reason for saying/asking 什么叫活腻歪了 (what does tired of living mean) in tv series 敢死队：第11集 In a Chinese TV series 敢死队(第11集).
it seems hard to understand why the peddler says to the detective (11:05) "what do you call(what is meant by) tired of living, I am looking for someone", "什么叫活腻歪了(northern dialect)" does not seem to be related to anything before or after

有一名侦探，从侦缉队总部走出来就跟要进入的小贩碰了面，
１１：００：侦探：站住
１１：０１；怎么着 老大
１１：０２：你小子也不看这什么地方
１１：０４：就敢往里闯
１１：０５：小贩：什么叫活腻歪了 我是来找人的
１１：０８：侦探：找人找谁啊
１１：１０：小贩：你们伍队张
１１：１２：侦探：你以为我们伍队长吃饱了撑的（另一个成语性词语／惯用语）
１１：１３：谁都见啊滚滚滚
１１：１５：小贩：不是老总
１１：１６：我可是你们伍队长的亲戚啊
１１：２０：侦探：伍队长能有你这种穷亲戚 （侦探打量着小贩）
１１：２３：你蒙谁呢
１１：２７：小贩：要不（他伸出手给侦探看一块大洋）
１１：３１：给伍队长捎句话（侦探接受这块大洋）
１１：３８：捎什么话啊

see also https://dict.leo.org/forum/viewUnsolvedquery.php?idThread=1088168&idForum=48&lp=chde&lang=de

This part of the conversation doesn't sound natural to me. A rhetorical question like 什么叫xyz is only used after the other person labeled him xyz. Without a previous line like 你是活腻歪了吧, the usage seems out of the blue and ambiguous. After watching the video, I think what happened is there is something along that line in the original script but got edited out from the final version.
A conversation like this should go:

A: 你小子是活腻歪了吧？也不看这什么地方，就敢往里闯。
B: 什么叫活腻歪了，我是来找人的。

Translation:

A: Are you courting death? Look at this place, do you think you can barge your way in?
B: What do you mean by courting death? I am simply looking for someone.


What is the difference between 向来, 一直, and 总是? Don't they all mean "always"? I would be grateful if you could provide example sentences.

They do all carry the "always" meaning, but each provide different finer details.

向来 = always; (since the beginning)
一直 = always; (have been continuously)
总是 = always; (unexceptionally /universally)

Examples:

向來沒有加班費  "without overtime pay since the beginning."

一直沒有加班費  "have been continuously without overtime pay."

總是沒有加班費  "unexceptionally without overtime pay ."


Is there a difference between 买 (mǎi), 购 (gòu), and 购买 (gòumǎi) which mean "to buy"? I'm trying to parse this sign I saw at Beijing airport when catching the bus to Tianjin.  The sign indicates where to buy the bus ticket.

  清您先到13号门内省际购票厅购票

The hanzi 购 is confusing me.  I'm now aware of three ways of saying "to buy":

买 (mǎi), which arises very early when learning Chinese,
购 (gòu), and
购买 (gòumǎi).

Question: Is there a difference between 买 (mǎi), 购 (gòu), and 购买 (gòumǎi) which mean "to buy"?

买 is more casual.

购 is formal when forming up with other characters: 购买，购票厅，购物，申购，团购，and etc.. These terms are formal both in written and spoken.

You can also consider 买 is short for 购买. 购买 is official term, so people just say 买... in our daily life instead of 购买. For example, 买菜，买车，买房子.

As this sign is posted in the Beijing airport, they should make it formal by 购票厅, instead of 买票厅.


Is there a word for Chinese songs that rhyme like Jay Chou's 迷迭香 and JJ Lin's 伟大的渺小? Every single line in Jay Chou's song "Rosemary" ends with the "ao" sound:
ni de zui jiao
wei wei shang qiao
xing gan de wu ke jiu yao
xiang xiang bu dao
ru ci xin tiao
ni de yi qie dou xiang yao
ruan xing de yin liao
shang sheng de qi pao
wo jiang dui ni de xi hao
yi ping zhuang quan he diao
zhe li zui bu que jiu shi re nao
ni shan qing
gei yong bao
zhu huo zai ran shao
you mou zhong qing diao
yan shen shi jiao le ji miao
guan yu ni de wu dao
ni yong lan de niu dong zhe yao
shou bu liao
ni sui feng piao yang de xiao
you mi die xiang de wei dao
yu dai bo he wei de sa jiao
dui wo fa chu lian ai de xun hao
ni you ya de xiang yi zhi mao
dong zuo qing ying de wei rao
ai de tian wei man yan fa xiao
ai mei lai de gang hao

ruan xing de yin liao
shang sheng de qi pao
wo jiang dui ni de xi hao
yi ping zhuang quan he diao
zhe li zui bu que jiu shi re nao
ni shan qing gei yong bao
zhu huo zai ran shao
you mou zhong qing diao
yan shen shi jiao le ji miao
guan yu ni de wu dao
ni yong lan de niu dong zhe yao
shou bu liao
ni sui feng piao yang de xiao
you mi die xiang de wei dao
yu dai bo he wei de sa jiao
dui wo fa chu lian ai de xun hao
ni you ya de xiang yi zhi mao
dong zuo qing ying de wei rao
ai de tian wei man yan fa xiao
ai mei lai de gang hao

Same with JJ Lin's "Little Big Us":
Yi duo mei gui bei ci wei rao
ye xu ta ye ke wang yong bao
Hai tun lian shang zong you wei xiao
ye xu lei bei da hai xi diao
shi bu rang ren zhi dao
Ni wo xing fu huo nan ao
Hao huo zao cang jin wai biao de gu ao
Qi shi wo xiang yao
yi zhong mei meng shui bu zhao
Yi zhong xin zang de kuang tiao
Wa jie jie xian bu bei liao dao
ben pao yi kao
Wo xin zhong zui xiang yao kan ni kan guo de lang chao
Pei ni fang si de nian shao
Cong ni yan shen neng zhao dao jie yao
Yu zhou yi si yi hao
Wei da bing fei cou qiao
Wo wo de shou wo hao
Wo huo xu hen miao xiao
Ye jue bu tao
Ye wan xing chen gao diao shan yao
ye xu shi zui hou de wan shao
Hou niao neng zi you fei de gao
ye xu shi liu lang de fu hao
ke shi shui you zhi dao
Ni wo ceng you guo jian ao
Ba ke tao han wei jin you de jiao ao
Qi shi wo xiang yao
yi zhong mei meng shui bu zhao
Yi zhong xin zang de kuang tiao
Wa jie jie xian bu bei liao dao
ben pao yi kao
Wo xin zhong zui xiang yao
kan ni kan guo de lang chao
Pei ni fang si de nian shao
Cong ni yan shen neng zhao dao jie yao
Yu zhou yi si yi hao
Wei da bing fei cou qiao
Wo wo de shou wo hao
Wo huo xu hen miao xiao
Na zhi qian wo yao bao
ni zai ni liu ren chao
Dong ni mei ge lei he xiao
Cong ni gu shi zhong zhao dao mei miao
Nu li bu hui tu lao
Ai bing fei cou qiao
Wo men wo de shou wo hao
Wo men jiu suan hen miao xiao
Ye jue bu tao
Wo de shou wo hao
Wo you duo miao xiao
Ye zuo de dao

Out of all the different types of rhyme schemes, this one in English would be called a "monorhyme", but I wonder if there's a Chinese word for it because the above examples are not only monorhymes but all end in the sound spelled "ao", which is not the case for English monorhymes, such as the example given on the Wikipedia page for monorhymes:
Is like a spell to make me swear
Of my quick, surreptitious stare
She wrings the water from her hair
And turning smiles to see me there

The type of rhyme I'm looking for, does not need to end always in "ao", it could also end always in "shi" or something else. I just want to know if there's a Chinese word for the type of poem/song given.
Google Translate does give a translate for monorhyme: 一韵 which just means "one rhyme", and could easily just be Google's educated guess, knowing that "mono" means "one".

We call it 单押 in Chinese，which means that sentences have the same or similar vowels between sentences. The end of each sentence has the same vowel. It's a type of rhyme scheme，not a type of music though. You can find it in many types of music.
Here's some other examples:

东风破 (by Jay Chou),
一路向北 (by Jay Chou),
禅舞不二 (by Wilber Pan).


How do I say "a loaf of bread"? According to Google translate it is 一个面包, but that doesn't sound right.

How do I say "A loaf of bread"?

UPDATE:

This is what I mean by a "loaf" of bread. Not just a bun.

It depends a little bit on the type of bread.

For a long bread 条 is used. For a slice of bread 片 is used. 块 can also be used for a slice, but is also used for buns, a piece of bread or a complete bread.


What does 触控 mean in 使用者将可轻松地以触控的方式浏览教科书内容? I was busy reading about Apple's new textbook announcement on Engadget China, and I came across the following sentence:

  使用者将可轻松地以触控的方式浏览教科书内容.

What is the meaning of 触控 in this sentence? (My guess is something like touch-control or touch-input?) Do these two characters form a word? How could I use this character combination in another sentence?

What you guessed is right. 触控 is touch and control: 触 as in 触摸 (touch), and 控 as in 控制 (control).


What does 你找我有事吗 mean? I got this from the Spoonfed Chinese shared deck on Ankiweb. The translation, which was included in the deck, was "Did you find me about something?" and Google says "Are you looking for me?".

If I translate it character by character I get "Do you find that I have something", but 找 apparently doesn't have the meaning of "think".

找 in this context means to contact/approach/seek/come to see. The whole sentence is very idiomatic and is a good pattern to remember. Roughly, we are asking Is there a particular reason/cause for coming to see me?, or Are you looking for me, because you have something to discuss?

You could also ask, 你来看我有事吗？ (Literally: "You come to see me because of some issue?")

Or even, 你给我打电话有什么事？ (Literally, What is the (particular) cause for calling me?)

You can use this pattern to express the goal/reason [e.g. to discuss something] of some action [e.g. to seek someone]. In Chinese, you don't need to express everything explicitely, e.g. a causative relation between to actions, as above, from the context this will be clear.


What is the meaning of 这是给谁的礼物？ Yet another sentence where I know all the words but can't work out the correct meaning!

In one of my textbooks I have a series of phrases:

给我礼物
给谁的礼物
这是给谁的礼物？

Would I be correct in translating these into English as:

Give me a present
Give who a present
Whose present is this?

I remember learning something last semester about sentences where the verb can come before the subject in order to emphasise the action and have a suspicion that this might be relevant but can't seem to use that idea to translate the phrases/sentences in a way which is convincing to me.

Thanks for your help in advance,
Andrew

Literally, following Chinese syntax: This is give who(m) 的 present.

English: Who is this present for?

So I would say 1 and 2 are correct, but 3 might be better as above.


When should we use proper name mark and how to type it? In Chinese writing, a proper name mark (專名號) is an underline used to mark proper names, such as the names of people, places, dynasties, organisations.
For example,

When we write/type Chinese, is it acceptable to keep using proper name marks? I do not see it widely used nowadays. Also, how to type proper name marks here (at chineses.stackexchange.com) and in a Word document?

First of all, proper name marks is a part of archaic Chinese. It's no longer used in modern Chinese. In modern Chinese, only book name, music name, movie names, and etc. will be marked with special punctuation, such as 《新约全书》. You can type it by switch to most Chinese input method and use '<' and '>' key on the keyboard.

As for using proper name marks, usually you can just use an underline or a double underline. Doing it in Word is pretty straight forward. In StackExchange could be complicated, you have to use HTML code, such as <u>测试<\u>. For double underline, it's even more complicated, see here .


Meaning of 只 in 只把思念积压在我心头 Ok so firstly I take the sentence as a whole to mean.

The missing is accumulating in my heart (i.e. I'm missing you more and more).

Provided I've got that correct, what function does 只 perform here. Is it superfluous and just added as emphasis?

This is from the lyrics of 思想

If it's at all relevant the preceding line is

为何你一去便无消息

只把思念积压在我心头

Here, I thinks 只 is short for 只能, so it actually means since you leave without a message, 我只能把思念压在我心头.


Chinese Starbucks Sizes I was recently traveling in Zhongshan and Hong Kong and noticed that my limited Chinese allowed me to read Starbucks beverage sizes to a useful, if not complete extent.

(underscore replaces a character I don't recall)

Tall: 中_
Grande: 大_
Venti: 较大_ or 巨大_, I believe. Not certain of the first character.

What is the final character in these sizes? I recognized that these basically said "medium something", "large something", and "larger something", but I was unable to read the final character of the sizes (same one for all three) and have been unable to find a picture of it online.

Any correction or confirmation on venti's first character would be appreciated too. Bonus points for obscure sizes like "short".

From the Starbucks webpage, I figure it's 杯 /bei/， meaning "cup".

Short: 小杯 /xiǎo bēi/ (small cup)
Tall: 中杯 /zhōng bēi/(medium cup)
Grande: 大杯 /dà bēi/ (large cup)
Venti: 超大杯 /chāo dà bēi/ (extra large cup)


What does 狗血 mean as an adjective? As a noun, it means the blood of a dog, which might be used for a lot of purposes, I guess, but not for makeup or health? Some Chinese-made TV dramas are often known as 剧情狗血,which is quite beyond me. Does that mean the plot of the drama is larger than life, like one Chinese villager can easily kill a number of Japanese soldiers?

And also if possible, you can tell me more about this animal or pet, because there are now many phrases in association with it, like 撒狗粮 or 单身狗 or 远光狗, Why do people use the word in this manner?

I think (洒)狗血 is from Taiwan originally. 狗血 could be short for 洒狗血.

洒狗血 could be interpreted in Chinese as 瞎搞 or 乱搞. In English, it could be something illogical, trying to be funny in a silly way, utter nonsense and etc.

So, 剧情狗血 could be the plot of the drama is ridiculous, utter nonsense, stupid and something like that.

撒狗粮 means a couple try to show how they love each other in front of a single person.

单身狗 means one who is single. So, you could say 在单身狗面前撒狗粮.

远光狗 refers to those always turning on the high headlight beams while driving, which dazzles vehicles from the opposite direction.

I don't usually hear 远光狗, 单身狗, 撒狗粮. I hear 剧情狗血 and 洒狗血 occasionally.

远光狗 is considered to be an insult, while 单身狗 and 撒狗粮 take some humorous effect I think.


The Meaning of “~” in Definitions The symbol “~” appears in many definitions. What does it mean?
Examples:

2   纯；专：专～。～心～意。

https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E4%B8%80

1   头的前部，脸：脸～。颜～。～目。～～相觑。

https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E9%9D%A2

2   旧时指读书人：～子。～民。学～。

https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E5%A3%AB

UPDATE:
And, what does it mean when there are two consecutive swung dashes? Such as in:  “～～相觑。”

The use of this swung dash means the entry character or word is used in the corresponding words.

2 旧时指读书人：～子。～民。学～。

... is equivalent to:

2 In olden times, refers to educated people. 士子。士民。学士。

This is a common typographical convention, used in many dictionaries globally, including in English.
EDIT: for reduplication or for other forms of repeat of the entry, the swung dash is often repeated, viz for 面

~ ~ 相觑

... is equivalent to

面面相觑.


Is this an actual phrase, "Sao Wei Deng Yi Xia" (please wait a moment)? So I learned most of my Chinese through speaking, and I swear (especially in a service setting), people say something like:

"Sao Wei Deng Yi Xia"

等一下 is obvious, but I have not been able to find anything in the dictionary for this term, "Sao Wei"
Have I been hearing people wrong all of these years? Does anybody know the two characters I'm talking about?

稍微等一下

MDBG

  稍微

  shāowēi

  a little bit

  HSK 4

Here's a more detailed entry from Tuttle

  稍微

  [comp: 稍 slight + 微 tiny]

  ADV

  slightly, just a little bit

  你能不能把电视机的声音开得稍微大一点?
  Nǐ néng bu néng bǎ diànshìjī de shēngyin kāi de shāowēi dà yìdiǎn?
  Could you turn the TV up a bit?

  我稍微有点儿头疼, 休息一会儿就会好的。
  Wǒ shāowēi yǒu diǎnr tóuténg, xiūxi yíhuìr jiù huì hǎo de.
  I've a slight headache. I'll be all right after a short rest.

MoE's entry for 等一下 has the following example sentence:

  如：「吳醫師馬上就會來為您診斷病情，請您稍微等一下。」

Taiwan's Ministry of Education certainly thinks that 稍微等一下 is a common phrase.


How to express "Now, ..." in Chinese (the usage of "now" to draw attention to a particular statement)? In the following example sentence in English:

Suppose that you buy the product in $10 in the store A. The store A is located in 3 miles away.
Now, you found out that the store B sells the same item in $8. But it is located in 8 miles away.

In this usage of now, an adverb to draw attention to a particular statement or point in a narrative, how can I express it in Chinese?
The most basic word to express "now" in 现在, but I feel it is exclusively used in the situation that specifically refers to the time, not in the way that draws attention to a particular statement.
So what word, or phrase is suitable in Chinese in these cases? Or is it commont to use such expression in Chinese as well, or if not, what is the more natural way to draw attention to a particular statement in Chinese?

Now, you found out that the store B sells the same item in $8. But it is located in 8 miles away.

I am not a native English speaker, but I don't quite agree that now here means draw attention to a particular statement or point in a narrative. In my opinion, it means this sense in this context:

ADV You say "Now" to introduce something which contrasts with what you have just said. 然而
Now, if it was me, I'd want to do more than just change the locks.
然而，如果是我，我要做的远不只是换换锁。

I think there should be an implicit but in your English sentence. So, you could interpret that now as 可是现在, 然而现在，or just simply as 然而，可是.


Results! 结果 vs 成果 vs 果实 vs 成就 vs 成绩 So, this is quite the connundrum! This is how far I have got:

结果 - just means result, in a general sense

The following five words seem all to refer to success/achievement, and even after searching on the internet, I'm very unsure as to what the difference is: 成果, 成绩, 果实, 成就, 成功。

I thought 成绩 was the result exclusively from an exam (i.e. exam result), but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Also, 果实 is very confusing because you can apparently say 成功的果实, i.e. the results of one's success. But isn't that a double-statement? Success is by definition a result, right?

If anyone knows of a good way to distinguish between these words, I'd be extremely happy to hear it!

When I try to differentiate similar words, I always try to inspect the character inside to dig the nuances out.

结果: The process that plants bear fruits. It is natural.

成果: Involved your works.

成绩: Involved your works, and the result can be measured subjectively, usually can be compared with others.

果实: fruits. The specific things that represent the result.

成就: Achievements, honorable.

成功: success in general, honorable is not necessary.

  When to use 成功的果实?

Let's say I got the championship of the world cup, I am holding the cup and celebrating.

My coach talks to me: 享受你的成功果实吧.

Here 果实 means the cup.

胜利的果实

And then FIFA say that our team violate rules, the championship title would be taken back. I could say 我们的胜利果实被夺走了.

Here 果实 means the title.

Usually, you will see 胜利果实, 成功果实 is not common.

Finally, I will use all the words in one context.

我们成功了, 我们的最好成绩是世界杯冠军, 这是一个伟大的成就. 科学训练成果非凡, 场下努力付出, 场上自然收获了不起的果实.


Is  the character 年 (or its etymology) related to the mythical beast in Chinese mythology? Premise: According to the mythology related to the Chinese New Year, a creature called 年 (also referred to as 年兽 — pinyin: nián shòu — 年獸 in Traditional chinese) was a mythical beast that "lived under the sea and in the mountains".

This beast used to come out once a year to attack people and eat them, although — always according to the mythology — it preferred children. Eventually the villagers understood that this beast hated loud noise and feared the color red (it seems this is the origin of the known red chinese lanterns), because it escaped when it saw a child wearing red.

Here comes my question: Although the story is interesting, I'd like you to focus on the language part of this question. I noticed fairly quickly the relation between the name of this beast, 年 which means (year) and the fact that it attacked once a year, during the spring, so around the Chinese New Year celebration.

Maybe it's a coincidence or maybe I'm just reading it wrong, but is this the origin of the term year or is it rather the opposite, i.e. the beast was given this name because it used to appear once a year?

In other words, is the character etymology related to this fact? If so, in what measure and what manner?

I think it's just a folklore, because every time I read this story, I can't find the source of the floklore cited there. I never treat this stroy seriously.

The oracle form of the character "年" is:(note: one oracle character may have different but similar shapes, because characters were not standardized at all in that times)

The upper part looks like a bundle of grain, and the lower parts look like a man. This shape depicts a man with a bundle of grain on his back. It origninally means "the grains are ripe and human being need it".Because the grain plants were ripe once per year(in ancient times, argricultural tech was very low), the meaning of "year" derived.

Below is the different shapes of "年" in different times,showing its evolution. The picture comes from a great online dictinary "汉典",however, it's only in Chinese. From left to right, the shape was used in "甲骨文(oracle,which is the oldest as far as we know)","金文(popular in 商and 周 dynasty, carved on bronze castings)","小篆(a standardized font, used in 秦 dynasty)",“楷体(the modern Kai font)". You can see that
in 金文, the lower part became "千" and in 小篆, the shape was similar with the original 秊.


English text of 穆天子傳 (Tale of King Mu, Son of Heaven) I was reading up on 木孜塔格峰 (Muztagh peak) and came across a reference to the reformer 周穆王 (King Mu of Zhou) being the first mortal to visit 崑崙 (Mt. Kunlun) where he met 瑤池金母 (the Queen Mother of the West).

I found the Chinese source text here, but I can't find an English (ideally Chinese&English) translation.

Q: Does anyone know of a translation or online resource with this material?

谢谢!

Brill lists three translations:

Translations

Eitel, E.J. “Mu-t’ien-tzu chuan.” China Review 17 (1888): 223–40; 247–58.

Cheng Te-k’un. “The Travels of Emperor Mu.” JNCBRAS 64 (1933): 124–42; 65(1934): 128–49.

Mathieu, Rémi. Le Mu tianzi zhuan, traduction annotée, etude critique. Paris: Collège de France, Institut des Hautes Etudes Chinoises, 1978.

Presumably with the first two being English and the third being French.

E.J. Eitel's translation entitled Mu T'ien-tzu Chuan (Muh-T'ien-Tsze Chuen) -or- The Chronicle of Mu, Son-of Heaven was split into two parts and both are hosted on the Hong Kong Journals Online section of the Hong Kong University website.

Part one: translation by E.J. Eitel in 1888 in China Review 17, no. 4, PP. 223-240 pdf.

Part two: translation by E.J. Eitel in 1888 in China Review 17, no. 5, PP. 242-258 pdf.

As for the Cheng Te-k’un translation the best I've got so far is found in the Classical Chinese Literature: From antiquity to the Tang dynasty
edited by John Minford, Joseph S. M. Lau

The Wheels of His Chariot, The Hoofs of His Horses Selections from The Travels of Mu, Son of Heaven
Translated by Cheng Te-k'un

Starts on page 59:

On the day mou-yin the emperor made his way to the west, marching on as far as the Yangyu Mountain, where in ancient days Wu Yi, the God of the River, had established his family, the house of Hezong. A member of this house, Bo Yao, welcomed the emperor at the Yanren Mountain, offering as presents a piece of silk ...

It's only selections but they say the full length is:

This also matches the, more specific, Brill tag. It seems to be split between journals, much like the Eitel translation, and it should be found in:
Journal of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society

volume 64 (1933): pages 124–142;

volume 65 (1934): pages 128–149.

Journal of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (皇家亚洲文会北华支会会刊) has combined and "photocopied" (read:re-printed(?)) all 75 volumes of their journals and you can get it on Amazon for ￥25,900.00.
But really you're only looking for the 33rd volume in the new printings because it contains:

第三十三册
N.S.VOL.LXIV（1933）
N.S.VOL.LXV（1934）

Volumes 64 and 65 of the original journals.


中学? middle or high school 中学
seems to be both terms for middle school (junior high school)
and
high school (senior high school).

how does 高中 and 初中 relate to these words also?

http://www.linedict.com/dict.html#/cnen/entry/f9a933f7897246cb984b10f7c24a40d3

Describes it as middle school

http://www.linedict.com/dict.html#/cnen/entry/20524e88708646beb309d96176102585

Describes it as high school

maybe it depends on the region (China, HK, America, etc) where you attend school?

初中 is the last three years of the nine year compulsory education. 高中 is high school or gymnasium. 中学 comprises both of them, altogether six years of middle school (as opposed to primary school and higher education).


How can you appropriately use “延长”？ So， over the past hours, I‘ve been trying to figure out the proper usage of 延长。 I know that it refers to extending a period of time, but I'm trying to think about ways to use it (exact collocation)
Could I say "延长到 （XX 时间） “
ex。
比如说， 我们在医院等者， 我可不可以跟我旁边的人说 ”医生刚刚跟我说， 我们要等的时间回延长到两个多小时“

If not, how else could it be used?

Cheers,

Stephen

The usage 我们的会议延长了两个小时 is correct. When you want to say something was extended by [the extra time period], you use 延长(了)[time period]. If you want to say till what time something will be extended to, you use 延长到[time/date] or 延长至[time/date].

因运动员旧伤复发需要及时治疗，球赛将延长一个小时。
Due to the athlete's suffering from an old injury that requires timely treatment, the match will be extended by one hour.

Correction: boarding time is postponed rather than extended. Notice the Chinese word for postpone is 延后 not 延长.

飞机误点了，登机时间将延后至下午三点。
The plane is late: the boarding time will be postponed to 3pm.


What is this character used for: 夰 I'm a relative beginner in Chinese. I was trying to draw the character 乔, but missed one stroke and instead got 夰. I was trying to find the meaning of this character before I realised my mistake. I was surprised how little information there is about this character. Several dictionaries don't even contain this character, and Pleco tells me that the pinyin for this character is gao3 but does not give any definition. It is in the basic block of CJK unified ideographs (5930), and appears in the Kangxi dictionary. Are there lots of these characters which have no definition given in English and how would they be used? What does or did this character mean?

Most people probably wouldn't know (or have even ever seen) the character 夰, before, but anyway.

汉语大词典

  hào

  1 同“昊”。天。

  北周  卫元嵩 《元包经·太阴》

  雲浮于夰。

  李江 注

  夰, 天。

  按, 《广韵·上晧》

  夰, 《説文》：‘放也。’昊天字從此。

  2 气。

  北周  卫元嵩 《元包经·太阴》

  夰入于囦, 回浮于元。

  苏渊明 传

  夰入于囦, 天氣降也。

  李江 注

  夰, 氣。

So, for #1 夰 means the same as 昊 - namely "sky/heavens" & #2 gas/air


What is this called?"橱"or“抽屉”？ What is this called?

"橱"or“抽屉”？

收納櫃/置物櫃/抽屜櫃

the following items link to a commercial site:

收納櫃 參考圖片 1

收納櫃 參考圖片 2

收納櫃 參考圖片 3

收納櫃 參考圖片 4

收納櫃 參考圖片 5

收納櫃 參考圖片 6

收納櫃 參考圖片 7


How to use a question word in a statement that isn't a question? I've been having trouble constructing statements containing question words. For example:

If you have a friend who can speak English

Most translation software writes this as.

如果你有一个能讲英语的朋友

Which sounds more like "If you have an English speaking friend" and completely leaves out the question word "who".
I was trying to construct sentences in a similar way to how they are said using the "When, 当。。。的时候” structure.

When I return home I'll give you phone call.
当我回家的时候我给你打电话

I only know how to say some other sentences this way such as.

I don't know when I should go.
我不认识, 我应该什么时候去

Is it possible to use other question words in this way? Or should the question word be left out and be said another way?
Other examples that I though of are.

She's the one who owns this car.
He told me what you said.
I will decide when I leave.
He will tell you where to go.
This is why I arrive early everyday.
This is how I use my phone.

Sorry for the long question and thanks in advance!

"If you have an English speaking friend" should be translated to 如果你有一个讲英语的朋友.

Here, 能讲英语的朋友 a friend who can speak English  is much different from 讲英语的朋友 an English speaking friend, since there is a 能 which literally means can.

"I don't know when I should go" should be translated to 我不知道我应什么时候去.

Notice that 我不认识 usually means I don't know (who he/she is)

I'll try to both directly and natively translate your six sentences:

“She's the one who owns this car" 她是（这辆）车的主人
"He told me what you said" 他告诉了我你说了什么 他告诉了我你所说的话
"I will decide when I leave" 我将决定我什么时候离开 我将决定我离开的时间
"He will tell you where to go" 他将会告诉你（应该）去哪
"This is why I arrive early everyday" 这就是为什么我每天早到 这就是我每天早到的原因
"This is how I use my phone" 这就是我用自己手机的方式 我就是**这么**（accent）用手机的

Attributive clause or other forms of clauses exist in Chinese but are much different from English, they could be more implicit, differently structured. You can read this article: How to Translate English Attributive Clauses
As a native Chinese speaker, I did not learn much Chinese grammar, so I suggest you find more in a textbook.


How do I say "from this"/"this shows"? Like, "this shows you are lazy" or "from this I can tell you are lazy" See title. I'm looking for how this would be expressed in everyday speech, not in news reports (I know 由此可见 but that's too formal). More examples:

The way he walks shows that he is self-confident / From the way he walks, I can tell he is self-confident.
The first time I tried skiing I broke my leg. This shows I'm just not well suited to it.
Your dark tan tells me you like spending time outdoors.

Does the answer involve the word 表示? Thanks in advance.

Words I can get are 看出(来)，说明，表明， 表示.  表明 and 表示 can be used in formal circumstances.

For example,

this shows you are lazy: 这说明/表明你很懒.

from this I can tell you are lazy: 从这可以看出你(很)懒.

The way he walks shows that he is self-confident: 他走路的样子说明他很自信.

Your dark tan tells me you like spending time outdoors: 你黝黑的肤色说明/表明你喜欢经常做户外活动。


What is the classical Chinese meaning of 或? I am reading a text that uses the following phrase:

  或謂鄭相曰

I understand it generally to mean that

  someone told to the prime minister of Zheng saying

However, I don't understand exactly what the character 或 means here.

It means "someone" in this case.

From zdic:

  某人，有的人

From Iciba:

  [书] （某人； 有的人） someone ； some people


Correct pronunciation for 北, 白 in Cantonese? Referring to Cantonese Sheik, 北 is normally pronounced as 'bak', as in 北角 (bak gok - a train station in Hong Kong). However, I have seen instances where it is pronounced as 'pak' as in  北潭涌 (Pak Tam Chung- a place in Hong Kong).

So, is 北 officially pronounced as 'bak'? or as 'pak'?

PS: I want to know for 白 as well, is it paak? (as in 白泥- a place in Hong Kong) or 'baak' as in 白色(baak sik - white color)?

Can b and p be used interchangeably or is there an official pronunciation?

北 is definitely bak1.

白 is baak6.

I believe this b/p issue is probably just a romanization problem. Remember 北京 was Peking in times past.

Words that start with b are usually represented by letter [p] in IPA and that is how many romanizations started, from IPA.

The Meyer–Wempe Cantonese romanization system is one such pinyin that does write the IPA initial [p] as p and not b.


How would you describe the meaning of 弯 wan1? Specifically regarding its use to mean someone who is 'bent'? Someone who likes someone of the same-sex or is at least suspected of it? Does it include bisexuality? Is it polite or rude, subtle or overt? And when did you first start seeing this word?

gay = not straight = 不直 = 弯

I first heard this word a few years ago. It is often used by younger people.  It is a slang and should not be used in any formal situation. Like any slang, it can be rude or not depending on the context.

I do not believe it has any sexual reference though.


与世 How best translate in english could please someine help me making sense of the following two hanzi characters 与世？

Literally it would mean "and the world" but for me it does not fit into the following idioms :

与世无争
yǔ shì wú zhēng
to stand aloof from worldly affairs
与世长辞
yǔ shì cháng cí
to die

与世永别
yǔ shì yǒng bié
to die

与 would mean "with" here, like 跟, to connect a noun.

与世无争 would then mean "not strife with the world", to keep a low profile, to lead a life in moderation and self-restraint.

与世长辞 is likewise a statement of a person and the world, namley that of taking a long farewell from the world, to leave this word, or less prosaic: to die. 长 here has the notion of 长久, for a very long time, or forever, like in the famous poem 但愿人长久.

与世永别 is similarly to part forever from the world.


How should one answer this question about 年? Thanks to @xiaohuozi's wonderful suggestion. This is my question for the friendly contest.

How should one answer this question

  今年是什么年？
  (jin nian shi shen me nian) - which/what year is this?

It is in the context of

  春节快乐！
  (chun jie kuai le, Happy Chinese New Year!) 今年是什么年？

Should it be answered with the year e.g. 2012年 or with the zodiac animal e.g. 龙年 or something else?

Just as you said

春节快乐！(chun jie kuai le, Happy Chinese New Year!) 今年是什么年？

you could answer 龙年.That's OK!
But 龙年 is not often used in Chinese culture nowadays.Even if in the ancient time,we use 壬辰年 to indicate the year,because there are 5个龙年 in every 60 years.However,there are also 1个壬辰年 every 60 years.So we use the 年号(emperor's symbol)to indicate the year,for example,乾隆50年（乾隆is the 年号 of one emperor of Qing dynasty）is 1785年，乙巳年 and 蛇年。 So it's safe to  answer your question like this:

someone: 春节快乐！(chun jie kuai le, Happy Chinese New Year!) 今年是什么年？
you:2012年，the doom year!
someone:haha，I know it's 2012 now, I want to know the lunar year!
you:Oh,sorry,it's 龙年！


What does Lao Tzu mean by "Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished"? Did he pro-claim this quote? I know Modern English didn't exist in his time, thus this is a translation. “Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished” – Lao Tzu : quotes

I disagree. The quote is hyperbolic nonsense. It doesn't even appear in the Tao Te Ching, which leads me to believe that the quote is mis-attributed.
The closest approximation I can find comes from chapter 73: "The way of Heaven (aka Nature) excels in laying plans though it appears to slack."1

What did he mean by "everything is accomplished"? What's "everything"?

I read Quora, I think Lao was wrong, because cancer, colds, and flus still can't be cured. In other words, cures haven't been accomplished. Thus everything is NOT accomplished.

Maybe the original quote is this one:

道常無為而無不為。

——老子 《道德經》

道 (The way/ nature) 常無為 (doesn't do anything) 而(but) 無不為 (everything is done )


How do you say "Take the next right" when giving directions I'm interested to see if anyone can help me out. I was talking to a chinese friend and I was trying to give them directions - however, I was struggling saying the simple phrase in english of "Once you pass the fedex, take the next right".

Would this  be

"你经过Fedex以后， 你马上要右转“  － but I think that this is not quite the meaning I
 am looking for

You can say "你在 Fedex 那邊拐右" or "你往前走到 Fedex, 再拐右"

Edit: Oops, Sorry that I overlooked "the next right".  Then it should be "你往前走, 在 Fedex 之後的(十字)路口拐右."


How do i know how to use the 为? I want to know how to use the 为, because there are cases where we dont translate it and it gets it harder so i'd like like to know the uses and effects this one provoke in the sentence.

I am no grammar expert, but let me attempt an answer based on my level of attainment. I am sure others could do better.

This is one of the most commonly occurring and useful word in the Chinese language, just about behind 的 & 了。

The problem is, (just like 的 & 了), it is a preposition, and when used in combination it becomes a verb, a conjunction, an interrogative, (a sentence of inquiry that asks for a reply)

So it is in an actual sentence that its usages become apparent.

As a preposition it is "for"; 他的牺牲是为了什么?, (his sacrifice is for what?)

As a conjunction it is "because of"; 他为爱国以牺牲了生命, (Because of his love for country he sacrificed his life)

As a verb -- 成为 -- "become"; 他的牺牲将会成为传说, (His sacrifice would become a legend)

As an interrogative -- 为什么, "why", 他为什么牺牲自己的生命?, (why did he sacrifice his own life?)


What does 亮黄灯了 mean in 我承认，应该是运动量过大，身体亮黄灯了? Can someone please tell me what 亮黄灯了 means in this sentence:

我承认，应该是运动量过大，身体亮黄灯了

And why is the colour yellow (黄) used?

This probably refers to the orange light (黄灯) in a set of traffic lights.

Essentially when the orange light lights up, it's time to slow down and stop. In this case, it refers to your body switching to the "orange light" (muscle cramps, short of breath and etc...), which is a sign for you to slow down and take a break from excessive exercising.


shénmo pronounced as homophone of 什麼 shénme According to ''Wiedenhof's A Grammar of Mandarin'', page 415, shénmo is also a possible transliteration of 什麼 shénme, with their final vowels being schwas.

In what contexts is this true?

The word 什麼 being pronounced as shénmo is not Standard Chinese (although it should be readily understandable). Therefore, the answer to

  In what contexts is this true?

is almost never, unless one is specifically transcribing a topolectical variation of Mandarin.

That being said,

Shénmo is probably a more accurate reflection of how it's pronounced among Southern Chinese speakers of Mandarin.
麼 always had another pronunciation with Pinyin mo
什麼 is quite an old word, with

Many variant pronunciations

Many variant spellings

so expect many topolectical variations!


准备过奖黑板政治生物历史脑 in English please? My friend wrote this on his timeline, and I need to know... Please help me....

准备过奖黑板政治生物历史脑.  What does this mean??? Btw, he is not an advanced Chinese speaker,so some grammars might be incorrect.. But I just need to know what he's trying to say

I mean, I tried to use the google translator, but it gave me some impossible answer

It is jibberish. Google was right. IMHO. I'm not advanced though.


Where can I find a decent Seal Script font? I have 9 TrueType fonts that include seal script hanzi, but do not include them entirely. Could someone show me a decent font, or send me via email the shuowen jiezi font?

http://web.hku.hk/~jwilam/chinese/font.htm

There's two:

bnucdp.ttf
ebas927.ttf (link broken; try https://www.moedict.tw/fonts/truetype/cns11643/)

Note that 說文 records many variants, so the default one that appears when you type Chinese may not be the "orthodox variant" that you're looking for (I know from experience because I've used these fonts before). If you're good at reading seal script, you should open the font with a character map to get the unicode directly to type the variant you want.

Also, many characters that we use today may not have existed as a seal script character. They may have used another character for the same word, or the word just didn't exist back then. You can't do anything in this case except construct your own seal script character for those.

These problems I've mentioned might be the same problem you're having with your existing set of 9 fonts, and you may have these two fonts already.


Regional variations of "柴米油盐酱醋茶" When I was very small, my grandparents mentioned there are regional variations of the phrase 柴米油盐酱醋茶 which is widely known to the local population (instead of made up by nobody and only used by a small circle). The first 4 things are still 柴米油盐 while the last 3 things are partially or completely different to reflect the local customs. Then they brought up an example but I forgot the characters long time ago.

Now I search online, I couldn't find any evidence showing such variation exists. Does anyone know if there really are common variations of the phrase, and what they are?

In Short
Variant One

柴米油盐
Pinyin : chai2 mi3 you2 yan2

Variant Two

鍋碗瓢盆
Pinyin : guo1 wan3 piao3 pen2
Literally : wok, bowl, ladle and tub

Detailed
In my area, sometimes we just say it that way.
As a Chinese, I don't quite feel like to go that deep into the source behind, nor did I really care about there're some three other characters hacked off.
But now, if you wanna me to say something about it, yes I can.
Four-character phrases, idiom or not, are pretty popular my area, pretty popular all over China too.
In China, people talk faster than foreigners thought, so seven character version is not so effective, it's like a poem. Four character one is welcome, and because we have hundreds of, or maybe thousands of, never count it, informal/formal four-character catch phrases.
For those who utter out this phrase, probably they don't care about literature, that's what used to be the paraphernalia of notable men.
鍋碗瓢盆 are the everyday kitchen utensils, so they match the flavors, seamless.

Update
油鹽醬豉姜椒茶

Pinyin : you2 yan2 jiang4 chi3 jiang1 jiao1 cha2
Literally : oil, salt, sauce, fermented soybeans, ginger, pepper, and tea

參見此處，來源於「湖海新聞夷堅續志」（元代 無名氏著），其影印本見此處 (See here, the source (whose scan can be found here)「湖海新聞夷堅續志」is a collection of mysterious stories, whose author is unknown but believed to be someone living in Yuan Dynasty.)


Explanation for 感 in 感叹词 While beginning to learn Chinese, I encounter 叹词 (tàncí) and 感叹词 (gǎntàncí) for the equivalent meaning of interjection in English. I would like to know why the symbol 感 (gǎn) meaning 'to feel' is added and if there is a resulting difference in meaning. In other words, is it proper grammar or necessary to include the 感 symbol?

There is virtually no difference. Perhaps 嘆詞 is more concise than 感嘆詞.
However, 嘆/叹 itself is seldom used alone in modern Chinese. Modern Chinese tends to use bisyllabic words. So we say 感嘆 (to interject), 讚嘆 (to praise), 嘆息 (to sigh) to 'augment' or 'specify' the meaning of 嘆/叹.
嘆詞 is already bisyllabic; but it still doesn't hurt to say it as 感嘆詞.
感 bears the concept of 'to feel'. You interject after you experienced an emotion. It confers neutrality and generality to the word 感嘆 (compare with 讚嘆, which is fairly positive).


Meaning in car/wiring context Whenever I try to use any available translator I've got strange results like
"special for free light".

16款自由光专用
What can this sentence mean in car or electric wiring context?

'For use in a '16 Cherokee'

款 referring to the model type/year (2016)

自由光 being the model (Jeep Cherokee)

专用 Exclusive use / Dedicated


How many supplies did Liu Bei have at Dangyang? I was attempting to translate this passage from the Records of the Three Kingdoms:

  比到當陽，衆十餘萬，輜重數千兩，日行十餘里，別遣關羽乘船數百艘，使會江陵。

The background of this is: Cao Cao had invaded Jingzhou, Liu Bei was fleeing towards Jiangling with 100,000 civilians and supplies, and Guan Yu travelled by river with hundreds of ships. Later, Cao Cao caught up with Liu Bei with 5,000 elite cavalry, captured the civilians and supplies, forcing Liu Bei to flee with very few followers. From here we get the classic episodes like Zhao Yun rescues Adou and Zhang Fei at Changban Bridge.

The question is: how many supplies was Liu Bei travelling with?

See, the original text reads "輜重數千兩" - supplies of several thousand liang/taels. But during the Han dynasty, one Chinese tael was approximately 13.8 grams. If you do the math that's like 30-40 kilograms - one person can carry it! This makes no sense.

What does 兩 in this sentence mean? Could it be an ancient variant of 辆 (measure word for vehicles)? That would make more sense - thousands of carts of supplies.

Yes, 兩 used to have many more meanings.
In the details section of zdic, there's the following additional meanings:

(4) 匹(长四丈)
归夫人鱼轩,重锦三十两。——《左传·闵公二年》
(5) 通“辆”。车一乘 [used for buses,carts,etc.]
武王戎车三百两。——《书·牧誓·序》
之子于归,百两御之。——《诗·召南·鹊巢》

Definition 4 shows that it's also a measure word for silk fabric, but in this context definition 5 would be more appropriate - it is indeed the same as the modern 辆. So "輜重數千兩" should mean "supplies of thousands of carts".


Is it possible to use 璟 for a boy's given name? I am trying to choose a name for my boy and am wondering if i can use 璟 as his given name?
I have googled this but it seems not a lot of people have this name. Instead, most of them use this word 景

璟:ｊǐｎｇ【形】玉的光彩 (The brilliance of jade)
玉 is a neutral name, suitable for male or female. I don't see any reason 璟 would not be.
From 起名网

二、带璟字的男孩名字

(璟超)(璟竑)(璟麟)(璟然)(璟贤)(璟钰)

(璟朝)(璟鸿)(璟凌)(璟荣)(璟显)(璟煜)

........ 中略 ........

(彬璟)(贯璟)(君璟)(群璟)(夏璟)(余璟)


親不見、愛無心 origin of this quote 「親（亲）不見，愛（爱）無心，產（产）不生，廠（厂）空空，麵（面）無麥，運（ 运）無車，導（导）無道，兒（儿）無首，飛（ 飞）單翼，湧（涌）無力，只有魔，还是魔。」

Where does the quote above stem from? I have seen it numerous times, even looked for it but could not figure it out.

呐，是崇尚繁体的某些人撰的文字游戏，嘲讽简体字失去了“内涵”。版本很多，摘其一如下：

親（亲）不見，愛（爱）無心，產（产）不生，廠（厂）空空，麵（面）無麥，運（ 运）無車，導（导）無道，兒（儿）無首，飛（ 飞）單翼，湧（涌）無力，...有雲（云）無雨，開關（开关）無門，鄉（乡）里無郎，聖（圣）不能聽也不能說，買（买）成鈎刀下有人頭，輪（ 轮）成人下有匕首，進（进）不是越來越佳而往井裏走，只有魔，還是魔……（下略）

另外，此文传到大陆以后，亦有人作文反驳：

党（黨）内无黑，团（團）中有才，国（國）含宝玉，爱（愛）因友存，美还是美，善还是善，虽丑（醜）无鬼，只不过台（臺）无吉，湾（灣）无言! 穷（窮）不躬，权（權）不佳，巩（鞏）不革。车（車）不行田，坚（堅）不称臣。无鹿亦能丽（麗），无巫亦能灵（靈），无水亦能灭（滅），无火亦能劳（勞），无曲亦能礼（禮），无手亦能击（擊）。办（辦）事左右不辛苦，垦（墾）荒何必靠豺狼。

实际上跟文字源流关系不大，就是两岸挖苦罢了。


Idiom/成語 for "Worrying Doesn't Change the Outcome" Is there an Idiom/成語 for "Worrying does not change the outcome"?

To be used when someone is spending a lot of time / energy worrying about something that they have no control over.

Thanks for any help!

杞人憂天:

There was a man in Qi always worrying about the sky might fall. People use the term 杞人憂天 to describe someone worry too much, even about the most unlikely events.

Example:

Worry about car accident is one thing, worry about alien invasion or zombie apocalypse is really 杞人憂天


Yahtzee score card — what is the term for a “full house” I'm teaching my mother-in-law how to play Yahtzee so she can more easily join us when we have a family gathering.  She's visiting the USA.
Most things I explained easily enough using Google Translate.  But the term “full house” shows only literal translations.  Does Mandarin (PRC)  have a well-known term for this scoring pattern?
The other thing that left me scratching my head was “chance”.  I had to explain at length.  What's a good simple name for this?

Now, I’d like to make a nice sheet that extends the printed score card to the left, which I'll attach using a paper clip.  Rather than a separate card of notes, this will essentially be a translation of the labels column.  I’m doing this in illustrator and will make the PDF available on the web when I’m done.
So, if anyone would care to note good sound translations for the other items, I’d be interested in those too.  (I posted the linked items as separate questions)

3 of a kind
4 of a kind
Full House
Small Straight (sequence of 4)
Large Straight (sequence of 5)
Chance
Yahtzee! (5 of a kind)  (I found the phonetic transcription on the Zh Wikipedia stub)

Completed
Here is the final project.  Details and files are posted on my page.  Any further input is still appreciated.

翻译参考:

UPPER SECTION 上半部
Aces 一点
Twos 二点
Threes 三点
Fours 四点
Fives 五点
Sixes 六点
TOTAL SCORE 总点数
BONUS 赠点
TOTAL 上半部小计

LOWER SECTION 下半部
3 of a kind 三同花/点
4 of a kind 四同花/点
Full House 葫芦
Small Straight 小(四)顺
Large Straight 大(五)顺
YAHTZEE "压死" 五同花/点
Chance 机会
YAHTZEE BONUS 压死赠点
TOTAL 下半部小计
TOTAL 上半部小计
GRAND TOTAL 总计


勇 character on soldiers' uniforms in movies I don't know much about Chinese military history, but I do see this character appearing on historical uniforms (fictitious or actual)  worn by soldiers in movies, some are set in the Qing dynasty some are earlier.

Is there a tradition of using 勇 in military context? What connotations does this have? Or do you have anything you could contribute concerning this?

This is more of a history question.

勇 is short for 乡勇, which roughly means "militia". They are temporary soldiers recruited from the local population in times of need, and are usually disbanded soon after. Soldiers wearing 勇 on their uniforms was a Qing dynasty thing though; they stood in contrast to the elite Banner Armies and the professional Green Standard Army, both of which could be lifetime occupations.

In movies, you might see Qing soldiers wearing uniforms with either 兵 or 勇 written on it. Those with 兵 would probably be from the Green Standard Army, which was usually employed as a police force, although theoretically Bannermen could be wearing this uniform as well. Those with 勇 would be the militia.

In most cases, 勇 would be of inferior quality to 兵. There is also a connotation of loyalty - as 勇 are raised by local authorities, they tend to be less loyal to the Imperial regime than their local masters. Things were different during and after the Taiping rebellion, where the 勇 were transformed into a standing army called the Xiang Army. The fact that these soldiers were - like their 勇 predecessors - loyal only to their own commanders would foreshadow the Warlord Era, where many of the warlord armies could trace their origins back to various Xiang armies.

Further information here: http://history.sina.com.cn/bk/mqs/2013-12-18/145264781.shtml


What distinguishes modern poetry from prose? The infallible Wikipedia says of modern Chinese poetry:

  "Due to the special structure of Chinese writing and Chinese grammar,
  modern poetry, or free verse poetry, may seem like a simple short vernacular essay since they lack some of the structure traditionally
  used to define poetry."

In its article on free verse as it relates to English literature, we have the following nugget:

  The internal pattern of sounds, the choice of exact words, and the
  effect of associations give free verse its beauty.

Is the same generally true in Chinese as well?

What characteristics (e.g., wordplay, alliteration, sentimental language) distinguish a poem in free verse from an essay or address?

The Wikipedia article on Chinese Poetry is particularly bad, without a single source given for the paragraph on Modern Chinese Poetry. The article on Modern Chinese poetry is equally bad, with most of the references given to a collection of English translations compiled in 1970.

If you're really interested in the subject, try Michelle Yeh's book "Anthology of Modern Chinese Poetry". Although it is now 20 years old, it is still a good survey and will give you a fairly clear idea of what modern Chinese poetry is like and how it has evolved.

If I had to name a characteristic of modern Chinese poetry, it would be that prosody (patterns of words and sound adopted by the poet) is used to give new meaning and emotional impact to ordinary forms of language. Here is an excerpt of a poem by Yang Mu (楊牧), "Let the Wind Recite" (讓風朗誦), that is typical of how modern Chinese poetry reshapes ordinary syntax

假如我能為你寫一首
夏天的詩，當蘆葦
劇烈地繁殖，陽光
飛滿腰際，且向
兩腳分立處
橫流。一面新鼓
破裂的時候，假如我能

為你寫一首秋天的詩
在小船上擺盪
浸濕十二個刻度
當悲哀蜷伏河床
如黃龍，任憑山洪急湍
從受傷的眼神中飛升
流濺 ...

To say that it "seems like a simple short vernacular essay" suggests a very odd idea of what a "vernacular essay" is.


What's the English equivalent of "闺蜜" 闺蜜 in Chinese means two girls have very good relationship, and much closer than normal good friends but they are not lesbians.

The best I can get is the term intimate relationship, but it could be used to describe lesbians. Any other good suggestions?

Preferred translation:
Bestie
New Century English-Chinese Dictionary
Defines Bestie as:

挚友；好哥们儿；闺蜜；死党

Urban Dictionary #1 def:

A person who means the world to you. The person that when you met you just kinda connected. The person that you were always there for. The person that isn't a love partner but they hold a special place in your heart. Someone that when they get hurt it hurts you too. Someone who no matter what happens between you two everything always ends up being alright. A person you can trust with anything.
Richie is her bestie. She is his bestie. They are forever besties no matter what.

and definition #2

An adoring nickname for one you hold in highest esteem, more commonly known as a best friend. A bestie is the person who you not only go shopping with on a regular basis but also trust implicitly with anything.. besties do not come and go like waves and sandcastles, they are more like permanent marker on American Eagle jeans, they'll stay with you forever. It is much better to have one pure andgood bestie who is true to you then multiple 'besties' (even though if theres more than one t usually will not count as a bestie, technically) who are only like pants that stay with you only until you get too fat for them, or you tear them (like hurting them, and then them being all unforgiving), or just until they fade. A true bestie would stick with you through all of it, walking in when the world walks out.
Boyfriend: Hey, wanna go to the movies with me later?
You: Oh my gosh I'm sorry maybe tomorrow I've got plans with my bestie already. I would never blow her off!

An alternative:
Bosom Buddy

Noun
bosom buddy (plural bosom buddies)
A very close friend.


What derogatory terms are there for Chinese people? What derogatory terms are there for Chinese people in Mandarin?

In particular, I am looking for derogatory terms that apply to any person of Chinese ancestry regardless of birthplace, nationality, culture, political affiliation or Chinese language ability. (Examples in English would be "chinaman", "chinky", and "ching chong").

支那
bkrs:

phonetic transcription of China (Japanese: Shina), colonial term, generally considered discriminatory
trad./Budd. China (now derogatory)

It is used for example by Japanese occupiers in《劫中劫》:

支那人 derog. Chinese


What is the meaning of 要 in these sentences? While doing exercises on my book I found some sentences with a use of 要 which I've never seen before and I can't figure out the meaning. The sentences are the following:

他很忙，但是他应该要来参加我的生日晚会
要实现梦想不是一件容易的事 and 要把汉语学好不是一件容易的事

All three examples can be interpreted as a future auxiliary.

  他很忙，但是他「應該要」來參加我的生日晚會

  He is very busy, but he「should be」coming to my evening birthday party.

This「要」is used in the sense of will, going to, like 我明天要上學 (I will be going to school tomorrow). Similarly,

  要實現夢想不是一件容易的事

  To realise (one's) dreams is not an easy matter

  要把漢語學好不是一件容易的事

  To learn Chinese well is not an easy matter


Chinese names: Gah-Ning I'm trying to translate the children's book "Where Is Gah-Ning?" in Chinese. The Gah-Ning in question is Chinese-Canadian, and the book is written in English, so I don't know how to render her name.

I'm thinking 尕拧, because "small-stubborn" fits the character so well, but I don't know if it sounds like a name. It's totally OK if it sounds like a nickname, though.

Any ideas?

Although it is a potentially valid to use the slightly derogatory "cute" nickname, it is much more likely to be a more standard-sounding given name, for example 佳寧 or perhaps 嘉寧, both pronounced Jiāníng in Mandarin and Gā-nìhng in Cantonese. To my ear, both are female names. A quick Google returns quite a few profiles with this exact given name, overwhelmingly female.


What is the correct style/format when including Chinese translations in academic articles? For instance, I would like to write the following sentence about China:

"Many songs were written to praise the Chinese Communist Party and the 'Motherland' ".

By "Motherland", I mean 祖国 ( zuguo / zŭguó).

This is an academic article, and I would like to include both the Chinese characters and the pinyin. What style should I use?

If I'm writing a scholarly article I normally put the Chinese first (Pinyin italicized and before characters) like this:

  Many songs were written to praise the Chinese Communist Party and the zǔguó 祖国 ‘Motherland’.

The reason is that for a linguistically inclined and Chinese-reading audience I'd give primacy to Chinese term. But if it's intended for ordinary readers, I'd make the English the primary focus, this way:

  Many songs were written to praise the Chinese Communist Party and the ‘Motherland’ (zǔguó 祖国).


What is the difference between 租, 租用, 租出, and 租赁, all meaning "to rent"? 租  租用  租出 租赁 DIFFERENCE
How to really say rent or hire in Chinese? The other day I found a sentence with 租用 I have not seen before; I always found 租出 or 租 instead.  What is the difference between them?  I also found on the internet e.g. 租赁。 Does it matter if you are the person who rents or the person is renting like in English, or is there a difference?

Does it matter if you are the person who rents or the person is renting

Yes, there are differences. The main verb is always 租, with different meaning based on different directional complements:

租出去 = to rent out, to lease

You use this term when the subject is the one who lends something for a fee. Example:

我想把我的房子租出去 I want to rent my house (to somebody else)

租下来 = to take out a rent

You use this term when the subject is the one who borrows something for a fee. Example:

这套房子离你公司很近，还是赶快租下来吧 This house is very close to your workplace, let's rent it now (let's take it)

Other words you mention:

租赁 = (to) rent, (to) lease —— dictionaries list this as a verb similar to 租用 (to take on lease) and 出租 (to give on lease), though in practice, it's often used in noun phrases such as 租赁合同 lease contract, 租赁条件 lease conditions, etc.

租用 = to rent —— with the result complement 用，rent and use，I think this is more common in Taiwan


What is the difference between 交易就告成立. and 交易即告成立.? What is the difference between 交易就告成立. and 交易即告成立.?

The catch: Since every book says that 就=即 I considered to create a new sentence out 交易即告成立 by switchin characters.There is no instance of 交易就告成立 have been found by me as of yet. But it should I hope bring the difference between 就 and 即 to the surface.

One native said:

  前者表示已经成立。后者表示还未成立但即将或者很快成立

Some of my reseach:
As far as I know 即 the core meaning is "identity". It seems this character has been merged with 卽(to eat, fast) on the basis of sound and similarity of composition.

Here is the saying from some Buddist book:

  道遠乎哉。即物而真聖遠乎哉 “Is the Way far away? Reality is wherever there is
  identity with things”

即(ji) here is translated as "identical, identity".

another example from some modern manual:

  "CIS即视觉识别系统，其含义是:......"

here 即 again means "namely or identical".

P.S. please, don't tell me it's about food. Or if you do explain how food has something to do with "identity".

P.S.S. IMHO I would say that 即 looks more like a man hunching over tracks on ground 艮+卩. IMHO. IMHO.

P.S.S. Context:

国际商品贸易合同的签汀在交易磋商过程中,一方发盘经另一方接受以后,交易即告成立,贸易双方就构成了合同关系。
在实盘有效期内发盘人受其约束,只要受盘人在规定期限内接受发盘,交易即告成立
...\
P.S.S.S.
From a random guy in the internet:

  若甲方收到乙方发出的订货单后七天内，未通知乙方其不接受该订货单的订货，则视为甲方确认订货单，订货单所载约定产品交易即告成立

  Legally speaking, “即告成立” means that transaction or deal takes effect
  upon the elapse of that seven days.

  The wording I propose should be acceptable in most cases for such
  translation.

The only difference between 交易就告成立 and 交易即告成立 is that the former is more used in spoken language and the latter in written language. 即 in 交易即告成立 is a very formal word and functions as an adverb, meaning "right away/at once/immediately/thereupon". When 即 is used in this sense, usually it can be replaced with 就. There is no difference between 即 and 就 in their meanings or grammatical roles in this case. Another example:

  It took the police only several days to break the case. 该案仅几天即告破/该案仅几天就告破(了).

When used in some idioms, for example, 一触即发, 一拍即合, 稍纵即逝, 即 can't be replaced with 就, though 即 still means "right away/at once/immediately/thereupon" in these words.

As for CIS即视觉识别系统, 即 is a conjunction here. In the construction A即B, 即 roughly means "namely/is also called/equals". B explains or rephrases A. It's not the same with 交易即告成立. 就 can't mean "namely/is also called/equals", so it can't be used in place of 即 in this case.

Your native friend may simply base his/her answer on intuition. If you need an exhaustive explanation, you'd better refer to some Chinese grammar books. @user6065 gave a good reference book 汉语800虚词用法词典.

Edit:

I beg to differ with @wpt's claim that the use of 就 in 交易就告成立 is a misuse influenced by dictionary definition.

Here is the definition of 即 in Contemporary Chinese Dictionary, 6th Edition, page 605.

⑥<书>[副] 就;便：一触~发 | 招之~来 | 闻过~改。

<书> means this meaning of 即 is usually used in written language. [副] means 即 is used as an adverb.

Here, the dictionary used 就/便 directly as the explanation of 即. That's just because 即, 就, 便 all have the meaning of "right away/at once/immediately/something happens soon after another". Except for some idioms and Chengyu(成语), wherever you use 即 in this sense, you can use 就 or 便 in place of 即. The three words are interchangeable grammatically and semantically. As I just said, the only difference is that 即 is more formal than 就 and 便.

There is a paper on the evolution of 即, 就, 便 from verb to function word (adverb and conjunction). cf. “即”、“便”、“就”虚化过程中的错项移植. With regard to when 就 was first used as adverb, the scholars haven't reached an agreement. The author of this paper believes it's no later than Song dynasty (960-1279).

@wpt claimed that 即告 is a set phrase. My opinion is that 即告 is just a commonly used phrase, not a set phrase. Less Google search results doesn't mean 就告 is a misuse. Greater occurrence of 即告 in formal documentatuions doesn't mean it can't be replaced with 就告 gramatically and semantically.


Meaning of 滾水 as Cantonese idiom 滾水 (Cantonese gwan2 seoi2) is used (often in restaurant kitchens) as a warning.
It literally means "boiling water", but I think it indicates that something potentially dangerous or fragile will be coming by immediately.
Does it mean:

Get out of the way (make room for me to pass).
Don't move (I'll steer around you, but you must be predictable).
Something else?

The first two require quite different responses, so it's important to know which is expected.

Speed and efficiency is prized in Cantonese (particularly Hong Kong’s) culture.
If someone tells you he has got 滾水, it literally means that he needs you to make way for him, unless you wish to get scalded while he crashes into you.
This term is commonly used by waiters in Hong Kong eateries, who serve hot food to cramped dining areas.
Nonetheless, it can be used figuratively, even when people aren’t transporting scalding hot items around.
If there are workers pushing boxes of goods across a shopping mall, they might probably shout “滚水!”, so that the crowds can immediately recognise their presence and get out of the way.


What does 飘然而至 mean? My context is an old, untranslated flashcard I've found.
My guess it means "like a feather", referring to low weight and/or susceptibility to outside force.

What are meaningful contexts and according translations for 飘然而至?

It means "to breeze (in)".

To examine this in more detail, the phrase 飘然而至 simply means "to arrive" in a 飘然 manner", and 飘然 has a couple of interconnected meanings:

very quickly
unrestrained, unencumbered; carefree
flowing loosely

A good overall translation would be "to breeze (in)". However, the precise translation can be adjusted depending on the context. For example:

这寒冷的冬季飘然而至 -> "The cold winter arrived swiftly."
凤凰涅槃, 飘然而至 -> "A phoenix flies over nimbly."
绝世美少女飘然而至 -> "A peerless beauty breezes in."
飘然而至的感伤 -> "Sentimental sadness sweeps over (me)." (inspired by @TommieC.'s answer)


Translation: "Shape" (as in "in shape" / "out of shape") how to translate shape as in: to be "in shape" or to be "out of shape"?

just 健康?

In this situation, shape can be translated in to "身材". in shape means "好身材，健康" out of shapemeans "身材走样"

Hope to help you!


Usage of the phrase '不错用' in Taiwan Mandarin I heard my Taiwanese friends use the Mandarin phrase 不错用 more than once, but didn't have a chance to ask them:

Is it widely used in Taiwan, or is it used by a certain circle/type of person?
What's the origin of the phrase, is it from a famous person or TV commercial?
Are there any other phrases in the same pattern? E.g. do people say '不行去'?

Here are some more examples of this style of adjective:

好吃 = 不错吃
好玩 = 不错玩
好用 = 不错用
好喝 = 不错喝

These terms are extremely common in Taiwanese Mandarin, however their origins are unclear. I suspect it's due to a mix of Taiwanese terms and errors in translation.
Let's take one example, the 不錯吃 phrase. At first glance it seems to be an incorrect use of Mandarin grammar; if you want to use those characters correctly you'd get 吃起來不錯. Otherwise what you'd normally use would be 好吃.
However, there are a few sources that say that the origin of the phrase may have come from the Taiwanese (Min, not Mandarin) phrase 未歹食 or 袂歹食. 歹 means "bad" so if you negate it using 未 or 袂 it becomes "not bad". A naive calque may yield the phrase "不難吃", but that doesn't mean the same thing - it means "this doesn't taste bad", which is not the same as "this tastes good". When you negate adjectives, sometimes they become the opposite, but sometimes they become neutral, and it varies from phrase to phrase.
In order to overcome this inconsistency, people may have used
不錯 instead, which does mean "good". In other words, the transition is:

未歹食 -> 不難吃 -> 不錯吃

So you end up with this phrase which seems like bad grammar from a Mandarin perspective, and bad calquing from a Taiwanese perspective. But it's also very commonly used and is here to stay, so just deal with it! :)


"食人" in Classical Chinese of the 先秦 period I'd like to know whether "食人" is used in Classical Chinese of the 先秦 period. I am not looking for "食人肉."

in the book of mencius 孟子, chapter 梁惠王上:

此率獸而食人也

roughly means

This is leading on beasts to devour men.

https://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=gb&id=12876#s10026702
in the same book, chapter 滕文公上:

治於人者食人，治人者食於人

roughly means

those who are governed by others support them; those who govern others are supported by them

https://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=gb&id=13261#s10030257
have fun :)


Would a picture of an ordinary axe be inuitively assoicated with the word 鉞 (yuè) Background:

In this question over at ELU someone posted a picture of a ball with pictures seemingly illustrating the 26 letters of the English alphabet. The only picture that doesn't fit this description is a picture of an axe illustrating the letter Y. In the answers to this question several theories have been presented trying to explain this.

A recent attempt points to the Chinese word 鉞 (yuè) which seem to have the meaning axe. The theory is that this picture might have been used to illustrate the letter Y in a similar context for teaching pinyin.

I don't speak Chinese, but based on Google Translate, I get the impression that words starting with 斧, 斧头 (Fǔtóu), 斧 (Fǔ) and 斧子 (Fǔzi), would be more commonly used for axe. 鉞 seems to be used for axes used as weapons.

Question:

Would someone speaking Chinese intuitively associate this picture of an axe with the word 鉞?

Would it make sense to use this picture to illustrate the letter Y in a series of pictures illustrating pinyin?

Edit:
After some discussion on the original thread, my conclusion is "one of the graphic meant to be printed on the Swedish version of that toy was mistakenly printed on the English version instead."

My original answer is as below:

Would someone speaking Chinese intuitively associate this picture of an axe with the word 鉞?

The answer is no, we wouldn't

Would it make sense to use this picture to illustrate the letter Y in a series of pictures illustrating pinyin?

They are not pictures that illustrate pinyin; The pictures are there as  visual aid to help children to remember English alphabet more easily.
~
There have to be a mistake somewhere --  Q-Queen, W-worm,  N-Nail pairings make sense, but 'Y' and 'Axe' pair doesn't, because the word Axe doesn't begin with Y.
I think the original design was [X-aXe].
The point of this design was to match an alphabet with an easily remembered common word, thus help children to better remember the English alphabet; since there is no common word begin with the alphabet X, the designer made an exception and paired Axe with X, because the pronunciation of Axe is similar to X.
There are two rules in choosing a word to match an alphabet in this design. 1. the word has to begin with the same alphabet. 2. the word has to be common enough for kids to remember. The designer couldn't follow both rules for the alphabet X and decided rule #2 is more important because this is a design for helping kids to remember alphabets.
Although the word 'axe' doesn't begin with 'X', but 'axe' does contains 'X' and it is the prominent alphabet in the word.
The handle of the axe is supposedly the missing lower left part of the alphabet X, which should be painted green to complete the alphabet.
It was either the designer's idea, thinking people would get the idea that the missing part of X was replaced by the axe's handle. Or it was a production error that painted the axe handle with different color.
I am a retired graphic designer.


Why is 大消费组 used here? 我分管该公司研究部大消费组6个消费类行业。
I'm in charge of 6 consumer industries of the research department in this company. I don't understand 大消费组.  It seems to be redundant.

Why is 大消费组 used here? What does it mean in this sentence?

I don't think you should omit it. It's something like Big Consumption Team/Division in the research department. It denotes the Team "I" work in, whereas 消费类行业 denotes the target industries "I" work on/am in charge of.

Thus, the sentence should be,

  I am in charge of 6 consumer industries of the Big Consumption Team in the research department of this company.


Expressing translations between English and Chinese How do I discuss translation in Chinese? I want to express to a Chinese speaker how and English speaker learning Chinese interprets Chinese language (in a few simple cases).

Example 1:
猫 is cat, expressing it's English translation:
在英语中“猫”叫作“cat”。

Example 2:
红茶 is black tea, expressing that I interpret 红 literally as "red":
在英语中“红茶”的译成字面“红色的茶”。
"In English, "红茶" is translated literally as "red tea".

What I am hoping is that people here will provide several different ways to communicate this in Mandarin. Other examples are welcome, of course.

How do I discuss translation in Chinese?

The simplest:

'猫'的英文是 'cat' / '狗'的英文是  'dog' /  'X' 的英文是 'Y'

More detailed:

中文的'猫'字在英文是 'cat' / 中文的'狗'字在英文是 'dog' / 中文的  'X' 字在英文是 'Y'

For standard translation of 红茶:

'红茶'的英文是 'black tea'
'红茶'在英文译作 'black tea'

For literal translation of 红茶:

红茶在英文的词面上就是 'red tea' ('红茶'  literally means 'red tea' in English)
红茶直译成为英文就是 'red tea' (the direct translation of '红茶'  in English would be 'red tea')

There are many more ways you can rephrase the above examples. I didn't even use the word 翻译 (translate) in any of my examples.


When saying Japanese place names like "秋叶原", do people always use the respective Chinese pronunciation? When I hear people talk about Tokyo in Mandarin, they always pronounce it as "dōng jīng" because it's written as 东京. Similarly for Osaka and "dà bǎn" (大阪), and other such places.

Are there any names for places in Japan where this isn't done? For example, is Akihabara still called "qiū yè yuán" (秋叶原) or is it better known as just "Akihabara"? Are there any place names in Japan for which the Japanese pronunciation of the name is better known and more commonly used in China than the Chinese one?

You're right. Chinese people read Kanji using their Chinese pronunciations. For Chinese people who don't speak Japanese, they have probably only learned 'tokyo' from the English word and they don't have a clue what 'akihabara' is. The same applies to nouns, proper nouns and names.


Where to find Iron John in Chinese? Does anyone know if there is a Chinese translation of the book Iron John written by Robert Bly and if there is a translation, is there any website where an e-book version could be purchased? Any information on this would be appreciated.

it’s out of print. however, the hong kong public library has this book, i would suggest you find someone borrow one for copying or scanning, or, . . .
https://webcat.hkpl.gov.hk/lib/item?id=chamo:2334580&fromLocationLink=false&theme=WEB
have fun :)


What are some more detailed dictionaries? In the past few days I read through half of the excellent grammar book by Claudia Ross and Jing-heng Sheng Ma and all of the very enlightening "Aquisition of Word Order in Chinese as a Foreign Language" by Wenying Jiang (I recommend reading both). One of the things that the first book really managed to clear up for me was that the traditional Western grammar terms don't really transfer over to Chinese. A lot of the questions I've had about the language after studying it for several years were cleared up by learning about how stative verbs, open-ended action verbs, change-of-state action verbs, adjectival verbs, complements, etc. are used in quite different ways in Chinese.

The problem is, when I go look up a word in a dictionary, at most it's gonna say "verb" or "adjective", which isn't very helpful to me. I know that I can just translate "adjective" to "adjectival verb", but I wish the dictionary took into account the unique structure of Chinese grammar, rather than presenting simple, familiar terms.

So my question is: are there any Chinese-English dictionaries that provide a, shall we say, less eurocentric grammar?

I asked the same question on Reddit and was recommended the ABC Chinese-English dictionary. It uses many of the terms I have outlined by design.


What is wrong with my sentence 我的同屋睡觉时候想开屋门一点点? I wrote this sentence:

  我的同屋睡觉时候想开屋门一点点.
  Wǒ de tóngwū shuìjiào shíhòu xiǎng kāi wūmén yīdiǎndiǎn.

It was meant to mean "when my roommate sleeps, they like to open the door a little". Our teacher 张老师 made these corrections:

So she corrected it to:

  我的同屋睡觉的时候想开一点点屋门.
  Wǒ de tóngwū shuì jué de shíhòu xiǎng kāi yīdiǎndiǎn wūmén.

I'm not clear as to why.  Judging from Baidu searches for related grammar constructs (睡觉时候 and 说汉语一点), what I wrote is plain wrong, but I don't understand why.  It looks important, so...

Question: What is wrong with my sentence?

Since  睡觉 (to sleep) is a verb that doesn't take object,

时候 (time) as a noun cannot follow 睡觉 directly. To resolve the conflict, we  have to add 的 after 睡觉 to make it an adjectival phrase '睡觉的' as in "睡觉的时候" (sleeping time) -- That would then be grammatically correct

In English, the object is usually placed before  the adverbial phrase -- as in   "open the door a little bit"

But in Chinese, the object is usually placed after the adverbial phrase -- as in "开一点点屋门" ( the object '屋门' follows the adverbial phrase '一点点' )


saying nice to finally meet you in cantonese I have seen 聞名不如見面 to mean 'nice to finally meet you', but am I correct to feel that this is too formal, or still colloquial?
How else do you see 'nice to finally meet you' in an informal environment?

聞名不如見面 is a comment. It means "better to see it in person than belief hearsay".
Example:

"I have heard a lot about Paris, now I am here, it really is 聞名不如見面" (implies the actual place is not what you expected, maybe better, maybe worse, maybe totally different)

If you use this comment as a greeting, you should also state what good thing about that person you've just found out upon meeting him
A polite way to say 'nice to finally meet you' in Chinese is '久仰'
Example:

「陳老師， (初次見面)，久仰，久仰！」- "Master Chen, (first time we meet,) I have always admired you!"

You can skip 初次見面 because 久仰 already indicated you have only been hearing about him but had not met him before
久仰大名 (long time admiring your fame) is a polite way to say "hearing a lot about you for a long time"
幸會 (it is a fortunate meet) is also a polite way to say the same thing, but not as humble as 久仰
Example:

「陳老師，(初次見面)，幸會，幸會！」

Another polite way to say "nice to finally meet you" in Cantonese is to  "「好榮幸，終於同你見面！」 (It is an honor to finally meet with you)
If you don't want to be too formal, you can say:「真係好高興，終於同你見面！」(glad to finally meet you)


How you know multiple characters are one concept I don't know much Chinese but am looking up some basic words to see how it works. For example, the word 天地 translates in English to "world". However, the individual characters translate to this:

天: Day.
地: Ground.

However, Google Translate also translates 天下 as "the world".

天: Day
下: Under

Another example of 2 becoming 1 concept is 种子, "seed":

种: Species
子: Child

That makes sense to translate it into one concept "seed" (unlike the "world" example). But I still don't see how you know when to group characters together into single concepts.

Finally, as one of my first sentences, I am looking at this: 第二道河名叫X, which Google Translate makes into "The second river is called X." The individual components are:

第: First.
二: Two.
道: Road.
河: River.
名: name.
叫: Call.
X: X.

First two road river name call x.

That doesn't make too much sense in direct translation.

The pinyin equivalent divided the Chinese characters into these chunks: 第二, 道, 河, 名叫, X, so those 2-character chunks translate to:

第二: Second
名叫: Name

Second road river Name X.

That makes a bit more sense.

What I would like to better understand is how you learn to group the characters into more complex concepts, and separate them from other concepts (as in 天地 world vs. 天 day and 地 ground). Since Chinese doesn't have spaces, it seems there must be some technique, or perhaps you have to learn the individual pairings/combinations of characters as single "words" or concepts in school at some point, provided with definitions like a dictionary.

Modern Chinese prefer words rather than characters. The former way you translate a Chinese sentence is probably more suitable for ancient Chinese (known as 文言文).

It is not a big problem for a native Chinese speaker to naturally divide those characters into words, however for beginners, it can be hard. But guess what, dividing Chinese characters into chunks is a well-known research direction remaining unsolved in natural language processing and machine translation.

So the answer to your question is: The more combinations you know, the more accurately you can divide. You can hover your cursor on the words in Google Translate, and Google will tell you its (guessed) division scheme.


How to pronounce 的 in 所有的? In particular, in the song 耶稣喜爱世上小孩, the second line 世上所有的小孩 sounds as though it were pronounced shìshàng suóyǒu dì xiǎohái.  Is that correct?  Thank you for your help; my ear for Chinese is not yet well developed.

If it's on a downbeat, accented note, then definitely "di". If it's short and unaccented, then it really does not matter. It's probably why you could not tell when you heard it. If you are singing, sing "di" to play safe.


Subway door announcement mystery I think probably every metro system around the world has to have an audio announcement warning passengers to stay away from the train's doors as they're closing. Here in New York, a pre-recorded voice phrases it this way:　"Stand clear of the closing doors, please."

Hong Kong MTR's announcement is given three times: in Cantonese, Mandarin, and English. Working backwards, the English is similar to New York's, but worded slightly differently: “Please stand back from the doors." The Mandarin took me a little while to deduce, but I am fairly confident it is this: "請不要靠近車門" / "qing buyao kao jin chemen" / something like "please do not lean near the vehicle doors."

But my question to you is this: What is the Cantonese?  An audio file is linked at the end of this post. It seems to be one less syllable than the Mandarin, which is what I find surprising.  I don't know Cantonese Romanization conventions, so I apologize in advance for butchering this, but it sounds to me as something like：Sing ge kao gen sa mon.  That makes me think it is basically a different pronunciation of 請__靠近車門, but what in Mandarin is rendered as 不要 is condensed in Cantonese into just one syllable.  Is that right?

Here's the audio. The announcement starts about 15 seconds into the 30-second clip.

http://startsandfits.com/audio/MTRdoors-mp4.mp4

Thanks in advance for any clarity.

The word you are looking for is 勿:

  請勿靠近車門 cing2 mat6 kaau3 gan6 ce1 mun4 (Jyutping romanization)

The usage of 請勿 ("Please don't") is considered formal or literary in Cantonese, so it's not typically heard in common speech, but you'll often see it on signs or in public announcements.

EDIT: Just wanted to also add that your deduction of the Mandarin is exactly correct.


Difference between 成员 and 会员? Is there any difference between 成员 and 会员? Both mean member. I encountered this in a Level 2 Chinese workbook. Are they used in different contexts?

成员 means member in a generic sense.

It can refer to a member of any organization, like a team (e.g. 团队成员), a class (e.g. 班级成员), a party (e.g. 党派成员), a tribe (e.g. 部落成员), a crew (e.g. 机组成员), a committee (e.g. 委员会成员), the jury (e.g. 陪审团成员), etc.

It can be extended to mean an element/component/constituent of an object, for example in Computer Programming, a variable defined on a class is called 成员变量.

会员 also means member but with much narrower usage. It is used only when

The organization is a membership club, e.g. 俱乐部会员 -or-
The Chinese translation of the organization ends with 会, e.g. 国会会员.

Generally, 会员 can be replaced with 成员 but not the other way round. 俱乐部成员 sounds equally correct and natural as 俱乐部会员, but for member of the jury you can only say 陪审团成员 while 陪审团会员 is wrong and sounds funny.


How do I say "convince (someone) that (something)"? Convince -> 说服

How do I phrase a sentence, such as:

  I should convince her that it is not her fault.

Does this work (sounds odd): 我应该说服她，这不是她的错。

Or is there a more understandable / grammatically correct way of phrasing it?

Thanks!

To convince:

to make (someone) believe = "使.....相信"

Example: 使她相信 (make her believe) 這不是她的錯 (that it is not her fault)

to make (someone) +(verb) = "說服" +(verb)

Example:  說服( convince)她相信 (her to believe) 這不是她的錯 (that it is not her fault)

*相信 in this sentence is a verb that can be replaced with other verb, for example: "deny"

  I should convince her that it is not her fault.

base on the context of in this sentence, you are not convincing her to act, but convincing her to believe, so "使她相信這不是她的錯" is the  appropriate phrasing.


What's the difference between Classical Chinese and Modern Chinese? What I mean by difference is its grammatical difference. How is Classical Chinese grammatically different from today's Chinese? Is modern Chinese's golden rule similar or equivalent to some rules in Classical?

If someone would lead me to a page or answer that would be appreciated.

The following is an excerpt from wikipedia, Classical Chinese Grammar:

  Grammar

  Further information: Classical Chinese lexicon

  Classical Chinese is distinguished from written vernacular Chinese in
  its style, which appears extremely concise and compact to modern
  Chinese speakers, and to some extent in the use of different lexical
  items (vocabulary).[citation needed] An essay in Classical Chinese,
  for example, might use half as many Chinese characters as in
  vernacular Chinese to relate the same content.

  In terms of conciseness and compactness, Classical Chinese rarely uses
  words composed of two Chinese characters; nearly all words are of one
  syllable only. This stands directly in contrast with modern Chinese
  dialects, in which two-syllable words are extremely common. This
  phenomenon exists, in part, because polysyllabic words evolved in
  Chinese to disambiguate homophones that result from sound changes.
  Similarly, Chinese has acquired many polysyllabic words in order to
  disambiguate monosyllabic words that sounded different in earlier
  forms of Chinese but identical in one region or another during later
  periods. Because Classical Chinese is based on the literary examples
  of ancient Chinese literature, it has almost none of the two-syllable
  words present in modern Chinese languages.

  Pronouns

  Classical Chinese has more pronouns compared to the modern vernacular.
  In particular, whereas Mandarin has one general character to refer to
  the first-person pronoun ("I"/"me"), Literary Chinese has several,
  many of which are used as part of honorific language (see Chinese
  honorifics), and several of which have different grammatical uses
  (first-person collective, first-person possessive, etc.).[citation
  needed]

  Syntax

  In syntax, Classical Chinese is always ready to drop subjects, verbs,
  objects, etc. when their meaning is understood (pragmatically
  inferable). Also, words are not restrictively categorized into parts
  of speech: nouns used as verbs, adjectives used as nouns, and so on.
  There is no copula in Classical Chinese, "是" (pinyin: shì) is a copula
  in modern Chinese but in old Chinese it was originally a near
  demonstrative ("this"); the modern Chinese for "this" is "這" (pinyin:
  zhè).

  Word order

  The Classical Chinese word order is often the reverse of Mandarin; for
  example, Mandarin 饒恕 (pinyin: ráoshù, "forgive") is Classical 恕饒
  (Classical Chinese: ŋjew hnjas).1 [2]


Very frequently used word in Mandarin that sounds like "nica" or "nigah" I work in a group where I am the only person that does not speak Chinese, thus I hear Chinese conversations all day every day.

I've noticed that there's a word which is used extremely frequently, in almost every sentence, sometimes 2 - 3 times per sentence.

It sounds like "nicka" or "nigah"... two syllables, "ni", "nig", or "nic" is the first and then "ah" or "uh" is the 2nd.

I heard one person explain it once offhand to another English speaker in the office as meaning "something", "that", or "that thing right there", but I'm not sure how good of an explanation that was. I was wondering if you could tell me what the word is and how you'd describe its usage?

Without having any real idea of what it means, it almost seems to me like it's being used like the word "uh" in English (like "I want to you pull that data and uh, then make a PowerPoint showing the summary and uh..."). I've taken some very basic Chinese on Coursera.org and via Pimsluer tapes, but neither explained this to my knowledge.

Update:
I tried speaking this word into the speech-to-translation part of the Google Translate iPhone app and one time it came out as "That one" and one time it came out as "Your".

The word your hear is probably 那個 (in traditional characters) / 那个 (in simplified characters). It is pronounced nàge or nèige (in the Pinyin transcription), and it's basic meaning is ‘that’ or ‘that one’.

Chinese Grammar Wiki has a nice explanation of how nèige is used as a filler word (follow the link to see examples):

  In conversation, you may find yourself at a loss for words, unable to find the correct phrase you are looking for, or simply needing time to gather your thoughts. When you experience this feeling, in English, you may say "umm" or another filler word. In Chinese, the word for this is 那个 (nèige). (The word 那个 can be pronounced both "nàge" and "nèige," but for this usage, "nèige" is normally used.)


Have any fonts been released that are based on slender gold? I remember the first time I saw slender gold I had something like an 'am I dreaming?' moment. That's not how characters were supposed to look! The lines aren't supposed to cross, etc., etc.

But wait, it actually looked better than characters were supposed to look. The same way grass script makes kaiti look 'uptight', 瘦金體 makes kaiti look 'lazy', and clerical look 'boring'.

At this point, one year down the line, slender gold is my favorite calligraphy style. In fact, I am trying to learn it, and I wish that everything I printed out in chinese could be in slender gold. Is there a slender gold font?

You can download them at:

http://www6.flash8.net/font/2933.shtml (traditional)

http://www6.flash8.net/font/4101.shtml (simplified)

If you like this kind of style, you may also be interested in 鋼筆書法


Chinese Languages With Multi-syllabic Readings Of Single Characters Are there any Chinese langauges (topolects/dialects) that have multi-syllablic readings for single Characters?
Like, Japanese for instance has a lot of multi-syllablic readings for single Characters e.g:
者

もの (mono)

Do any Chinese language(s) have this feature?

The closest to your idea are the contracted characters, most of them created during the 20th century. Some examples include

圕 tuan1, short for 图书馆
瓩 qian1, short for 千瓦, kilowatt, (where the thousand/kilo part is actually wrapped right to the 瓦 character for aesthetic or 'economic' reasons, despite the fact that the multiplier of quantities always comes first), or
兙 shi2, short for 十克, decagram (same story as 瓩)
浬 li3, short for 海里, nautical mile, yet another contraction.

Some other similar characters have not yet made into the Unicode tables, so you won't find them online.

I think it's important to point out that these are modern day contractions owing to the nature of all language users: trying to be economical in writing. These characters popped up for the same reasons like the dollar sign ($), or the the copyright sign (©) and so on, they are pure abbreviations to save the writer from having to write out multiple characters. I think it's hard to accept them as real multisyllabic characters, mainly because they tend to have a monosyllabic reading, too.


Are we allowed to omit 在 in 在…里，在…内 structure? Based on an online dictionary :

  在…里，在…内 :

  Inside or not further than an area or period of time

And here are some examples (provided by the dictionary) of how 在…里 or 在…内 is used :

  Two thirds of Californians live within 15 miles of the coast.

  三分之二的加利福尼亚人居住在离海岸15英里以内的地区。

  In 1992 cross-border controls within the EU were dismantled.

  1992年，欧盟内部取消了边境通行管制。

  For orders within the UK, please enclose £2.50 for post and packing.

  英国国内的订货，请附上2.5英镑的邮资及包装费用。

  We recommend that this wine should be consumed within six months.

  我们建议该酒在6个月内饮用完毕。

  Within hours of the tragedy happening, an emergency rescue team had been assembled.

  悲剧发生后几小时之内，就集结起来一支紧急救援队伍。

From those examples, we can see that "在" is being omitted in some sentences. Now, what I want to ask is :

Are we allowed to omit 在 anytime we want to or is there any specific rules/conditions of when we are allowed to omit 在?

In my experience(correct me if there's any exception), the structure '在...里'(as well as '在...前', '在...后', '在...上', '在...下' etc), when followed by '的' and then a noun, serving as an adj, is allowed to omit 在.
Examples: 房子里的人，公园里的树，信里的字.
And when it's after a verb as an adv, you can't omit 在.
Examples: 站在房子里，种在公园里，写在信里.
btw, I don't think the first sentence is correctly parsed:

Two thirds of Californians live within 15 miles of the coast.
三分之二的加利福尼亚人居住在离海岸15英里以内的地区。

15英里以内 -> no more than 15 miles
离海岸15英里以内 -> no more than 15 miles from the coast
离海岸15英里以内的地区 -> areas that are no more than 15 miles from the coast
居住在离海岸15英里以内的地区 -> live in areas that are no more than 15 miles from the coast
there's no '在...内' structure in this sentence at all.


What does 三人行，必有我师 mean? So I'm learning some of Confucius' sayings, and one that I came across was 三人行，必有我师. I tried to translate it but I don't understand...

What does it mean?

There are two points that you should know:

In Chinese culture, 3 does not often  mean a exact quantity. That is, there may be 2,3,4 or many persons around you. There are many other phrases,for example, 狡兔三窟, 三思而后行,三番五次.
So this sentence means: We should keep modest to find out merit of the people around you and learn from them. There is a idiom in western culture, Stay hungry, Stay foolish, which has the same meaning.


How do you translate "share" in the context of social media I'm creating a website in Chinese and realize I dont have translations for small UI terms, such as:
- About
- Latest recipe
- Read More
- Share (In the context of Social Media)
- Nutritional value
- Search

I feel as though these terms would require another level of understanding of their context, and cant be simply translated word for word. Any help with this would be greatly appreciated!

About - 關於

Latest recipe - 最新食譜

Read More - 更多

Share (In the context of Social Media) - 分享

Nutritional value - 營養價值

Search - 搜索


What is this proverb? I met someone who told me a proverb which in English read as follows:

  Wake up late and you lose the morning. Wake up early and you lose the
  whole day.

She repeated it in Mandarin very quickly before I left, but if it helps the last word was 天.

Do you know this proverb?

(熬夜)晚起毀上午，早起(學習)傻一天

熬夜晚起毀上午
晚起毀上午
Getting up too late will lose a morning.

早起學習傻一天
早起傻一天
Getting up too early will have no spirit all day long.


What is the difference between using the 能 and 得 potential forms? For example, "我不能睁开我的眼睛" and "我睁不开我的眼睛" (不 obviously being the negation of the 得 potential form). What is the difference in nuance between these two sentences?

我不能睁开我的眼睛

This sentence means, "I cannot open my eyes," with the implication that the speaker is not allowed to or otherwise constrained.

  我睁不开我的眼睛

This sentence means, "I am physically incapable of opening my eyes." (睁不开 sounds like, "[my eyes] are unopenable").


What are the correct characters for 直接用自己的bǎolǐng象却换掉了对方的这个c3马 describing Caruana's recent surprise chess move? In this chess video, chess grandmaster 杨凯淇 describes a recent remarkable chess game where super-GM Caruana violated a chess principle:

在这个局面当中，走了象吃c3。直接用自己的bǎolǐng象却换掉了对方的这个c3马。
杨凯淇

I don't know what "bǎolǐng" means here, although I'd guess bǎo is 保.  In English, we'd call the bishop the "fianchettoed bishop", borrowing from Italian.  I'm also not sure if 却 is correct.  So we might translate this to:

In this position, [he] moved the bishop to c3.  [He] directly swaps his fianchettoed bishop for his opponent's c3 knight.

Question: What are the correct characters for 直接用自己的bǎolǐng象却换掉了对方的这个c3马?

It is called "堡垒象".
Not bao3ling3, but bao3lei3.


Is 如果我们，所有的学生，没有我们的中文老师，我们就永远不能站起来在听众前面说中文 grammatical and does it makes sense? English:

  If we, all the students, never had our teachers, we would never be able to stand and speak Chinese in front of an audience.

My variation in Chinese:

  如果我们，所有的学生，没有我们的中文老师，我们就永远不能站起来在听众前面说中文。

I want to know if this sentence is correctly translated and makes sense in terms of Chinese grammar.

P.S. This is for a spoken performance in a competition. I would also like to know if I can actually say it like this.

如果没有老师，我们——所有学生——就绝不可能在听众面前说中文。

I think that "all the students" must be translated and not omitted; here it is used for emphasis.  And "would never be able to " is 绝不可能。


Can someone verify the meaning and age of these ancient Chinese characters? I came across this interesting article which attempts to support the Christian Genesis story by showing the meaning of some ancient Chinese characters. I would like to verify the meaning of these characters and their use*.

Supposedly, the characters are based on the Oracle Bone scripts which I think are the oldest known Chinese manuscripts. Since this would place them at about 3000 years old it is likely that if these characters are still in use today their meanings have changed some or completely.

I am not interested in opinions on whether these characters lend credence to the Genesis story. I am interested only in the meaning of the characters for the time frame suggested.

[EDIT:]
As the address of the article changed(fixed), I would list the characters mentioned in the article here, in case the link goes dead again:

船  婪  造  完  禁  園  魔

Most characters are composed of a phonetic and a semantic component.
The phonetic component is a character with a similar pronunciation (...or at least the pronunciation was similar at the time the character was created). The semantic component (or signific) indicates the meaning, although usually very vaguely (again, meanings--like pronunciations--change over time). For more info, see the wiki article.
Classic example:

妈 (mā, mother) ＝ 女 (nǚ, woman) ＋ 马 (mǎ, horse)
The "horse" component is purely phonetic (and a relatively good phonetic too!), and the "woman" component hints as to the meaning.

The author of the linked article is obviously grossly mistaken as to the construction of Chinese characters, both in general, as well as in the specific cases he brings up. I'll offer non-ridiculous analyses for the characters listed, based mostly off of the very useful Chinese character etymology website. I give the pronunciations for the phonetics and the meanings of the semantics:

船 (chuan2, boat) =  舟 (older word for boat) + 㕣 (yan3)
婪 (lan2, covetous/greedy) =  林 (lin2) + 女 (woman... sorry ladies)
造 (zao4, create/cause) = 告 (report) + 辶 (foot, walk); original meaning in Old Chinese: "appear in court"
完 (wan2, complete) = 宀 (building/roof) + 元 (yuan2)
禁 (jin4, to forbid) = 林 (lin2) + 示 (omens)
園 (yuan2, garden) = 袁 (yuan2) + 囗 (enclosure)
魔 (mo2, wizard/magic/demon) = 麻 (ma2) + 鬼 (ghost/monster)

As you can see, almost all of the characters are semantic-phonetic compounds. Also, the forms of the characters shown in the article are modern ones, not oracle bones forms.
Addendum:
I chose not to give the meanings of the phonetic components in my analyses because I don't want to encourage the widely held (and incredibly wrong) perception that characters have no phonetic content and that every part of a character "means" something. Certainly some characters are pictograms (e.g., 马 = horse) or semantic-compunds (e.g., 焚), but the vast majority are semantic-phonetic compounds. I also chose not to repeat the analyses given in the article, since I think it would only increase the likelihood of people taking them seriously.
For the OP's benefit, I will do a more detailed analysis for "garden" which looks at the makeup of the phonetic character and compares it to the analysis given in the article:
The analysis given to us in the article is:

園 (garden) = 土 (dust) + 口 (breath literally "mouth") + ??? (two people) + 囗 (enclosure)

I think I made clear how the entire inner content of the box is a component used purely for its phonetic value (and therefore the article writer is mistaken in analyzing it for its meaning).
However, the article's analysis is flawed in several other ways as well:

It treats the character as being made up of 4 components. Even if it were a semantic-compound, it would be made up two parts: 袁 (???) + 囗 (enclosure). The former character survives in modern Chinese only as a surname, so it's unclear what in the hell they would mean put together. I think 袁 once meant graceful, so I guess "graceful wall".

The phonetic part (袁) is itself a pictogram of a pendant over the character for clothing; not 土 + 口 + ???. The fact that the modern form (which doesn't look like the Seal script form) appears to contain a 土 and a 口 isn't really relevant.

Even assuming it made sense to analyze 袁 into sub-components, and even assuming the seal-script components were the same as the modern ones, the author has done it wrong. The "two people" fragment given is not even a character. You could write "two people" as the character for person twice 人人 (doesn't look like it), use the "two people radical" 彳 (also doesn't look it), use the word "from" 从 (still doesn't look like it). What the fragment the article author wrote down as "two people" is actually the bottom part of 衣. It's a pictogram that originally depicted fabric.

You commented "I just need a clear answer: do the characters mean that or not?". I hope this answer has elucidated how the article's author was wrong on pretty much every level you can be wrong on. If you want that in yes/no format, I'm pretty sure it's "no no no no no...".