砂壶品　二
？二？？說　三
？？？用書　四
茶？？原　　五
？堪？曠　　六
　及造？　　七
　其型？　　八
　藏古？　　九
　？樸？　　十

As you can see, I'm not very good at reading calligraphy.

Also, I am confused at why there would be a simplified version of 优 at the bottom if the rest is traditional?

作品證書
此杯採用原礦優質
紫砂原料造型古樸
大方工藝精湛極具藏價
工藝美術師

作品證書: (Work certificate:)
此杯採用原礦優質紫砂原料，造型古樸大方。(This cup is made of high-quality raw materials of purple sand from the original ore, the style is classically simple and elegant.)
工藝精湛，極具藏價。(Superb craftsmanship, extremely worthy of collecting.)
~ 工藝美術師 (from: The craftsman)

藏價 is short for 收藏價值
The text has no punctuation mark and change column in the wrong places. Also mixing traditional and simplified characters (some in variant form) together. No wonder you can't get what it said.
Simplified Chinese:

作品证书:
此杯采用原矿优质紫砂原料，造型古朴大方。
工艺精湛，极具藏价。
~ 工艺美术师


Translation a slogan "the perfect boost" to Chinese I try to translate it to “ 注入新鲜血液，实现品牌升级” or “最完美的品牌升级” but I still have no idea how to translate it suitably.
(a straight translation is not always the best choice for a slogan)

Any suggestion or answer would be appreciated and thanks in advance

Base on the description, it is a marketing service that provides promotional contents on the most popular social media platforms
Here is my idea
'Perfect' means '完美', and the extended meaning is 全面 (all-around)
'Boost' means '促进',  and it is similar to 推動 (give impetus to) or 推廣 (promote)
You can translate the slogan 'The Perfect Boost' to '全面推動!' or '全面推廣!'
面 as in 面書 (Facebook)
推 as in 推特 (Twitter)
You can play around with these two character's font or color
Another idea is  to translate 'Boost' as '提升' (upgrade; promote) and translate 'The Perfect Boost!' as '全面提升!' which is a more forceful slogan that is closer to the original meaning


Difference between 问 and 让 "to ask" How do 问 and 让 differ in meaning and in what sort of situations would you use either of them?
In chinese.yabla.com there are a lot of different verbs with the meaning 'to ask'.

问 = ask (to answer question) e.g. 问他今年多大 - Ask him how old he is (It is a question I want to know the answer)

让 = ask (to do something; request; demand) e.g. 我去让他來道歉 - I'll go ask him to apologize (ask here is actually a request or demand) - 让 (ask) here is the same as (make)

Just remember 问 = ask a question; 让 = ask someone to do something.


Help Recognizing Characters on a Vase (Characters Identified: 錦山) I have a vase

with these characters on the bottom

and would be very grateful if someone could tell me what they mean.

It seems to be the name for a mountain... 錦 means bright and 山 means mountain.
A search on the internet also tells me that 錦山 is a name for different places. Places like a county in South Korea or administrative districts in certain towns in China.


Is my sentence 我本来要带你去的，但是我的车抛锚了 correct? I am learning how to use 本来 in a sentence; we are supposed to fill in the sentence to make the conversation whole.  The first sentence is the one I wrote using the 本来 and the second is already given:

My sentence that I came up with: 我本来要带你去的，但是我的车抛锚了。
Sentence given in question book: 没关系，我从那儿打车回来很方便。

Can someone please check for me? I don't know if my sentence is grammatically correct.

Since the second sentence includes 从那儿 and 打车回来 (come back), I would assume the two speakers are in the place they want to come back to, therefore the first person (A) is not 带 "taking" the second person (B) anywhere. She's going to pick her up.

I think the main sentence sounds better with 准备, or 想, instead of 要, as it introduces an intent (then disrupted by the car breaking down), instead of a sure thing.

我本来准备去接你，但是我的车抛锚了。
I was going to pick you up, but my car broke down.


Where did "Chinchew" come from? There is this Chinese city called 泉州. Mandarin: Quánzhōu. Cantonese: Cyun4-zau1. Hakka: Chhièn-chû. Min Nan: Chôan-chiu. Pronunciations found here. Wikipedia adds a local Hokkien: Chôan-chiu. Here I get Teochew: Zuan5-ziu1. Couldn't find Min Dong or Gan or other dialects, but those shouldn't matter. Postal romanization: Chinchew. Now, "chew" obviously renders the "chiu" of Min Nan and/or "ziu" of Teochew. But where did that "chin" come from? Is the postal romanisation a weird hybrid of a misheard Cantonese "cyun" (misheard as *cin and spelled chin consequently) and a correctly heard Min Nan / Teochew "ciu"/"ziu" or is there more to this?

泉州，簡稱泉或鯉，又稱刺桐城、清源、溫陵。
Although 清 can be transliterated as chin, it does not seem to be the reason.

Quanzhou, formerly known as Chinchew.
The Postal Map name of the city was (note: should be "is") "Chinchew", a variant of Chincheo, the Portuguese and Spanish transcription of Chiāng-chiu.
It is uncertain when or why British sailors first applied the name to Quanzhou. Variants include Kangiu, Chinchu, and Chincheu.

所以，Chinchew 是從葡萄牙語、西班牙語的 Chiāng-chiu 轉譯而來。


How would you translate "hard" in "squeeze my hand as hard as you can"? Odd question, perhaps, but I'm stumped.  I know that to say 'as fast as you can' you can say 尽可能快, but what about for other adjectives?

For example, if you were to say 'Squeeze my hand as hard as you can," how would that be translated properly into Chinese?

The adverb/adjective you're looking for is '紧' (tight), which is commonly used for squeezing, seizing or grabbing something especially hands.

'Squeeze my hand as hard as you can' can be translated into '抓住我的手，越紧越好' or '尽可能紧地抓住我的手'.


Can anyone explain time nouns and adverbs of time to me? In English, "today" can be a noun or an adverb, but many European languages see it only as an adverb. So, the "today" in "Today is Wednesday." is seen as an adverb.
Can anyone explain time nouns and adverbs of time to me?
Can 最近 be a noun and an adverb?
What part of speech is 上个月？Can it be an adverb?
Can 昨天 be a noun and an adverb?

the "today" in "Today is Wednesday." is a noun……
but I get what did you mean.
“最近”can only be an adverb, it's basically the same as "recently"
"上个月"can both be a noun and an adv. i.e.
noun, 上个月是十一月 last month was November.
adv, 我上个月去了上海 I visited Shanghai last month.
"昨天"is same as “上个月”.


难得的一颗歪脖子灯杆站在了窗前: which translation is correct and is 了 needed? I'm confused about this sentence:

  难得的一颗歪脖子灯杆站在了窗前

Does it mean:

A rare lamp pole that could break (someone's) neck stands in front of the window
A rare crooked lamp pole stands in front of the window.

Or neither of them is right?

Is '站在了窗前' the same as '站在窗前'?

B is correct.
Right, it's same.

Adding 了 makes sentence more natural, I don't why but
it would be very odd without it.

歪脖子 is a common word describing a long thing, tree more often.
a lamp pole is 歪脖子,that is definitely 难得的.

And there is a typo , 棵 instead of 颗.

Answer the comment:

脖子 represents the form of object. It must have a long part.
It is very common to add 了 after 在, and other verbs, 留在了, 排在了, 放在了, 打在了...

了 express 'past or perfect' tense.

他站在窗前.

他站在了窗前.

Both is correct. But for your sentence, it would be odd without 了. So there is still some difference.


Express when festivity or event happens I need to write an eassy about festivities and I included the following sentence:

  公历每年十二月十五日是这个西方传统的节日。

The teacher said this was not correct Chinese, instead, I should have written:

  圣诞节这个西方传统节日在每年的十二月二十五日。

I also saw other examples in the book.

  圣诞节是在每年的十二月十五日。Festivity + 是在每年的 + date.  中秋节是农历八月五日。Festivity 是 +
  date. 中国的春天一般在一月底到二月初。 Chinese Festivity + 在 date.

So I am a bit confused. From what I learned:

1) It seems that you cannot first put the date and then 的 festivity.

2) You can put the event and then 是在，是，and 在 and after that, the date.

Are these two assumptions correct?

Saludos desde España.

Of course you can put the event before or after the date.

When you write the name of an event first, you can add the information of when this event occurs.
Example: [圣诞节] [是在] [十二月二十五日] = [Christmas] [is on] [25th December]

~

When you write a date first, you can add the information of what this date represents
Example: [十二月二十五日] [是] [圣诞节] = [25th December] [is] [Christmas]

More example:
我的生日是在日十二月二十五日 - My birthday is on December 25th.
十二月二十五日是我的生日 - December 25th is my birthday

When you are describing "when the event occurs", you can omit "在" and write "圣诞节是十二月二十五日" (Christmas is 25th December) or "我的生日是十二月二十五日" (My birthday is 25th December)

When you are describing "what the date represents", you cannot add "在"  and write  "十二月二十五日是在圣诞节" (25th December is on Christmas) or "十二月二十五日是在我的生日" (25th December is on my birthday )

You can add more information about the date. "十二月二十五日" just means "25th December" ; "每年的十二月二十五日" means "25th December of every year"


Difference between 还/更 in comparasion phrases What is the difference between 还 and 更 in some comparasion sentences? For me, it seems that both characters means that one of the object/person which is  being compared satisfies a certain characteristic even more than the other one. For example, in the following sentence, it seems that both can be used:

我很怕黑，但是他比我还/更怕.

But I'm not so sure of that. After reading a few more examples, it looks like that 更 has a more numerical/quantitative aspect than 还, which looks like more qualitative. So, for example, I would say: Yao Ming 比 Michael Jordan 更高, instead of using 还 and I would say 他比Megan Fox 还漂亮.

Are those intuition correct? Can someone explain these nuances? Thank you.

Both 还 and 更 have more than one meanings and the meaning of "even more" is overlapped between the two characters,
When it means  "even more" the two characters are interchangeable.

Yao Ming 比 Michael Jordan 高 = Yao Ming is taller than Michael
(It would be true even if Yao Ming was 5'3" and  Michael Jordan was only 5'2")

~

Yao Ming 比 Michael Jordan 更/还高 = Yao Ming is even taller than Michael
(It would be true only if Michael Jordan was considered very tall)

~

她比 Megan Fox 漂亮 = she is more beautiful than Megan Fox
(it would be true even if she was just less ugly than Megan Fox)

~

她 比 Megan Fox 更/还漂亮 = she is even more beautiful than Megan Fox
(It would be true only if Megan Fox was considered very beautiful)

[比 (N) 还 (adj)] = [比 (N) 还要 (adj)]
[比 (N) 更 (adj)] = [比 (N) 更加 (adj)]


How do I say "did you see what happened?' For example, if I turn a street corner and find there is some kind of situation, for example a crashed car or whatever, and I want to ask someone nearby if they saw what happened, what should I say?

Is it 你看到发生了什么事吗？or are there any better ways to express this?

Your sentence along with others in answers are all correct.
The closest idiomatic one I can think of is 你刚才看到这里出什么事了(did you see what happen here just now). In practice, it can be shortened as: 这里出什么事了? or 出什么事了?.


How did 搭 + 訕 compound to mean 'strike up a conversation' or 'reply evasively'? ABC Chinese–English Comprehensive Dictionary (2003). I can't access the "slightly revised through July 2005" ed.

The 搭 in 搭訕 doesn't make sense to me. 搭 doesn't mean 'strike up' or 'reply'.

What exactly does 訕 mean? The embarrassing context?

From Zdic (汉典), 搭 has also the meaning of "to come into contact, to meet":

交接，配合：～配。～伙。～档。～售。～伴。～帮。～腔。～话。～界。～讪。

The last one in the above entry is exactly the example of 搭讪.
The same dictionary provides an entry for 讪 (but also MDGB does), where it's shown that 讪 alone means "to mock, to ridicule".
So 搭讪 together is somewhat an extension of the two meanings of 搭 and 讪, like to meet a mocking (meet = counter). MDGB again gives "to end an embarrassing silence by striking up a conversation", and Zdic "勉强找话说以消除尴尬".

PS: I vividly suggest you include Zdic in your preferred vocabulary sources. Even though the interface is in Chinese, you can easily copy-paste characters in the search bar and get decent results.
PS 2: I'm not sure why you think that words composed of 2+ characters must absolutely reflect preexisting meanings of the single characters. Languages can be productive.


Hesitation noise and how to write it? In English when thinking (and sometimes when unsure) we use the filler word "uhh" (sometime written as the variant "er"), pronounced as a prolonged /əː/.  What sound is used in Mandarin, and how is it written?

Interesting question.
There are some dictionaries （e.g. this and this) that list this character:

  呣 m2 or m4

as being an onomatopoeic word used to express a humming sound one makes when thinking. And yes, that would be an "m" sound with 2nd or 4th tone. I recall having seen other sources listing also 呒 m2, even though this is also used some times as a contraction of 没有。

I believe the key point is that western languages regard onomatopoeias as "naive" words that kids use, because they resemble sounds and are easy to learn. Whereas sounds in Chinese are often represented with dedicated uncommon characters or even words, e.g. 潇潇 （xiao1xiao1, pattering of light rain), and therefore confined to the written language. Personally, I've never seen any of those in colloquial writings.
When people text me over Wechat that they have to think, they just write 我想一想 or something on the line.


Can I replace 当 with 是 in this sentence Listening to this text, it sounded like 当属 is a word. I can find lots of examples of 当属 acting like a word, but dictionaries don't seem to regard 当属 as a word.

Could I simply replace 当 with 是 here?

...其中中国人感触最深的当属汽车进入家庭给我们带来的种种便利以及它给中国人的生活带来的改变。

当属 is an abbreviation of 应当属于, which means should be.

应当 means should, 属于 means be/is (of which the original meaning is belong to. Here maybe you can interpret it as attribute to? I'm not sure.)

So you can say 当属 or 应当是.


What is the meaning of 豫兮 in 豫兮若冬涉川 ? A random phrase from the 道德經 is 豫兮若冬涉川 .

I understand the part 若冬涉川 as "like crossing a stream in the winter" where "in the winter is used" is used adverbially, so a more verbatim translation might be "like winter-walking a stream"

I looked up the first characters as:

豫  relaxed
兮  character that marks an exclamation (maybe like a pronounced ! )

But I cannot make any sense when combining both parts, the only translation I can come up with would be:

relaxed yo ! like winter-walking the stream

which does not make sense to me, because it feels paradox .

You must know that the character 豫  means being caution， being extremely careful;
兮 is modal particle， like 啊.

So,the whole sentence means (他)犹豫小心，就如同冬天过河一样，不敢贸然下水似的. Being extremely caution so that he dare not cross the river in winter.


How to indicate in Chinese text that a quote has been translated from English? In a Chinese text, if I used a quote that was in English, but was translated into Chinese, how would I indicate this?
For example, if Tom said "I have a house", and to quote Tom in the text, I wrote:
汤姆说：“我有一套房子”。
Where and how would I indicate that “我有一套房子” is a translation from English?

Once an English sentence is translated into Chinese, you can treat it as Chinese.
(上引号 - upper quotation mark) = 「
(下引号 - lower quotation mark) = 」
Tom said "I have a house" = 汤姆说：「我有一套房子」。
It is very common for people to use English quotation mark in Chinese text, there is nothing wrong with 汤姆说：“我有一套房子”.

In a Chinese text, if I used a quote that was in English, but was translated into Chinese, how would I indicate this?

I would write:
汤姆说：「我有一套房子 (I have a house) 」。
汤姆说："我有一套房子 (I have a house)".
If you don't want to use English in the sentence at all, you can write:
汤姆说：「我有一套房子 (英文) 」。
汤姆说："我有一套房子 (英文)".


Is any simplified character also a traditional character? I don't mean traditional characters that weren't simplified, thus being the same in traditional and simplified.

What I ask if there is any simplified character which in turn has the same form of another traditional character?

I ask this because I was thinking if it was correct to mix simplified and traditional characters in the same text, and I guess it wouldn't be ambiguous at least if traditional and simplified character sets are disjoint sets.

There are plenty actually, mostly due to the merger of multiple traditional characters into one simplified character.  For example, the simplified character 后 maps to both traditional 后 (meaning 'queen') and 後 (meaning 'after' or 'behind').  Many of these mergers are listed in this Wikipedia article.


How to use 走勢 in finance/tech industry I'm struggling to clearly understand how to use the term 走勢. I've been told that this translates to "trend" but I'm not clear if this suggests trend in terms of general popularity, or trend in terms of market value. In what financial context can I use this term? For reference, I'm looking at this article and how it's being used: 影響比特幣走勢的幾大關鍵因素 .

走勢 in this context means "(directional) trend" -

Example:

The trend of gold price is downward (a direction) -  黃金價格走勢向下

The trend of gold price is upward (a direction) - 黃金價格走勢向上

Similar word is "趨勢" trend; tendency

Example:

gold price is is trending upward  - 黃金價格呈上升趨勢

  So sounds like the meaning is closer to "price/directional trend"?

Not limited to price, It can apply to 銷量 too. E.g. "iPhone 在中國的銷量走勢向下" (iPhone sell in China is trending downward )


書全經聖 - 1881 Chinese bible (what is the 2nd character?) In collecting books, I've come across what appears to be an 1881 Chinese language bible.

Being able to read some Japanese, I'm sure of all of the characters in the title 書?經聖, except for the 2nd one, which resembles 全, but rather than a 人 at the top, it looks more like a 入 or 八.

Without the ability to photograph/OCR it, I'm hoping someone could enlighten me.

Update: It would seem the character is correct as 全, though finding an exact match for the phrase in Google/Baidu is not successful.

Does it look like this?

This is the way how it was written in 康熙字典. And the radical of 全 is 入.

  一作仝。会意。篆文从入,从王(玉)。盖谓交纳的玉完整无缺。本义:纯色玉


The correct usage of 大约 vs. 差不多 I am a bit confused by the appropriate use of 大约 and 差不多.
I have learned to use 差不多 in many cases where I am talking about an approximate amount, value, extent, etc. of something, or speaking about how two things are similar. Would someone be able to provide an explanation differentiating these two words / concepts? Also, is one or the other more common in colloquial usage?

大约 means "approximately", 差不多 means "almost".

大约 is normally used as an adjective or adverb in phrases like:

大约四英尺厚的雪
snow that is approximately 4 feet thick

差不多 can be used in a similar way, but it's more commonly used as an adjective-verb:

这两本书的内容都差不多
these two books' contents are about the same

However, 这两本书的内容都差不多一样 (with 差不多 as an adverb) means the same thing.

The important thing to remember is that 差不多 means almost, but not quite, so two things that are 差不多一样 are not exactly the same. Whereas something like 大约一个小时 could be exactly one hour, although it could also be a bit more or less.

差不多 is also commonly used in a colloquial sense:

差不多了吧
that should do it

In my experience, 大约 is more common in written language. The spoken equivalent is 大概. But that may be a regional thing. 差不多 is very common in colloquial language, mostly in the sense of "about the same" or "good enough" as in the examples above.


"an" final pronunciation I have had eight mainland Chinese teachers over the time I have spent studying, and I am still confused, because I find there are inconsistencies between my textbook's audio CDs, my teachers' explanations, and what I typically hear people say. I don't know how to read IPA so please bear with me.

In some audio CDs, and most of my teachers, they agree that "an" should be pronounced like the English "an" (e.g. an apple) and not like the English "un" (e.g. that was fun) and I do often hear it for cases such as "怎么办？" and "赶得到". They also tell me it's the same for 换 and 言 etc. (just not for 天 as "ian" is a different rule.)

However, the disagreement stems from others telling me it should be the English "un", and there are resources that also show this (I read through Pinyin tones pronunciation cheat sheet and listened to the accompanying links http://lost-theory.org/chinese/phonetics/ and http://chinesepod.com/tools/pronunciation, which follows this rule.)

I do also notice that some of the teachers in the first camp, while pronouncing 办 with the English "an", seem to pronounce 看 with the English "un". Not all of them, however. This makes things very confusing.

I have broken my pronunciation habits once and switched from the first camp to the second camp, and now am wondering if I should have done that, and if I should actually be switching back.

Can anybody clarify this?

(Note: The teachers that were staunchly in the second camp also pronounced "iu" as English "ew", not like the "iou" that it should be (就 etc.,) but I don't know if that's enough to disregard their arguments for what is considered correct pronunciation.)

UPDATE: Wiki article on pinyin claims:

an  [än]    an  like British English "ban", but more central

Not ... entirely sure what "but more central" means, but going by the Macmillan Dictionary audio sample for ban and the CCTV link @Stan commented with it doesn't sound like the "an" in "an apple" nor does it sound like the "un" in "that was fun", but it sounds somewhere in between the two, what I'm thinking at the moment is that it sounds like the "an" in "hand".

To answer your question, we need a little basic phonetics: A vowel has two main attributes -- how open your mouth is when you are making the sound, and whether the sound is made at the front of the mouth or at the back. For example, FLEE vowel is close and front, FLU vowel is close and back. BAN vowel is open (more open than BET, which is more open than FLEE) and front, START vowel is open and back. The FUN vowel is usually in the mid of the mouth, but not as open as START.

The BAN vowel is more open in some accents in England than in the general American accent. As Stan has found, the vowel in http://www.macmillandictionary.com/pronunciation/british/ban is front and very open, more open than the same vowel in American accent.

Now, regarding your original question what 'more central' means, it means that you open your mouth as wide(open) as the BAN vowel in the audio clip above, but move the tongue position a bit towards the back. As a side note, the standard mandarin accent uses a mid vowel in pinyin ban, while the Taiwanese accent uses a fronter variant (just like the BAN vowel in the audio clip).


还 in 你还好吗 is just for emphasis? 还 in  你还好吗 has the meaning of "still" , "as well", "even", or just for "emphasis (强调)" and no meaning here?
Thank you!

你好吗? = how are you?

你(还好)吗? = are you (still ok)?

You need the 还 in 你还好吗 to indicate you are still alright. (nothing bad has happened)
For example, if someone slipped and fell, his friend wouldn't ask him 你好吗? (how are you). His friend would ask 你还好吗? (are you still ok)
If you ask a friend 最近生意如何? (How's business?), the typical reply would be

非常好 (extremely good/ very good)

很好 (very good/ good)

还好 (good/ still good = still considered good = modestly good)

You can see '还' in '还好' indicates 'still' or 'modestly'


Can "City of students" be translated to "Da xue sheng cheng shi"? I am student of chinese language, level 1 and I will have to make a presentation about my city.
I would truly appreciate your help.
The title is "City of students". Could it be translated to "Da xue sheng cheng shi"?
And also, to indicate the colours of the city flag is the sentence "Chengshi guoqi de yanse shi hui se he huang se" correct (by any chance)?
Thank you so much!

For the first part, Wang Dingwei is right.

For the second sentence, guoqi(国旗) refers to the national flag. The city flag should be translated to "shiqi"(市旗). I think "shiqi de yanse shi huise he huangse"(市旗的颜色是灰色和黄色) should be right.


I have no idea how 八九不离十 works? My textbooks says  八九不离十 means pretty close and that makes sense to me, but the way they use it makes me lose my head.
“汤姆说考试八九不离十就可以了。” I think they are trying to say " 80/90% is close enough", but the way they use it doesn't make sense to me at all. What is a better sentence that includes 八九不离十 in it? If it makes sense, could you explain why?

八九不離十 means almost there and I accept it or pretty close and I accept it, the most important thing is and I accept it. The ten may be perfect but if nine or eight are still fine.
“汤姆说考试八九不离十就可以了。” means Tom doesn't chasing for perfect in test.


Difference among 一些，一点，有些，有的 I want to ask about the difference among 一些，一点，有些，有的. I know

  一些/一点/有些/有的 + Noun = a little + Noun (uncountable nouns, right?)

So are they interchangeable?

Basically,
"一些" -> "some"
"一点" -> "a little", often use with uncountable nouns.
"有些", short for "有一些", can mean "have some" or "there are/is some" (You know in Chinese "own sth." and "sth. exist" using the same word "有").
It is the same with "有点".

The hard part is, do you need "有" in your sentence?

Here are some examples:

有些事情群众能做，我们领导干部不能做。——江泽民
There are some things that the crowd is Okay to do, while the officers should not. by Jiang Zemin, former president of China
这一点非常重要，但是有些同志还没有重视起来。——江泽民
It is very important, but (there are) some officers (are) not paying attention to it. by Jiang Zemin, former president of China

In sentences above, "有些" can be replaced by "一些".  However, the way President Jiang said it is more natural, following the habit of Chinese language.

我吃了一些面条。
I ate some noodles.

In this sentence, "一些" cannot be substitute by "有些" cause we already have verb "吃了" here.


Help translating "她只觉得眼前一花，就里看到一个一身锦衣的男子" "她只觉得眼前一花，就里看到一个一身锦衣的男子"

She only saw patterns in front of her, and then she finally saw a man with brocade clothing.

Is it the correct translation?

I'm confused as why "觉得" is used instead of "看到". I am also confused about "一花" and "就里".

花 also means 'burr'

眼花 means 'have blurred vision'

她只觉得眼前一花 - She just felt a burr in front of her eyes

就看到一个一身锦衣的男子 - then she saw a man in brocade clothing

里 is a typo, it shouldn't be there

  I'm confused as why "觉得" is used instead of "看到".

We say "she 'felt' a burr in front of her eyes" instead of "she 'saw' a burr in front of her eyes" because using '看到 (saw)' in this sentence would mean she has actually seen something.

Using 'felt' a burr' in this sentence implies she may or may not had actually seen something. It could just be something wrong with her vision.(for example, she might has fainted a little or  her eyes were watering for a moment)

  The correct translation of "她只觉得眼前一花，就看到一个一身锦衣的男子" is
  "She just felt a burr in front of her eyes, then (she) saw a man in brocade clothing"


What do chinese people understand by word 漫画 "manhua"? I mean, do they use this term to name comics from all the world, or just those native, from China? Has something changed about naming with time? Does anyone still uses term 连漫画？
谢谢！

Nowadays, Chinese usually use 漫画 for comics from all the world, including Japan/America/Europe etc.

And the term 连环画 (小人书/小儿书) is usually used for those native ones of China, almost published in the last century.

Reference:
绘本、连环画、漫画你知道他们有什么不同吗？
绘本、漫画和连环画的区别是什么？


In the simplest way what's the difference between 对不起 and 对不起嘛? I was watching a Taiwanese's drama. In the beginning of the first scene the young women was laughing and saying 对不起嘛. I know that 对不起 mean sorry. I heard of 嘛 being used in 在干嘛. I am learning mandarin and I'm just wondering if it is only used in Taiwanese dialect. If not， does the meaning change？

The 嘛 here has actually no real meaning but just a modal particle.

In Chinese culture, there is a word 撒娇, which is not easy to find the direct translation in English. This happens mainly on girls, who would like to act like tender and sensitive to some intimate friends or partners. With 嘛 the young woman could transfer this additional meaning to others. If a boy act like this, he would be said girlish.

This is widely used not only in Taiwanese dialect, but also in other dialects from mainland.


What is the difference between 竟然 and 居然? As I know, 竟然 and 居然 both mean "unexpectedly". Do they have any difference?

They are very similar. The difference is that 竟然 is more used in a negative situation where the unpleasant result is out of control and beyond the expectation, while 居然 could be used in both good(i.e. surprise) and bad (i.e. accident).


What is the style called where we draw characters without lifting the brush? Consider this artistic rendering of the 福 (fú, happiness) character:

Four characteristics stand out:

The stroke thickness is constant (like in seal script, 篆书).
The brush is never lifted (pushing to the extreme one tendency of the cursive style, 草书).
The brush never passes twice over the same spot (like in neon signage, as remarked below by Daniel Cheung).
There are no angles.

Has this style a name? Are you aware of an online font which would satisfy at least the second constraint?
连书 (lianshu) comes to mind, but this is actually a completely different animal.

I would just call it 一笔画 (one stroke).
Because there are some famous arts are called in this way. Like:

一笔虎: write the character 虎 in one stroke.
一笔龙: write the character 龙 in one stroke.

And the Eulerian path is also called 一笔画问题 (the problem of how to draw a graph with one stroke)


What examples highlight the difference between 感情 (gǎnqíng) and 情感 (qínggǎn), meaning "emotion" [noun]? Both 感情 (gǎnqíng) and 情感 (qínggǎn) are nouns that mean "emotion".  Some examples:

这复杂的情感使埃拉想起了自己的丈夫。[src]
These complex emotions cause Ella to think of her own husband.
最后这种感情再也抑制不了。[src]
Finally, these kinds of emotions [are] no longer inhibiting.

I can't see a difference.  I found a Baidu Zhidao article which I translate below, which asserts there is a difference, but it didn't help me understand what the difference is.  Ideally, it would be nice to have concrete examples which identify the difference.
Question: What examples highlight the difference between 感情 and 情感?

From 感情和情感有区别吗？

有区别。
There's a difference.
情感是态度这一整体中的一部分，它与态度中的内向感受、意向具有协调一致性，是态度在生理上一种较复杂而又稳定的生理评价和体验。情感包括道德感和价值感两个方面，具体表现为爱情、幸福、仇恨、厌恶、美感等等。
情感 is the entirety of 态度 ("attitude"), inside it and 态度 we feel and incline to have coordinated consistency.  It's 态度 physiology's comparatively complicated and stable physiological evaluation and self-experience.  情感 includes feelings of virtue and value; concrete expressions of romance, happiness, hatred, loathing, sense of beauty, and so on.
而感情，是人内心的各种的感觉、思想和行为的一种综合的心理和生理状态，是对外界刺激所产生的心理反应，以及附带的生理反应。如：喜、怒、哀、乐等，感情是个人的主观体验和感受，常跟心情、气质、性格和性情有关。
While 感情, is a person's internal kind of 感情, thoughts and behaviors in a composite mental and physiological state.  It's the external world which provokes and give rise to mental reaction, as well as incidental physiological reactions.  For example, like, anger, sorry, happiness.  感情 is a personal subjective experience and sense, commonly related with mood, temperament, disposition, and nature.

In my mind, that's a lot of words, and very little clarity.  (And it's also just "some random person on the Internet said so", which is unreliable.)

I think 感情 usually means the emotion between you and someone or something. For example:
我和他是十多年的老朋友了，我们的感情很深。
你和她有感情吗？
我对祖国有着深厚的感情。

While 情感 is a broader concept.
悲伤、仇恨、惋惜多种情感交织在一起，让她的心情久久不能平静。


What do you call the sponge part of a cake in Chinese? Cake usually consists of a sponge that is decorated with chocolate or icing in some way.
The sponge is a very light bread-like substance.
What do you call this sponge in Chinese ?

If you are mentioning a cake that has no coating outside, it is called 蛋糕胚.
X胚 means an unfinished version of X. Such as 陶胚 is unfinished clay works.
Beause people think the finished cake should have the cream outside. The center part that does not have a coating is considered unfinished. So it is called 蛋糕胚。
Example:

[6寸基础戚风（蛋糕胚）](https://www.xiachufang.com/recipe/102208654/

Note: 戚风 is the name of style of the 蛋糕胚 in the link. There are also other styles.

If you are pointing at the "bread" part of a slice of cake, you can just call it 蛋糕 or 蛋糕的部分. Because that is a part that contains egg 蛋. For example,
我喜欢蛋糕的部分，很香。但是我不喜欢上面的奶油，太甜了。
I like the "sponge part". it smells so good.
But I don't like the cream on it. It is too sweet for me.


Help to understand this phrase? 作者首先提到了中国 媒体对于西方世界民主制度的一贯批判手法

The writer first mentions that the Chinese media have always been critical of one thing in the Western World’s democracies.

I don't get "一贯批判手法."  I suppose it means the last part of the English translation, but I don't get it.

Some issues with your translation:

一贯（的） means typical/consistent, not one thing. In this sentence, 一贯批判手法 could be translated as typical/consistent criticism
The original sentence focused on the criticism itself instead of the phenomenon of "the Chinese media being critical of democracies"

IMHO, a better translation would be,

  The writer first mentions typical criticism of the Chinese media on the Western World’s democracies.


What does 500多个 mean? In the following sentence on this article:

  ＬＡ　ＬＩＳＴＥ国际美食排行榜于２０１５年由法国人首创，收录１６５个国家的１６０００个优秀美食地点，参考５００多个专业美食指南和民众在线点评，得分靠前的１０００家餐厅进入下一年度全球美食排行榜。

Pleco says the following on the entry for 多个 (the same as MDBG):

  many
  multiple
  multi-

However, all of them seem to make no sense. I feel it is either as many as or more than ~.

So which one is the correct? Or does 500多个 mean more than 500 (like 535) or as many as 500 (emphasize the number)?

Also, does the reverse expression exist (e.g. 多个500)?

N 多 个 = over N:
Pleco has a bunch of sample sentences:
If you type 多个 open the entry then click SENTS you’ll get something like this:

Which features sentences like:

一百多个人
yībǎi duō ge rén
more than 100 people

and

他们有保留曲目二十多个。
They have a repertoire of over 20 songs.

So 500多个 can be 501 - 599, basically.


When is 系 pronounced xì/xi and when is it pronounced jì？ A commonly used phrase is 没关系 (méiguānxi) which means "it doesn't matter"; it's used respond to 谢谢 (thank you) and 对不起 (sorry).

I found in this question that 系 can also be pronounced jì, as in 系好安全带 (jìhǎo ānquándài) meaning "fasten your seatbelt".

This means 系 is a 多音字 (duō yīnzì) or a heteronym (multiple pronunciation word).

Question: When is 系 pronounced xì/xi and when is it pronounced jì？

Doing a bit of Googling, I find:

中文系 = Zhōngwén xì (Chinese department)
太阳系 = tài yáng xì (solar system)
系统 = xì tǒng (system)
联系 = lián xì (to contact)

It looks like xì/xi is the default pronunciation.  I didn't find much with jì, except possibly 系好鞋带 (jìhǎo xiédài) = "tie your shoes".

I think you already got it.

Most of time, it's pronounced as xì/xi 系. When pronounced as（jì）, it means 'fasten' and 'tie'.  系安全带. and 系鞋带. are good examples.


How to translate correct these two sentences? 刚来一会儿。 «I came here just for a while». Or in a while?
他刚到十分钟。 he came just for 10 minutes or he will arrive just in ten minutes??
Please correct me,thanks!

刚来一会: (I)'ve only been here for a bit since (my) arrival
他刚到十分钟: It has only been 10 minutes since his arrival.
If 刚 combines with a verb, the action is already performed.


Care yields fine products Is there a 成语 saying that care yields fine products (eg. care as in cheerfulness)?

I have heard 慢工出细货, but I would like a 成语 to express something like 小心出细货, not sure if this expression id's even correct, perhaps someone can confirm or correct me.

Thanks.

I believe 慢工出细货 is good enough.

Although it doesn't mention about care explicitly, it is strongly implied as much care have to be given to produce a delicate product (as 细 means 细緻 here),

and it takes time to breed that work (慢工).


How do you translate "start"? I'm trying to ask, "Are you sure you want to start a new game?" My best guess is, 你確定要开始新遊戲？

I'm not sure whether I used "start" correctly.

Your guess is correct. You can use it as the following examples:

start a new game - 开始新游戏

start to do something - 开始做某事

a good start - 一个好的开始


What does this translate to? ㄨㄞ I have this on a shirt and cannot find out what it means. My findings are that it is bopomofo/zhuyin phonetic for "Wai1". The only translations I found were "lop-sided" which doesn't seem to make any sense, and "awesome power" which seems to make more sense for a shirt but this is a Cantonese translation and apparently bopomofo is not commonly used for Cantonese. Anyone know?

This is how it appears on the shirt:

ㄨ
ㄞ

It is Mandarin phonetic symbols commonly used in Taiwan.

See:

http://lib.ctcn.edu.tw/chtdict/zhuyin_2.aspx?ZhuYin=%E3%84%A8%E3%84%9E&TopZhuYin=%E3%84%A8
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_Phonetic_Symbols_II#Finals

When printed on tee-shirt in this way, I think it means something naughty, happy and enjoyable.  See https://zh.wiktionary.org/zh-hant/%E7%88%BD%E6%AD%AA%E6%AD%AA


Does 你家孩子真多 follow the topic-comment pattern? I think the following sentence has the topic-comment structure, but I'm not entirely sure if there is another grammar principle underlying it that I'm not seeing. The sentence is:

  你家孩子真多！

I think the topic is 你家, with the rest being the comment. Is this right?

It’s a topic-comment structure, but exactly what the topic is is open to interpretation.

It might be “你家”.  In that case a rough English version would be:

  Your home – how many children there are here!

Or it could be “你家孩子” meaning:

  The children in your home – there are so many of them!

Which one to choose depends on context.  If you heard this spoken, there might be intonational clues, e.g. a pause after the topic.


Time periods relating to Chinese holidays (暑假, 寒假 etc.) From my understanding most Chinese workers only have one major holiday around the time of Spring Festival.

So are holidays 暑假, 寒假 only for students? Roughly speaking how long are they and when do they occur? Do they correspond with another holiday?

Is there another type of 假 that is used to describe the holiday period around Spring Festival?

假 means 假期 vacation, it also have 病假 sick days, and 请假 request a vacation/day off.
寒假 暑假 is mainly for students and teachers.

For 暑假 it usually starts at late June, and ends at 1st Sep, it's about 2-3 months. For 寒假, it depends on the day of chinese new year, usually it starts 1 or 2 weeks before that, and last for 1 and a half months.


Could you help me translate these comments about Messi leaving Barcelona? There's this news. I'm reading comments, not quite understanding what the authors meant. I hope this kind of grouped questions are OK on Chinese Stack Exchange. I don't want to exaggerate, so I'll only put a handful of them. I'll gladly accept answers which respond only partially to these.

促销巨惠，等你来 - I don't know how to translate this.
这波反转我吐了 - I think it's something like "I've had enough of this storm of ever-changing information"?
影帝 梅西 - 帝 is emperor, but this 影? What's 影帝? Google Translate says it means "Actor", so does the author mean that Messi fakes fouls?
整理了一些（p.s，p.r）存货，都是干货 - I don't know how to translate it.
讲的通俗易懂，都学完了，有想学习的吗？ - shouldn't 的 be 得? I know 通俗易懂 means "easy to understand", but I don't understand this sentence.
再发挥一下价值，分享给有缘人。 - the first part probably means "Once again he's reminding his value", but what's after comma is incomprehensible for me.
需要的留下邮箱，发给你 - I have no idea what it means.

Thank you in advance!

促销巨惠，等你来 - great discount, waiting for you.
这波反转我吐了 - The dramatic change makes me feel sick.
影帝 梅西 - Messi should win Oscar for Best Actor.
整理了一些（p.s，p.r）存货，都是干货 - Prepared some info I reserved before. They are all "information without beating around the bush"
讲的通俗易懂，都学完了，有想学习的吗？ - Speak in plain language. Have you learned all of it? What else do you want to learn? (or maybe "Anyone what to learn?")
再发挥一下价值，分享给有缘人。 - Make use of its surplus value again. Share it with whoever is lucky.
需要的留下邮箱，发给你 - Leave your email here, I will send it to you.


What is more appropriate translation of "running store"? What is more appropriate translation of "running store" (as a writing on the store for chinese customers unfamiliar with the place, so it is not online store)?

  跑步商店 OR 跑步机专卖店

Also it would be nice to see some explanation.

As for me the second one seems to be right version but it does not look laconic as the first one.

Does the store sell equipment for running or only sells running machines? If it is the first one, the translate should be more appropriate to be "跑步用品商店"；if it is the second one, then it is correct to say "跑步机专卖店".


Comprehension of untoned speech in Cantonese Do Cantonese speakers still understand speech when all syllables are spoken in a neutral tone (similar to the Mandarin's 5th tone)? And to what extent do they understand it?

I spoke to a Cantonese waiter and I was particularly tired at that time so I was unable to articulate my tones and they seem to not understand anything at all.

I heard somewhere that if you forget the tone it's safer to use a neutral tone to avoid saying bad words and the like.

Depends. if you have all tones incorrect, then it's hard to guess what you are saying, but if you have only 1 or 2 incorrect, generally people can understand you. For example, if I say, I duck your mom. You probably get the meaning. but if I say, I duck your nun. you will be confused.


When using 尽管 (jǐnguǎn) as "feel free to" in e.g. 你想看电影就尽管看吧, do we need the 你, 就, and/or 吧? When using 尽管 as "feel free to", do I always need to use it with 你?  Can I omit 就?  Can I omit 吧?

For example

  你想看电影就尽管看吧。

Some examples can be found in Chinese Grammar Wiki：

  大家 有 话 尽管 说 。
  Feel free to talk if you have anything to say.
  有 什么 问题 尽管 问 。
  Feel free to ask if you have any questions.
  有 什么 事 尽管 找 我 。
  Feel free to ask me for help if you need anything.
  这些 饮料 是 免费 的 ， 尽管 喝 。
  Feel free to have these drinks. They are all free of charge.
  想 吃 什么 尽管 点 ， 我 请客 。
  Feel free to order anything you want. I'm buying.

And to answer your questions:

  do I always need to use it with 你

No. You can say: 让他有问题尽管问我. And from the example you can see that it can also used with some other pronouns, or with the subject omitted.

  can I omit 就

Not in your example sentence, but it can be used without 就. See the examples above.

  can I omit 吧

Yes. And "吧" can be omitted from your example sentence.


How does 舟 resemble a boat? I don't wholly fathom this progression chart.

I ticked, in green below, the only glyph that resembles anything like a boat, but that "Bronze Script" doesn't resemble 舟.

Doubtless, boats are "horizontal". Their length > their width. All the other glyphs are vertical, so I can't imagine how they resemble a boat.

Boats ought be sealed lest water enters. But my red arrow indicate openings and gaps where water can enter and sink the boat.

What does the curvy tail, indicated by my purple arrows, signify? The rudder?

I screenshot CUHK

and Wiktionary.

Here is a simple poster clearly depicting the correlation between what a boat would have looked like during the period when the character 舟 was first penned:

Now of course as it is a pictographic character the orientation can easily be changed depending on the person writing it.


What about the orthography of 苹 (like in 苹果)? It seems consensus is missing I recently came across an anomaly in Chinese orthography which I can't explain myself. Please take a look at the following picture (screenshot from the Duolingo course on Chinese, I guess in lecture "Hobbies 2" but I am unsure about that)

and at the YellowBridge site. What you see is that there is consensus missing in the orthography of 苹 (within Duolingo's writing, the writing of the Windows typesetting system, and the writing YellowBridge proposes as a stroke order diagram). The difference lies in the two diagonal strokes in the middle of the character. Sometimes they are written from top to bottom, sometimes from bottom to top.
At first, I thought these must be two different characters with the same pronunciation "píng". But I found out to the better that they ought to be the same.
If I were to make a question out of this report, I would ask: Why is this? What should I think about this, and how should I write? When you write by hand, what orthography do you usually use? What do other people think about this anomaly? Do they understand both writings? Are they both likely common, and both generally equally understood/accepted?

From a Unicode perspective it is the same character. Depending on the font and the environment you are using it may look different. Take for instance a look at the code charts of Unicode 12:

As can be seen above the Chinese and Japanese tend to write the same character slightly differently.

If you check what font and language that is used on Duolingo, you will probably find a Japanese version.


Rhyming in modern Mandarin What syllables rhyme in modern Mandarin, according to the native speakers? I'm looking for some rules or rhyme tables. I have found some, but I'm confused by the fact that 韵 may both mean "rhyme" and "the final of a syllable", so I'm not sure how to find out which finals actually rhyme.

E.g. Does "yan" rhyme with "huan"? How about "qi" and "ci"? "Hun" and "wen"? That's the kind of questions I would like to answer. Note that I'm not asking whether their finals are pronounced the same, but rather whether native speakers of Mandarin consider them to rhyme.

As a native speaker, I don't think yan and huan rhyme, but yan and xuan do.

I think their endings can be written in IPA as:

yan - ɛn

huan - ɑn

xuan - ɛn

Only the last vowel and following coda count as 韵, the [u] in huan and the [ɥ] in xuan don't matter.


Two-character homonyms with same meaning This is question about synonymous homonyms in Chinese, in particular, two-character words with same sound, tone. Edit: to keep the question simple and broad, I am using the word "homonym" in a non-technical way and the requirement of same-tone is dispensable.

I wonder if the immense number of Chinese speakers and limited number of sounds/tones frequently leads to the formation of synonyms based on a speaker's misapprehension of the origin of a word. For example:

邮轮 and 游轮.

They both are defined in some dictionaries (for example the Yabla on-line dictionary, in which the second occurs in the phrase 'Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines' ) as "cruise liner" or "ocean liner." I suspect that, while an educated speaker would have an opinion about most of these occurrences, it's basically an unavoidable consequence of the structure of the language.

A similar pressure exists in English, for example, to simplify spelling.

It seems likely to me that this has been the subject of a lot of discussion somewhere and I wonder if someone knows of a paper or article on the subject?
Of course comments/answers also welcome.

Also if there are other examples of this situation that would interest me too. Thanks.

Another example, in case this is not clear:

From the song "No House No Car,"

保养, "to take care of,"

in the subtitles given as

包养

In this example I relaxed the requirement of same-tone, as the two first characters do not bear the same tone. And the following:

浇注, "to cast [metal]" and

浇铸, same tones same meaning, more or less.

We call these words "异形词" in Chinese.

Definition from Wikipedia:

异形词，是指在普通话书面语中并存并用的同音（指声母、韵母和声调完全相同）、同义（指理性意义、色彩意义和语法意义完全相同）而书写形式不同的词语。例如：“笔画”和“笔划”、“按语”和“案语”、“唯一”和“惟一”等等。实际的使用当中，除了书写的差异之外，它们还有使用频率的不同，但是一般不会造成误解。

中华人民共和国教育部和国家语言文字工作委员会2002年3月31日发布试行了《第一批异形词整理表》。

在繁体中文里面，异形词现象也是存在的。而汉字简化并没有完全消除这些现象，所以从繁体中文中继承也是异形词的主要来源之一。

Here's a link for 《第一批异形词整理表》:
http://www.edu.cn/20011228/3015609.shtml

And there is 《264组异形词整理表（草案）》 as a supplement : http://dwz.cn/FR5gW

To look for papers on this subject, just search "异性词" on google scholar or other databases and you can find plenty:


The Taiwanese accent: are pairs "种，总", "四，是", "忘，万" pronounced EXACTLY the same? My European impression is that pairs zh-z, sh-s, ch-c etc., but also ng-n are pronounced in a VERY similar way in the Taiwanese accent. However, I'm not sure if they're EXACTLY the same. Is the difference recognisable by the Taiwanese or they must understand everything from context?
If they're pronounced EXACTLY the same, do Taiwanese write them in the same way when using bopomofo?

The key to this question is which accent of Taiwan you're talking about. There is a large difference between Standard Taiwan Mandarin (標準台灣國語) and the various accents commonly found across Taiwan.
There certainly are accents where there is absolutely no distinction between ㄕ (sh) vs ㄙ (s), ㄓ (zh) vs ㄗ (z), ㄔ (ch) vs ㄘ (c), ㄖ (r) vs ㄌ (l). The latter of each pair is the only phonetic realisation, and because of the loss of the distinction, indeed one must rely on context. This is actually the most widespread geographically across Taiwan, and is characteristic of casual speech in less urbanised areas, as reported by this 2019 study. See this interview from the early 2010s, as well as this TEDx talk from 2019.
There are also accents where there is no distinction, but the resultant merger lies between the two versions. Sometimes it is a consistent postalveolar [ʃ] / [tʃ] / [tʃʰ] (although ㄖ (r) remains merged into ㄌ (l), in these accents). But more often not than not, it varies between completely alveolar [s] and completely postalveolar [ʃ] or alveolo-palatal [ɕ], with rounded vowels and front vowels leading to more palatalisation (e.g. one 2012 study compared sa, sha, su, shu across Beijing and Taiwan listeners). This last realisation generally does not lead to merger with the "true" palatal series (Pinyin x-, j- y-) because the vowels that follow are different.
Then you have the accents where the distinction is maintained, even if it is "softened" to an postalveolar vs alveolar distinction. This is the one that is most associated with formal media, e.g. news reports, and is the one that is standardised by the Ministry of Education of the Republic. Thus, as Zhuyin Fuhao was designed for this standard, there is no variation in the Zhuyin, although it can be used to describe variation. See this commentary of some Taiwan-based celebrities, selected for the 標準ness of their Mandarin.
Finally, there are those with inconsistent or non-standard distributions of the alveolar vs postalveolar distinction. This is characteristic of the Taipei-centric urban Taiwanese accent, and is perhaps the most confusing for learners of Mandarin. See this TEDx talk for an example (compare 事情 and 世界 across the talk).
The loss or reduction of the retroflex vs alveolar distinction is widespread and indeed strongly associated with the whole of Taiwan, as well as being common in most of the southern provinces of China as well as Singapore and Malaysia. However, the merger of final -n vs -ng (usually into a general nasalisation of the vowel) is more strongly stigmatised. There are further aspects to accents that are considered even less standard, e.g. the fronting of the ㄭ central+null vowel, phonemically /ɨ/, realised as [u~ɯ~y], and non-standard aspiration.
As a summary, please see this short debate, where:

The news anchor and the reporter speak in a standard Taiwan accent that distinguishes postalveolar sh- from alveolar s-; it retains many features that are characteristic of standard Taiwan Mandarin.
The first man is of a Taiwanese Hokkien-speaking background, and has a typical ㄉㄞˇ ㄨㄢ ㄍㄛˊ ㄧˇ  (Dǎiwān góyǐ) accent. This includes the lack of -n and -ng distinction, limited use of ü /y/ (being replaced by i /i/) and the Pinyin "central i" /ɨ/ being fronted. He also mixes plenty of actual Taiwanese Hokkien into what he says.
The second man is of a 外省人 (post-1949 "mainlander") family background and speaks with a fairly general pre-2000 Taiwanese accent. There is no retroflex distinction, but there is the -n vs -ng distinction. On the other hand, his Taiwanese Hokkien makes a tonal error which causes ripples of suppressed laughter.


Which is the additional stroke added to 末 and to 未? significance? I'm curious whether the shorter stroke or longer stroke are the extra strokes added to 木 to form the characters 未 and 末? And do these strokes have a semantic significance? I learned that 本 has the extra stroke at the bottom for the meaning of root. I'm expecting that 未 and 末 have a comparable explanation that might help me remember them, as I'm continually getting these two mixed up.

末 is logographically comparable to 本. The top stroke indicates the top branches of a tree, the end of the tree. Hence the meaning "end".

However, 未 is unrelated to both characters above, it is just a representation of a tree. It is one of the twelve earthly branches, and as such a character that once had some original meaning that is now lost to us; it has been abstracted to mean "not yet".


How do you say "walked from....to...." For example, would it be: 我从我的家到教室走路。?

I know how to say simply "from somewhere to somewhere" but I'm not sure where you put the verb if you want to say like "walked from somewhere to someone"

[Subject] + 从/由 (from) + [source] + [verb or phrase for the appropriate mode of travel] + 到 (to) + [destination].

我从家里走到教室 I walked from home to the classroom.

我从家里搭公车到学校 I took a bus from home to school.

失明机师由英国飞到澳洲 Blind pilot flies from UK to Australia. (News headline)


再一次地, why is 地 used? Here are some sentences for context. To me, leaving out the 地 preserves the meanings:

再一次地感谢大家
让我再一次地想你
微笑,再一次地让我们微笑

Is 再一次地 a set phrase/固定短语?

Here's one w/o the 地:

再一次战胜自己

In Chinese「地」is the adverb marker.
It's used bewtween an adverb and the verb it describes.

The phrase「再一次」 acts like a adverb whcih means "do something once again".
So use 「地」after 「再一次」 and the verb behind it。

Example：
「再一次地感谢大家」 --> Thanks everyone once again.

And 「地」can be omitted in this case, so
「再一次地感谢大家」 --> 「再一次感谢大家」
This kind of usage is usually more informal.

The words 「的/地/得」 is quite confusing in Chinese language.
Even Chinese native speakers do not care about the difference between them.

More information please see:
http://eastasiastudent.net/china/mandarin/%E7%9A%84-%E5%9C%B0-%E5%BE%97-summary


Happen to (in questions) I'm aware that you can use 正好 or 碰巧 to express low probability in statements, equivalent to English "happen to" .

我正好是有你要的那种啤酒。

我发现他碰巧就是我的一个远亲。

How can you use this same idea in a question?

"Do you happen to have an eyeglass screwdriver?"

Edit: I want to express that I'm aware the probability of them having the [unusual item] is low, but that I'm asking anyway.

Normally you wouldn't translate happen in questions like the one you proposed.

But, if you really wanted to - the best equivalent I can think of for doing this would be by adding:

  顺便问一下

at the beginning of a question.

So your question would end up being something like:

  顺便问一下，你有没有眼镜护理螺丝刀呢？


What is the difference between 几月几号 and 几号? What is the difference between 几月几号 and 几号, when asking about the date?
Like 今天几月几号？ or 今天几号？

There is nearly no difference between 今天几月几号？ and 今天几号？.
Usually for short and orally, we use 今天几号, instead of 今天几月几号. Because we usually know which month currentlly, and it's a present tense or on going tense.
If the date is the last days or the first days of the month, ask 今天几号 will not confuse.
For example.
(比如今天8月3号)
A: 今天几号？
B: 3号啦。
A: 啊！已经到8月份了啊。(时间)过的好快。
Another sample。
（比如今天7月30号）
A: 今天几号？
B: 30号啦。
A: 啊！快到8月了啊。(时间)过的好快。
But if you ask someboby 今天几月几号, then he may say "现在是几月份，你这都不知道吗？？？". He may means you have no sense of time(date).


Why is there no conjunction between 健康 and 有活力的生活状态 in 无法保持健康有活力的生活状态? In the following sentence:

  那些不注意身体的人，到时候，无法保持健康有活力的生活状态，白白留下人生的遗憾，也让爱你的亲友感到痛苦。

The sentence above should mean something like the following:

  Those who don't care about their health cannot keep the healthy life, completely regret their life, and make their friends sad.

But I don't understand the grammatical structure of the bold part. Especially because:

保持 is a verb here and its object is 健康.
But then I don't understand why 有 follows after 健康. 有活力的生活状态 is also a noun, so why is there no conjunction between these two nouns?

So my questions are:

Is my understanding on the grammatical structure here correct?
If it is, then why is the conjunction omitted here? And is it common to omit the conjunction in Chinese and don't even use a comma (逗号)?

Your translation has the right idea. It reads something like this:

  Those who don't take care of their own physical well-being will be unable to maintain good health and vitality in their later years, leaving themselves with regret and causing pain to their friends and family.

The bold part can be made clearer, for example like one of the following:

無法保持健康、有活力的生活狀態
無法保持健康而有活力的生活狀態

The reason why it's not clear is because it is a vernacular/spoken sentence written down literally (which you can tell because the sentence begins with「那些」; formal literature does not do this). It is discouraged to write like this unless someone is being quoted verbatim, because such sentences require more effort to interpret when read.

During transcription, the necessary conjunction (or enumeration comma) was simply left out. If you hear the original person saying this, however, they might have inserted a pause, or dipped the tone slightly, between 健康 and 有活力, making interpretation much clearer.


Is 身 commonly used as a measure word? My Wenlin dictionary describes 身 as also a measure word for "suits of clothing".
Is it commonly used by Chinese speakers?

身 as a classifier means 'a suits of' or "a body full of" but it usually only use '一' (one)  as counting word

Example:

他一身白色衣褲鞋帽 = He in a suits of white clothing, shoes and hat.

他兩身白色衣褲鞋帽 is ungrammatical

一身酒味 = a body full of alcohol smell

兩身酒味 is ungrammatical


剩一点儿都没地方搁　How is the sentence composed of? I'm newbie in this community. My best regards.

没了冰箱还真不行，每天早上都要去早市买菜，饭也不能多做，剩一点儿都没地方搁。

The bolded sentence means "There is no place for conserving the remained foods."

How is the sentence composed of?

It seems "搁" is the adjective of "地方".( the place for conserving ...)
But "搁" is a verb in my textbook and electric dictionary.

Is the sentence equal to this sentence?

剩(饭)一点儿  and 搁没(在)地方(饭)?

How should I understand this sentence?
Why is "都没地方"  in front of "搁"?

"搁" is a verb for "to place; to put"

剩一点儿(食物)都没地方搁

剩一点儿 = left a little bit
(吃)剩一点儿(食物)= left a little bit (of food)
(吃)剩一点儿(食物)都 = even left a little bit (of food)

"(吃)剩一点儿(食物)都没地方搁" = "Even left a little bit (of food), there's no place to put it" or "There is no place to put even a little bit of leftover" (rephrase in common English grammar)
The verb "吃" (eat) and the object "饭 or 食物" (food) are omitted because "剩" implied "吃剩"  and the object for "吃剩" (left over) is clearly food

~

Why is "都没地方" in front of "搁"?

"没地方"(no place to) is the relative/adverbial phrase for  "搁 " (to place). It gives more details on the simple sentence: "搁(食物)"


Is referring to Mandarin as just "Chinese" problematic? I am living in Taiwan learning Mandarin Chinese (with traditional characters). When speaking in English I try to refer to the language as Mandarin both for clarity, and because I imagine people who speak other dialects of Chinese might not like the idea that Mandarin would be considered the 'default' dialect. I'm unsure how to make this distinction in Mandarin.

My question is two parts:

Are non-Mandarin Chinese speakers offended by referring to Mandarin Chinese as simply "Chinese"? Is that a politically-fraught term?
How do I differentiate between the dialects when speaking/writing in Chinese?

P.S. This is my first question in this group, so I apologize if I have broken a rule.

Are non-Mandarin Chinese speakers offended by referring to Mandarin Chinese as simply "Chinese"? Is that a politically-fraught term?

As a native Cantonese speaker, I do not object people referring to Mandarin as 'Chinese' because it is the official language of Mainland China, and Most Chinese do live in Mainland China

On the other hand, Cantonese and other Chinese dialects are Chinese too. Canadian Government treat Mandarin and Cantonese as equal. When Canadian ask you "do you speak Chinese" and get an answer "yes", they do not automatically presume you are a Mandarin speaker, they would also ask " Mandarin or Cantonese?"  because the population of Mandarin and Cantonese speakers are roughly the same here.

  How do I differentiate between the dialects when speaking/writing in Chinese?

Dialect is a spoken language, there are hundreds of different dialects in China, most of them are not mutually intelligible. It is hard to differentiate between minor sub-dialects even for Chinese, I can only tell the difference between Major dialects like Mandarin and Cantonese and some Cantonese sub-dialects

All Chinese write in one standard language system. (Standard Written Chinese - SWC)

People who speak different dialects in China are expected to communicate with each others using the official dialect Mandarin in speech and the standard written Chinese (SWC) in writing.

Base on this practice, foreigners should be able to presume someone who speak "Chinese" can speak Mandarin, therefore, referring Mandarin as Chinese should not offend non-native Mandarin speaking Chinese.


What is the meaning of 當 and 自強 in 男兒當自強? 男兒當自強 is the title of the main theme in wong feihong, i was told its translation is "a man has to stand one's ground", i do not know how verbatim this translation is.
男兒 is man,
自強 is either "his strength" or "from strength", i am not sure about it.
As for 當, i am totally clueless what its meaning is.

What would be a verbatim translation?
Who can explain the parts in the light of grammar?

男兒 is MAN

當 is 應當， which means SHOULD，MUST

自 means 自己， SELF

強 is a verb short for 圖強，here 圖 means FIND WAYS TO DO STH，and 強 means TO BE STRONG.

So 男兒當自強 means A man should find ways to make himself strong


追 as in 追剧 (chasing a TV series) I am native speaker but I haven't yet figured out the exact meaning of 追 as in 追剧 - 'chasing a TV series'. Does it mean 'stay on top', 'catch up' or simply 'actively watch'? In other words,

Does it exclusively refer to watching the latest episode on air, or at least keep oneself up to the season?
Does it count as 追 if I am watching the past season on DVD in order to catch up and watch the current season?
Does it count as 追 if I am watching a series that has already finished?

Yes. This is exactly what 追剧 mean.
No.
No.

We may call actions in last two question as 煲剧 or 补番 .

EDIT:

There is a funny name 坑 (means 'hole') for the series that have many seasons to watch. When we start watching it, we call it 开坑 (start a hole), and the process we watch from the S01E01 to the latest episode, we call it 填坑 (filling the hole).
That a funny saying we are using.


Differentiating between adjective and adverb? The sentence in question is this:

  我的心又似小木船

it is translated: my heart is like a small wooden boat.

can it also mean: my heart is a little bit like a wooden boat?

我的心似小木船。
My heart is like a small wooden boat.

a little bit like would be 有点儿像

我的心有点儿像一艘小木船。


Difference between 对 and 双 For a pair of rabbits there is:

  一对兔 yī duì tù

And for a pair of shoes there is:

  一双鞋 yī shuāng xié

And for twins there is:

  双胞胎 shuāngbāotāi

How can I be sure when to use 对 and when to use 双?

From "Chinese: A Comprehensive Grammar" (Routledge):

一对夫妇 "a married couple"
一对枕头 "a pair of pillows"
一对耳环 "a pair of ear-rings"
一双手 "a pair of hands"
一双眼睛 "a pair of eyes"
两双鞋 "two pairs of shoes"
三双袜子 "three pairs of socks"
The difference between 对 and 双 seems to be that the former emphasizes complementarity while the latter indicates functioning together.

(Anecdotally, it's been my experience that, due to influence from Cantonese, 对 is much more common in the south even when 双 would be "correct.")


Adding emphasis to "you" Consider the following situation.

I'm with two friends. Alice is a bad driver. Bob is not. Bob says to me, "why don't you give Alice the keys and let's go home". I say to Bob, "why don't I just give them to you".

Here, emphasis is, not the other person, but you (the one I'm speaking to).

I thought of 要不我给你自己 and 要不我给你本身.

This is an abstraction of something that really happened to me. I realize that using 直接给你 is probably the best way to emphasize in this case. But is there any other way to do it?

In your context, I'd probably say: 我把钥匙给你不更好吗？ or 我觉得给你更合适.


Answering yes/no a question with 会。 Can you answer to a question with only the verb of the question?. Is it right if you put an aclaration afterwards?

This is the example.

A- 她会按医生的话去做吗？

B- 会，他决定按医生的话去做。

Thanks in advance.

Yes/no can usually be expressed simply by the verb as you have noticed.

  是不是....
  是

  能不能....
  能

Many learners however like to reply awkwardly with words like 对, if you reply in this manner it would sound much more natural.


Are there more people in Russia/Ukraine learning Chinese language than other white dominated countries? I only came up with this idea after I used wechat and VK and found some people from there can speak or are learning the language, while in Australia here I can hardly find any local people learning the language.

Are there more people in Russia/Ukraine learning Chinese? If this is the case, why?

I can't comment on the Ukrainians because absolutely have no idea what their deal is...

Russia and China have shared a fairly close relationship over the years.
China even has a minority called: 俄罗斯族 (Russian Minority in China):
ABC Dictionary

Russian ethnic minority in China

A Chinese-English Dictionary

the Russian nationality, or the Russians, distributed over the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and Heilongjiang Province

KEY, Oxford and CC-CEDICT dictionaries pretty much say the same thing(s).
Wikipedia has an article called History of Sino-Russian relations which says:

China and Russia have generally had good relations since 1991.

and links to Sino-Russian relations since 1991 which says:

Diplomatic relations between People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation dramatically improved after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the establishment of the Russian Federation in 1991. The two countries share a long land border which was demarcated in 1991, and they signed a Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation in 2001. On the eve of a 2013 state visit to Moscow by Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin remarked that the two nations were forging a special relationship.1

Geography, residency and politics aside China has also taken many Russians songs and translated the lyrics and "covered" them in Chinese. Take 三套车 for instance - if you listen to it you can distinctly tell it's Russian (it has Russia written all over it!) but it's sung in Chinese!
There's that scene in 太阳照常升起 with the Russians and the Russian song too - sorry for the ambiguity but you just gotta see it yourself.
The point anyway is that -- Russia has made quite a big impact on the Chinese and China hasn't reject them like they have so many others (English abbreviations, like NBA, or words aren't even allowed in Chinese news).
So while there are quite a lot of Russians living in China, a lot have even grown up there - you can see from there relationship that they are quite "connected". So it doesn't seem like quite a stretch for Russians to learn Chinese.


Chinese Speaking Gps Tracker For My Dog, please help to translate I bought a new Chinese GPS tracker for my dog online on eBay
I have some problem to configure it because I can't track it, I followed all the instruction in English but I can't figure out what
is wrong

When I press on the only button it has and it speaks Chinese so I recorded it and want your help to translate it

I have two videos with different sentences:
https://youtu.be/xxJvdyaGVfA

https://youtu.be/9hmWyLZU-0o

the product link on ebay:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Pet-Dogs-Cats-Sheep-Finder-Realtime-GPS-GSM-Tracker-Waterproof-For-Android-iOS/392097084010?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&var=661043181839&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

Thank you,
Or Hirshfeld
Israel

The first video is quite clear: she says,

  3874成功
  3874 succeeded

The second video is harder to decipher. It’s not Chinese; after listening a few times, I believe she says,

  Number not set.

Not sure if that tells you very much, but that appears to be the extent of it.


What is the function of "根本" in 这杯咖啡根本不值得花四十元人民币? In this sentence:

这杯咖啡根本不值得花四十元人民币

What is the function of "根本"? As far as I can tell, this sentence would translate the same if it were removed. Is it being used like an adverb, like someone in English might say "this coffee simply isn't worth $5?"

Yes, you can remove it without changing the meaning of the sentence.
'根本' in here is just for emphasis. Like 'at all' in English.

I'm afraid I have nothing (at all) to say.
It wasn't difficult (at all).

And you can't see 'at all' as an adverb, right?
But indeed, '根本' is like an adverb in use.

Meaning：

根：root
本：basis
根本：radical / radically
To help comprehension, '根本' can be extended as '从根本上来说' which means 'fundamentally speaking' or 'basically'.

Examples:

BackgroundA-1： A man killed a man with a kitchen knife.
You can say:
他不是人：He is not a human. (Because what he did is beyond an average person will do)

BackgroundA-2： A man killed a man with a kitchen knife without any guilty, moreover, he dismembered the body and ate.
You can say:
他根本不是人：He is completely not a human. (He is totally insane.)

BackgroundB-1： An actress tends to improvise instead of according to the scripts.
You can say：
她拍戏经常不用剧本，都是即兴发挥：She usually improvising in filming, not always follow the scripts blindly. (She is good.)

BackgroundB-2： An actress completely off the scripts just acts by improvising.
You can say：
她拍戏根本不用剧本，都是即兴发挥：She improvised in everyday shooting without any single script at all.(She is outstanding./She is weird.)

In fact, the difference isn't so obvious in everyday use, you can add '根本' into the sentence whenever you expressing your strong emotion.

Back to the context you mentioned. We can enrich it to feel the difference.

If the coffee tasted may not so bad, but not good enough as you expected. You could say：这杯咖啡不值得花四十元人民币 (Said calmly)
If the coffee tasted bad, and you buy it because previously the waitress highly recommended it for the cost-effectiveness.You could say：这杯咖啡根本不值得花四十元人民币 (Said in a little irritated mood)

By the way, to avoid wordy in colloquial, we tend to put it this way: 这咖啡根本就不值四十！

In a word, yes, '根本' can be removed in such sentences, but removed it may also play down the fact into understatement.


What does it mean to 占便宜？ What exactly does it mean to 占人家便宜？ Are there other ways of using 占便宜？

My general understanding is that it means to get the better or others, but I'm never sure when or how to use it properly.

占便宜 means "to take (unfair) advantage (at other people's expense)", "to profit at others' expense".


Chinese Metaphor 八字沒見一撇 Simple Words

I recently came across this phrase:

八字沒見一撇

I understand each character but the meaning was still lost on me. So I asked someone about this and they informed me that it is somewhat sarcastic reply as if one were to ask you: "how is that matter going..." and that it's meaning might be assessed as:

Hidden Meaning

After some time I still haven't seen one thing happen.

I asked how do you determine the meaning and the response was that "I've heard similar phrase before".

Questions

So, just as in English it appears that there are many phrases which one can only know  by understanding the back story. Please let me know if this interpretation is correct. I'm interested in learning additional Chinese metaphors if you'd like to share (either a new metaphor, different explanation of the phrase above, or source material where I can read more info about Chinese Metaphors).

Updated Remarks

Based on the answers below, I have revised my understanding of the metaphor to be:

"there's no sign of anything happening yet" ("八字沒見一撇", Section 9, baidu.com)

As mentioned I welcome any further answers to this question, especially ones that lead to discovery of more metaphors. I will use the information to further disambiguate metaphors, idioms, and proverbs (which are three types of common expressions that I am no tracking in my study of Chinese grammar). Thanks for the help in advance.

The general idea for this idiom is that there's no guarantee for (whatever matter you are referring to) to come to fruition yet, likely whatever it was hasn't even been started. No way. Another way of saying this in Chinese is "(事情)还没有眉目"

The character 八 (eight) is written with 2 strokes, the first one is 撇 (to the left), and the second one is 捺 (to the right). Think about it this way: for a character with two strokes, the first stroke hasn't be written.

Colloquially, you may also see the idiom written as 八字沒一撇

I found an article on BaiDu that goes into the origins of the idiom (http://baike.baidu.com/view/2005439.htm)

I have included my translations about the origins part (see BaiDu for original text)
The original idiom actual refers to the possible engagement between a man and woman. When the couple gets introduced to each other, a fortune teller is invited to see if their birth time/day/month/year (八字) will be harmonious with each other. This is called 发八字. If they are deemed to be compatible/harmonious, the man and woman will officially become engaged. Of course, these terms are not used today.