What is this 予以 doing in my sentence? From the meanings I find for '予以 = give, grant' I can't really see what it is doing here. Maybe the Chinese is '予以推进 = give/produce advancement'， but 予以 may also mean 'impose' I believe. Maybe the sense is 'force advancement'??

李记者：您认为我国在发展“低碳经济“方面，可能会采取哪些政策措施予以推进。
吴先生： 我国在推进“低碳经济”时，。。。

Which policy/political measures do you think it is possible to adopt to advance China's  'low carbon economy'?

Edit：Just got a suggestion: Can I replace '予以‘ with '帮助‘？

Edit again:

What is not clear to me from your comments is: Is 予以 a particle or a word with meaning, or both at  the same time? In wpt's example sentence below, I see no unavoidable reason to interpret '表扬‘ as a verb. It can equally be considered a noun and  予以 just means give. Why invoke special properties for 予以？

有特殊貢獻者應予以表揚
have special contributors should give praise.
There are special contributors (who we) should give praise to.

予以 is a conjunction-like thing that is something like English "as a means of", "for purposes of", and is often used in officialese to keep things comfortably vague. Use it when you are writing a report to your boss.

Postscript:

My answer works when 予以 occurs between two verb phrases.  I would call the phrases I used 'functional equivalents', not literal translations.

As Shawn's answer notes, 予以 sometimes occurs between noun phrase and verb. In this case, you will have to translate a different way. Here is another example:

有特殊貢獻者應予以表揚
Those who have made special contributions should be recognized.

The grammar used here is literary Chinese, and the original meaning of 予以 as 'give + indirect obj marker' is very clear.  The subject is the direct object, hence in English, the whole thing is passive. Many native speakers don't really know how to use this type of literary construction.


Issues with machine translation from Traditional to Simplified (not vice versa) I'm trying to translate my website into Traditional and Simplified Chinese.

I have a full human translation for it into Traditional Chinese and I was wondering about what errors and inaccuracies can be caused by machine translating into simplified.

(I'd use a tool like Google Translate, the Word 2010 translation plug in or another online tool)

Although there's a reasonable amount written about the problems translating from Simplified to Traditional there's very little I can find for the reverse.

There seems to be only a small number of characters which are 2:1 for traditional to simplified and I didn't think there were any grammar differences. But I also can't quite imagine something as complicated as language translation by machine would work perfectly. What kind of problems exist for traditional to simplified translation?

EDIT: I chatted to an IT technician in Hong Kong. His points on the subject were:

There's still a margin of error from traditional to simplified, get it proof read if you can.

Watch out Chinese punctuation. It's different heights (middle in traditional and bottom in simplified).

Doing any of this in Adobe if you want pdf's is very hard.

You might be interested in the opencc project. Besides trad-to-simp and simp-to-trad conversion, it can also convert different common word usage in different areas. For example, 「程式」 to 「程序」. And it also deals with the small difference between Simplified and Traditional Chinese you've mentioned in your question.


What is the difference between 毕竟, 究竟, 到底, 终究, and 总归? 毕竟, 究竟, 到底, 终究, and 总归 - these words mean "after all" in Chinese. For example,

  毕竟我每次去巴黎，从来没有感到任何不适，有的只是满满的幸福感。

However, I wonder whether there is any difference between these words. According to the question and answers here, you can get to know the difference between 究竟 and 到底, but how about the other words?

For example, can I just replace the 毕竟 with one of the other words it the example sentence?

The only real answer to this is reading a stack of Chinese texts and picking it up by osmosis. It's a gut-feel thing. But there are at least two cheats you can use to build intuition fast. Check out the raw frequency on google ngram viewer (to look at all your terms at once, make sure you're typing English commas as separators not Chinese ones). Two interesting things there: 终究 and 终归 are dramatically rarer than the other three, so they're probably formal or jargon-y. Worth avoiding unless you have extra special motivation. Also 到底 spikes massively from the 60's to the 80's. Sometimes google ngrams spike for no reason at all, or butterflies-flapping-their-wings-in-brazil reasons, but also, things that spike like that over that time period are often anti-pretentious earthy language of the 老百姓. （See also 革命，前进， and the spectacular crash in the frequency of 之... these can't all be brazil butterflies, right?)
A better way is to check out usage-in-context, ichacha.net has a good collection of these, there are plenty of other good sources. From their example lists you can see things like the way 究竟 appears very often in rhetorical questions, where 毕竟 is much more associated with statements.
"You're my mistress, not my wife" feels very different from "However did you get here without a car?", although they're both sort of in the "after all" zone, the first is much more typical of 毕竟 and the second is much more typical of 究竟. Check out the full lists on ichacha and see for yourself!


Meaning of "也是吼"? Is it slang/colloquialism? I'm looking for the meaning of "也是吼." It popped up in an instance without context. (It was its own sentence.)
I tried googling it and saw it popped up in books and on twitter so I was wondering if it's a slang term since I couldn't find it in a dictionary. Thanks.

It’s not a complete sentence. It’s something you’d say as a response in a conversation.

也是 means something like “indeed” in this scenario.

吼 is a word used at the end of sentences to express “emotion”. A close approximation would be “yeah...” in English.

Therefore, ”也是吼” means “yeah, right” or “yeah, indeed” when translated into English.


What is the verb of 要回过头来走老一辈的路? In the following sentence:

  奏月家从爷爷那一辈就开始做豆腐，奏月的父亲不能理解，女儿读完大学，为啥要回过头来走老一辈的路，干这种苦差事呢？

I think the sentence would mean something like the following:

  奏月's family started the tofu business from grandfather's age. 奏月's father cannot understand why his daughter want to follow what her grandfather did, even if she had a bachelor degree. It's not a good job.

But I don't understand how it works grammatically on the bolded part. Specifically,

要: auxiliary verb, to mean "will" or "going to"
回过头来走: should be verb
老一辈的路: the path of her grandfather

Now, about the verb phrase:

If 回 is a verb and 过 is a past particle, what does 头来走, specifically 头 mean?
If 过 is a part of 过头 (go beyond the limit), what does 来走 mean here? Is it a particle? So 回 (come) and 过头 (go beyond the limit) and 来走 combined, it is something like the will + come + to go beyond the limit + to take the path of (来走), right? Or does 来 work as to~ (in the form of V + 来 + V), and not a particle?
Also, if 过头 is a verb here, what does the sentence mean at all? I feel go beyond the limit is quite an awkward here...

"回过头来走" should be interpreted as 回(过)头 - 来 - 走. Then

回头 - turn round
来 - to
走 - go/follow

过 is used for denoting the completeness status.

  用在动词后,表示完毕。如:吃过(吃完);起过(已经起床完毕)

Your understanding of the whole sentence is correct; but you lost the meaning of "回过头来" (turn round backward). 奏月's father is confusing; his daughter has graduated from college and could engage in some modern, advanced or easy job definitely. But she still decided to take tofu making as the work, even it's old, and hard.


pronunciation of 人 - regional or gender differences? To my English tuned ear, these audio files of people pronouncing 人 sound very different.

My colleague (a native Mandarin speaker) insists they are the same sound, and thinks I am just confused because one speaker has a higher pitched voice. He said something about one speaker having a more feminine voice, but I'm not sure which of the two he meant.

I'm happy to accept that I'm tuning into a non-key part of the phoneme, but to my ear these sounds sound consistently very different from speaker to speaker.

The Wikipedia page on Mandarin phonology has an explanation for the variation:

ɻ (a retroflex approximant) varies as ʐ (a voiced retroflex fricative), depending on the speaker.

I've also heard other speakers where a sound more like the English Y was more prominent. Is this difference something native speakers notice? Is it considered a regional variation, or as my colleague seems to be suggesting that one is more masculine and the other more feminine?

The two speakers sounded like they were both saying 人 with a [ ɻ ]. One's voice was higher pitched and the recording conditions were different though. In practice, you're going to run into pronunciations way more divergent than those. All the people I've met from 青田 say it with a [z] (note: not a pinyin "z"). Also, I've run into a few people who use an [l]!

My advice: Listen to a lot of people, chat with a lot of people. You'll pick up on which distinctions are important, which aren't, and which are regional.


How to say "this?" interjection in chinese? For example of a case:

(I was in home walking holding a jar of chocolate candy, I was gonna go to upstairs)
Mom: (She saw me and she called me from behind) "Where did you buy that?"
Me: (I was a bit startled, I turned back and showing up the jar) What?! This? <== I need chinese translation of the bold text.

How about "什么？！这个？” ?

Yes, 什么？ 这个？ is correct.

You could also say something like:

你说的是这个？ (are you talking about this?) to clarify that what they're talking about is in fact the candy.


Meaning of 重剑 aside from the fencing sword epee The main translation of 重剑 is epee, which is a fencing sword. However, in a novel, I saw the term used in a fighting scene. It was also described to be placed on the character's back. Since the two words separately are heavy and sword, is it possible that the author meant it to be a broadsword or something similar?

Most likely, it means heavy sword. In this case, we should comprehend it separately. So 重剑 can mean a very heavy sword. It's not that epee in sports.


A single English word equivalent for "逆天"? There is most likely not a direct translation for "逆天" which means "breaking common sense", but I'm just curious if there is a single word that can represent that phrase.

OP( overpowered ) is pretty good I think!


How would you say "X, the Y" in Chinese? I am currently learning Mandarin in Simplified Chinese. I've just started learning so I cannot speak all that well. However, here is my problem:

I have a Chinese family coming over. They are proud that I am learning so I am making a greeting for them in Chinese. I also happen to have a pet moth, named "Seven". I think in Chinese the kanji for moth is 蛾. To put it simply, I want to write "Seven the Moth" on its tank and am I confused now.

One way is literally 七蛾 (seven moth), like "moth" is the title of Seven, like a name with Mr. or Miss or the title at the end. But then, they may think there are seven moths.

So, I think for another way using "de" like 蛾的七 (moth de seven), but I don't think this is correct, as it refers to an adjective modifying a noun.

The last way I can think of is like the first but reversed: 蛾七 (moth seven) which sounds the most correct, but I have no idea what to write.

What should I write on the tank?

Domestic animals like dog, cat, horse, cow, pig, goat, chicken and duck are often described with a single syllable word in Chinese:

狗，猫，马，牛，猪，羊，鸡，鸭

There are few exceptions, For example, snake is not a domestic animal, but it is still being called with the single syllable word 蛇

For other animals, it is customary to use two syllables words to refer them.

For example:

Tiger (虎), is always called 老虎

Elephant (象) is always called 大象

Monkey (猴) is always called 猴子

Frog (蛙) is always called 青蛙

In the case of moth(蛾), it is always called 飛蛾

So, your should refer your pet moth as  '飛蛾'

Calling someone by a single syllable name is rare because it sounded blunt. Most of the time we would add title or a name prefix (indicates a noun is a name) to make it a two syllable name.

For example:

The name '七' would be '小七, 阿七 or 七仔' in day-to-day conversation

In your case, "my pet-- Seven the moth" should be translated as '我的宠物--  飛蛾小七 (or '阿七)'

Or you can say: " 小七, 我养的飛蛾" (little Seven, the pet moth I keep)

Edit: one more suggestion:

Since you called Chinese character as kanji, here is another suggestion-- 'Seven' in Japanese is なな (nana). You could call it '娜娜(Nana), which is a common female pet name.


What are the etymologies of 局 and 局面? As far as I know 局 applies to everything which demands crooking ones body. A job behind a desk almost always means you are sitting with your back bent: A small office is 局, a chess game is 局, a game in general is 局, everywhere you sit with bent back is 局.

So I was wondering about 局 as a "situation, phase".

my thinking:

"game" + "board" = chess game + board = how things are positioned on the board.
 Is this line of reasoning correct?

The etymology of 局

1st interpretation

  促也。从口在尺下，復局之。『說文解字』
  促也。以㬪韵爲訓。从口在尺下復局之。尺所以指厈規榘事也。口在尺下。三緘其口之意。『說文解字注』

Upper part of 局 represents 尺 (ruler), alluding to rules and canons.
Lower (inside) part of 局 represents 口 (mouth), alluding to unbounded freedom.
口 (mouth) is under (inside) 尺 (ruler): 局 implies a sense of constraint.

2nd interpretation

  一曰博，所以行棊。象形。『說文解字』
  一曰博所㠯行棊。象形。博當作簙。簙、局戲也。六箸十二棊。簙有局以行十二棊。局之字象其形。此別一義。『說文解字注』

局 is a pictogram of 博 (Liubo), an ancient Chinese board game. The relationship between 局 and 博 (Liubo) is mentioned vaguely: "簙有局以行十二棊". 局 can either mean a round of the game or the board on which the game is played.

The etymology of 局面

  盘中排营寨城池，眼前无弓箭旌旗。心内有刀枪剑戟，局面儿几般形势。『元 周德清 《斗鹌鹑·双陆》曲』

局面 first appeared in a Qu written by 周德清 in Yuan dynasty. It refers to the situation of an ongoing Backgammon game.

Please Note: My answer only considers the origins of 局 and 局面. Their meanings change overtime and are impossible to encapsulate in an reasonably long answer. The "sitting with your back bent" hypothesis proposed by the questioner might indeed be true at some point in history.

Source

http://www.zdic.net/z/18/sw/5C40.htm
http://baike.baidu.com/view/240375.htm

Revision History

20160423_0: Initial answer
20160423_1: Elaborated on the 2nd interpretation for 局 and left room for ambiguity


Why is “的” used instead of “了” in this sentence? I've been learning Chinese for months, but I found an interesting sentence.
他和她一起来的吗？ In this sentence, my question is about why “的” is used instead of “了”.
For example, I would say "他和她一起来了吗？", but a Chinese native speaker says "他和她一起来的吗？".
I'm really confused with the use of “的” and ”了“. So when can I use “的” or ”了“?
Which one of “的” and ”了“ is more natural when I want to ask like the sentence above?

To put it simply, the difference is:-
If you want to say -- "Have they arrived already?", you use "他和她一起来了吗?" -- meaning you are just inquiring as to whether they have arrived, nothing more. The "了" here indicates "already?", i.e. "completion"
But if you want to say -- "Did they arrive together?", you use "他和她一起来的吗?" -- meaning you are inquiring as to whether they arrived together and not one-at-a-time or separately.
The "的" is for inquiring "together?" This is the reason for the suggestion of putting the "是" in there, which would make it to read ""Did they actually / really arrive together?", i.e. "affirmation"


Why in the multiplication table, different characters such as 如，得，歸，中 are used? It seems to me that the following rules apply:

When the answer is a one-digit number, the character 如 is used.
When the answer is 10, the character 得 is used.
When the answer is a multiple of 10, other than 10 itself, the word 中 is used.
When it is 3×3=9, the character 歸 is sometimes used (though not on this picture here).
In all other cases, no additional character is inserted.

I am wondering why there are such rules? Do we use these rules anywhere else?

九因歌 using synonyms words instead of using one character universally is to make it 押韻 rhyme better, easier for children to 'sing' to remember it better
如 = as same as
得 = get
中 = together
~
二五得一十 ( 2 X 5 get 10 )
二三如六 (2 X 3  is as same as 6)
四五中二十 (4 X 5 together is 20)

歸 = end up with
三三歸九 (3 X 3 end up with 9) is a variant of 三三如九. No other set of numbers is using 歸


How do I properly place each character in "in which country do you eat dinner?" I am trying to figure out how to write "In which country do you eat dinner?"

I know I need 你 (you), 哪 (which(which is my vocabulary word)), 个 (measure word), 国 (country), 吃 (eat), and 晚饭 (dinner).

I just don't know in what order I should put the sentence! For example, should I put 你 before 哪? Tell me if any of these two following sentences are correct:

你吃晚饭哪个国吗?
哪个国你吃晚饭？

I'm also not sure what the original english phrase means, but normal phrase order has the subject first , followed by time, place and then verb+adverb.

If your sentence is "IN which country you eat dinner?" the sentence should be 你在哪个国家吃晚饭？


What does 亲你一口 mean? I thought 亲你一口 means “kiss you” but usually, I think verbs take 一下 to add the meaning of “a bit”.

So why is it 亲你一口, not 亲你一下, and what does it differ from just say 亲你? Or is the relationship between 亲你 and 亲你一口 the same as between 看你 and 看你一下?

亲你一口 and 亲你一下 mean the same, kiss one time. 口 and 下 are both valid measure words for 亲. So, 亲一口 == 亲一下.

You should note that 一下 doesn't ALWAYS mean 'a bit'. It can mean 'one time'. For example, 打三下（hit three times）， 亲两下(kiss two times).


How to use “ 难道 ” in Chinese sentences? My questions:

How to use “ 难道 ” in Chinese sentences?
What is the difference between 你不知道吗？ and 你难道不知道吗？

Grammatically, "难道" is an indication of 反问句(a rhetorical negative question). The exact correspondence in English may differ depending on the context, but I will give some examples here:

  (难道)你不知道吗？
  > Don't you know it? (I thought that you knew it.)
  你(难道)不知道……吗？
  > Don't you know that ......
  (难道)你不明白吗？
  > Don't you understand?
  这难道不是真理吗？
  > Ain't that the truth?
  (难道)你今天不用上班吗？
  > Don't you have to work today?
  你不来吗？
  > Aren't you coming?

Personally, I believe it's sometimes better to put 难道 in the beginning, though most of the time, the order doesn't matter in spoken language.

Questioning with a negating particle 不(not) is a negative question itself. So basically they are the same in meaning.
The possible difference is: in the second question with 难道, the speaker believes more firmly that the listener should have known (the object), to the extent that he is/would be very surprised if the listener doesn't know anything. This may also be implied in the first sentence without 难道, again, depending on the context.


How do the words 我主張制止不了就放任 piece together? The phrase is: "我主張制止不了就放任".
Initially I tried to break the sentence and thought the translation would be something like:
(1) "In my viewpoint,  if you can't stop it, just let it go".
But the two translations that i found are:
(2) I'm arguing that I can't stop it and let it go.
(3) I prefer, ” if you can’t stop it, go ahead.”
(1) and (3) are similar, but quite different from (2).
I confused about what can really be inferred from the phrase, mainly because of the sentence (2).
Breaking it down:
我 (wǒ)= I, my
主張 (zhǔzhāng)= viewpoint, to advocate
制止 (zhìzhǐ)= to stop 不了 (bùliǎo)= unable to
就 (jiù)= just (I started to study Mandarin very recently, but I know that there are several nuances with the use of this word.)
放任(fàngrèn)= to let alone
Context: excerpt from the song "懸溺" by "葛東琪" (Gé Dōng qi) First verse:
我主張制止不了就放任
這慾望與絕望之爭
餘溫她卻喜歡過門
臨走呢
還隨手關了燈
I don't think the context is very important because I want to know what can be deduced only with 我主張制止不了就放任.
Question: How do the words in 我主張制止不了就放任 piece together?
Thank you in advance

我 = I
主張 = propose; suggest; say
(如果;既然) 制止不了 = (if; since) it can't be stopped
就放任. = then/just let it be

我主張制止不了就放任 - I say if/ since it can't be stopped, just let it be


Gender neutral term for family members who are all first born? Is there a gender neutral term for people who are first born in a family?

For example, if a mother, father, and older sibling are all the first born to their parents, is there a term that describes all of them?

A quick check translating "first born" to traditional Chinese using google shows 長女 and 長男, as well as 初生的 which I'm not clear about, but if I wanted to say that "other family members are all X's" and use the correct Chinese word for clarity and to avoid any ambiguity, is there a word or simple expression for this category of people within a family? Or even without being within one family?

I'm not sure if this should be asked separately or not, but if there happens to be a word or phrase for the only person in a family who is not first born, that would also be helpful.

Speaking from personal experience (as a 長孫 on my paternal side):

老大 would be the most common gender-neutral term used within the family. Very common.

長子 can refer to the one oldest child of brothers and sisters, but there is quite a lot of variation in use between families, and can refer to the "eldest son" or the "eldest child". To be clear, I'd often go with "長子長女" as a phrase.

A more neutral circumlocution would be 最大的 which is spans formal and informal, in-family and out-of-family use. It defaults to referring to age (not height / width!), but if you want to be specific, you can use 年紀最大的 with "age" included.

There isn't any two-syllable word for the youngest that my family uses, although 老小 and 老幺 I have now seen on searching the Internet. 最小的 is the usual gender-neutral way of expressing it.


When might you say 借你吉言？ In what kind of situations might I use the phrase 借你吉言？

Edit: I'm trying to think of a neat, cool translation. Haven't got one yet!

Maybe:

God willing

If only ...

承你貴言
http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/56723/
"wish everything you said would come true"

承你貴言 is a more well known idiom than 借你吉言.
I only heard 借你吉言 for the first time here. It is virtually unknown among Cantonese.
The two phrases are very similar in meaning though,

借你吉言 means "(I hope to)borrow your blessing words "
承你貴言 means " (I) humbly accept your blessing words and hope it will come true"

You can use either phrase as a formal / humble respond, when someone is :

(1.) blesses you good luck

(2.) predicts good fortune or success will come to you.

But I suggest using the more common 承你貴言.


N and NG in Mandarin I'm having trouble to differ 'n' and 'ng'. I've been searching it on internet, but I can't really differentiate them. How can I pronounce them correctly?

This answer provides a useful explanation and also explains what to do with your mouth when pronouncing the two sounds. As that commenter mentioned, my wife is from Jiangsu and even in English can't distinguish between the two sounds.

This youtube video has some concise examples from English.

This youtube video has some Chinese examples although the audio quality and the pronunciation aren't very clear. It's the best I could find.


Is 朱日和 the homophone word of 诛日俄？ Yesterday China held a large scale field parade in the training base of 朱日和. Usually a place is named after something or someone, but that name sounds like a name of a former celebrity, but there was not such a person in China's history, so it is not surprising for me to think it might be a homophone of something. Do you think 诛日俄 is a justified choice?

The base is located in the 朱日和, which is a town in Inner Mongolia, it means 'courage' in mongolian language.

This town includes 15 villages, the training base is built from a 1950s armored troops training base.

So I don't think they give a new "fancy" name to that town.


Why is the character 中 listed as a 嵌套结构 (nested structure) and not a 单一结构 (single component)? I'm studying character components using guoxuedashi, a online service/dictionary where you can filter by components, and there's LOTS of them.  The thing is, they use a different system of classification, the nested structure.
Entry for
Guoxuedashi: http://www.guoxuedashi.com/zidian/4E2D.html
ZDic: http://www.zdic.net/z/15/js/4E2D.htm
I find ''nested structure'' makes more sense than ''single component structure'' though. Why does Zdic lists 中 having 丨 as a radical if it's truly a single-component structure? Doesn't a single component structure imply that the radical is equivalent to the word itself?
Disclaimer: I haven't heard of Zdic until I found out about this stackexchange. But since it's highly praised I want also to discuss if Guoxuedashi is viable since I mainly uses it.

The word 'radical' is usually translated from 偏旁 or 部首. But 偏旁 and 部首 are a bit different. People long ago called the left part of a character 偏 and the right part 旁. But later till now 偏旁 refer to components of characters. Some of the components that indicate semantic meanings are called 形旁(semantic radical). Xu Shen(?AD58-?147), the author of the book Shuo Wen Jie Zi(《说文解字》), classified the characters that have the same semantic radical into one category(部). This radical is always placed at the first in the list, so it's called 部首(literally 'category head'). 部首 is always 偏旁 but 偏旁 is not always 部首. According to Xu Shen's classifications, 中 is in the category of 丨 and 丨 is the radical component of 中.

As to the single-component structure and the nested-component structure, it's another classification. There have been several different principles to define if a character is a single-component or not. Single component structure character is translated from 独体字 and nested component structure character 合体字.

According to the theory of 'the six categories of Chinese characters' or 'Chinese character classification'(六书), the ideographic(指事) and pictographs(象形) are single components, the compound ideographs(会意) and phono-semantic compounds(形声) are nested. 中 is an ideographic character so it's a single component structure character.

As the character style developed from 小篆 to 隶书, and further to 楷书 widely used today, the shapes changed. The traditional classification was a bit out of date. Su Peicheng(1935-), a modern Chinese linguist, defined 263 single component characters according to the defination made by the Chinese encyclopedic dictionary Ci Hai(《辞海》, literally diction ocean, edited from 1915 to 1928 and first published in 1936）. 中 is included in the category of single-component structure characters.

In 1997, State Language Commission of PRC published a standard on the Chinese character set, which defines 280 single component structure characters, with 中 included, 丨 excluded.


Which one is correct? 他们是我的老师们/他们是我的老师 家好
请问一下，这些句子哪个对，哪个不对 ?
Which one is correct and which one is wrong?

他们是我的老师们 (两个以上的老师)

他们是我的老师 (两个以上的老师)

他们是我老师们 (两个以上的老师)

他们是我老师 (两个以上的老师)

他们是我的朋友们 (两个以上的老师)

他们是我的朋友 (两个以上的老师)

他们是我朋友们 (两个以上的老师)

他们是我朋友 (两个以上的老师)

Thank you !

These four are all authentic expression while the first one is the best choice if you are introducing your teachers to someone.
他们是我的老师
他们是我老师
他们是我的朋友
他们是我朋友

1.老师 or 朋友
Both are acceptable. But it's usually more natural to call your teachers 老师 instead of 朋友 because it sounds more polite and formal.
2.我的老师 or 我的老师们
It's more natural in the Chinese language to say 他们是我的老师 instead of 老师们 even though "teachers" make more sense than "teacher" when understanding the sentence in the way of English grammar. It's hard for me to provide a reason for that.
3.我的老师 or 我老师
我 and 我的 both mean "my". The omission of 的 makes it more colloquial. It's common to hear people say 我... to a friend. But again I guess 我的老师 would suits better because it sound more formal.


How to translate "engage in healthy behavior"? The full sentence is

.... there are 40 building blocks every child needs to grow and
mature. And the more of these Assets a child has in her life, the more
likely she is to engage in healthy behaviors while veering away from
those that are unhealthy.

Besides, "assets" is normally translated to "资产", however it doesn't feel like fitting in here. How about "要素"？

In the context of educating a child to have a healthy behavior, I would translate the following sentence as:
"...the more likely she is to engage in healthy behaviors..."
“...越倾向于养成好习惯..."
I hope it helps.


Learning traditional Chinese characters I am keen to learn more on traditional Cchinese characters for reading and writing.

Which site should I go to for basic learning?

I hope I've understood you correctly and that by traditional Chinese you meant classical Chinese, or 文言文.

Assuming you have pretty decent knowledge in modern Chinese, you can start, like all Chinese students do nowadays and ancient elites likewise, from recitation and memorization of classical works. 古文观止, literally meaning "stop reading any more classical works after this collection", is a selection, sorted chronologically roughly by dynasty, first published some hundred/two hundred years ago. I suggest you start with essays written in relatively more modern eras.

Good luck and have fun.
ps: there are of course some countably many (not in the mathematical sense) old syntactic as well as morphological (e.g. character "overloading", 通假字) rules that one should always know and that we were also taught after primary school, but I can't help you there because to me, these rules have already become innate and can't be enumerated without omission. But I do know that some Jesuits pastors who visited Chinese back in Ming dynasty have left some valuable notes, many of which titled as something similar to grammaticae sinicae. They were on google books some years ago, not sure if they still are.


character v. glyph v. grapheme/morphogram v. ideogram v. logogram v. pictogram v. symbol vs. syllable My 15 y.o. daughter is learning Chinese, but these different terms baffle us! How do they differ? Where do these other terms fit into Table 3.5, which contains merely FOUR of the terms in the title of this question?

Chinese S.E. has glyph-origin! Tzu-Ray Su, Hung-Yi Lee's Learning Chinese Word Representations From Glyphs Of Characters mentions Glyphs.

This U. Albany website on Chinese characters mentions Pictograms, Logograms.

This U.C. Berkley website on Chinese characters mentions Pictograms, Ideograms.

Linguistics S.E. has a post on Ideograms v. Logograms.

p 295 of this book defines

morphogram. A single grapheme of a morphographic writing system. A grapheme which represents a morpheme of the language.

p 298 of this book defines

symbol. A general term for a graphic mark without regard to its graphemic status.

Henry Rogers, Writing Systems (2004), p 27.

In Chinese, the overwhelming majority of characters is monosyllabic, which is why the first two named columns are essentially identical. This is in stark contrast to Japanese for instance, where the following example shows how one character can bear as many as five syllables:

 (Japanese)        承        る
 (Hiragana)        うけたまわ　る
 (Transliteration) uketamawa.ru
 (Translation)     to attend to

In English, notice how the word renewables can be split into re-, new-, -able, and -s. They each mean something (some are of grammatical worth, such as the plurality marker -s), and cannot be split, according to meaning, any further. These chunks are therefore known as morphemes.
There is only one way to split bisyllabic (or bi-character; they are frankly interchangeable in Chinese) words — you split them in half. But not all bisyllabic words in Chinese are splittable.
When you split 鐵路, you see 'iron' and 'road' which makes sense.
When you split 蝴蝶, 蝶 means 'butterfly' (likely an abbreviation of 蝴蝶), but the meaning of 蝴 is illusive (perhaps nonexistent). The same goes for 珊瑚 ('coral'), 玫瑰 ('rose'), 駱駝 ('camel')... These words are called binomes (連綿詞). We write them with two characters they must be bound together to signify the desired meaning. Individually, they do not make any sense. An explanation for their unsplittability is that they perhaps were once monosyllabic in the past. Take 蝴蝶 as an example:

From Middle Chinese *ɦuo dep (first syllable unstressed), from Old Chinese *ɡaː l'eːb, derived from a proto-form of *kʰleːp ~ *ɦleːp, a prefixed form of the root *lep (“butterfly”). Wiktionary

Binomes are much rarer than splittable bisyllabic characters. In most cases Chinese words are splittable.

There are many askers on Chinese SE that are interested to know why a character bears a certain meaning, i.e., how its form (形) relates to its meaning (義). Here we put the questions under the tag glyph-origin. In Chinese, we use liushu (六書) for explanation (there are six possible categories):

Pictograms (象形): 山 ('mountain') really looks like the shape of a mountain.

Ideograms (指事): 一 ('one'), 二 ('two'), 三 ('three') do not look like any tangible objects. They are abstract realisations of concepts.

Compound ideographs (會意): 休 ('to rest') is a combination of the pictograms 人 (equivalent to 亻, meaning 'man') and 木 ('tree'). It represents a man resting by a tree.

Phono-semantic compounds (形聲): most Chinese characters belong to this group. If I were to create a new writing system for English using emojis and say

 'to believe'

I am using  only for the sound of the word (bee + leaf) and  for the meaning of the word (to pray).

Rebus (假借) and derivative cognates (轉注).

Grapheme is the smallest functional unit of a writing system. So c in cat and 朋 in 朋友 ('friend') are both graphemes. But a grapheme in an alphabetical language is not necessarily a morpheme, whereas in Chinese it's possible. Since language learners are usually more interested in the meaning of a word/character, rather than its form (how it relates to meaning is a separate matter), we seldom use this terminology.
A logographm or a logograph is a written character that represents a word or a morpheme. (I took this definition from Wikipedia, the Cambridge Dictionary of Linguistics does not provide a definition.) Again I think this is used in a meta-language sense: they include Chinese characters, Egyptian hieroglyphs, and cuneiforms. We seldom use these terms in Chinese SE.


What is the character with the greatest number of strokes? I have seen an old and very rarely used character that consisted of four traditional dragons (龍). As I remember it meant "talkative."

That makes a total of 64 strokes, are there any other characters with more strokes?

1) 'biang'

Well, the first one that came to my mind is 'biang', as in 'biang biang mian' - which a quick Wikipedia search shows has 58 strokes. This is still in some use (and I've seen it in restaurants), if that means anything to you. It is not, however, found in dictionaries.

2) 'zhe'

Sadly however, biang doesn't have the most strokes (although I would argue it's the most complex) - Wikipedia has a page on complex characters as well, and according to them 'zhe' meaning verbosity was the most complex/has the most stroke orders - possibly the character you are referring to, as it is just 'long' times four:

3) 'zheng'

It also mentions 'zheng', another 64 stroke character meaning flourish, as being equally as complex:

The page on Wikipedia goes in to a lot more detail, so I suggest you check it out.

Hope this helps!


Pinyin "jiu" / "you" final pronunciation difference In Mandarin should there be any difference between the pronunciation of the pinyin final in "jiu" and the pronunciation of the pinyin whole word "you"?

The pinyin Final "iu" contains a hidden "o", so it is pronounced "iou".

"y" is actually an "i" Final being used as an Initial.

So the answer is: if both are the same tones, no :)

Same tones as in: 就 (jiù) and 又 (yòu)


Any historical connection between 筵席 and 宴席? 宴席 and 筵席:

I know what both words mean, and I think it's quite funny they have similar pronunciations with quite similar meanings (give or take on both).

Do the two words have similar origins?
Any historical connections?

宴 Middle Chinese: ‘enH

筵 Middle Chinese: yen

It would be easy to assume they don't have much connection based on their Middle Chinese pronunciations. Quite peculiar anyhow.

In my opinion, there are no similar origins or any historical connections between these two words.

宴 means 宴请 here. It's a verb. And the word 宴席 is also a modern Chinese word widely used in our daily life.
筵 means 竹席. You can find it's composed with 竹 on top, so apparently it is a noun. 筵席 is more or less too formal and ancient for daily use. I will never use it except the old saying 天下没有不散的筵席.

Your analysis is also reasonable. It seems just a coincidence.


Yahtzee score card — sm and lg straight? This is part of this set, where I also posted my update.

My wife, who is a native Chinese speaker, gave me the following:

sm.straight is 小顺
lg.straight is 大顺

but when I look up 小顺 or 顺 by itself, it doesn't seem to have anything to do with (noun) sequence.  What am I missing here?

It shows me words like obedience, happiness, and submissiveness, with translations that may use 顺 alone or with a longer string of characters.

This dictionary doesn’t show a noun sequence or anything like that.

汉典 shows the following information.

  ● 顺

  （順）

  shùn 　ㄕㄨㄣˋ

  趋向同一个方向，与“逆”相对：～风。～水。～境。～水推舟。～风使舵。
  沿，循：～城街。～理成章。～藤摸瓜。
  依次往后：～序。～次。
  随，趁便：～便。～势。～手牵羊。
  整理：理～。～修（整理修治）。
  服从，不违背：～从。～应。孝～。温～。
  适合，不别扭：～适。～情。～眼。～差（chā）。
  姓。

  汉英互译

  ◎ 顺

  arrange　　　in sequence　　　in the same direction as　　　obey　　　put in order　　　suitable


Is lo (咯) valid pinyin? MDBG and Baidu provide a pronunciation of 咯 (as in the sentence-final particle indicating that something is obvious) as lo5. "lo" isn't listed on Wikipedia's pinyin table, and I thought only bo/po/mo/fo could drop the u from -uo. Is this the standard pinyin? Is "lo" pronounced the same as "luo"?

Definition

According to yabla, 'Io' is a valid pinyin.
Quoting yabla:

  咯
  luò

  to cough up

    咯
    lo

    (final particle similar to 了, indicating that sth is obvious)

  咯
  gē

  (phonetic)

Usage

Example Usage just for that middle one(from yabla):

哟呵呵呵我们回来咯回来了回来了

yohēhēāwǒmenhuílailohuílailehuílaile

English:
Ha ha ha ha! We are back. -You are back. You are back.

Sidenotes

A pinyin table from allsetlearning:

That proves to me that lo is a valid pinyin.


How to use 可爱，properly? My understanding of the word is "lovable or cute". Can someone give me the context when it might be appropriate to use this term? For example, lots of folks find kittens lovable or cute. A sample sentence and explanation of when to use the term would help me the most.

There's nothing very special about the usage of 可爱. In Chinese many 'adjectives' are formed from verbs.

E.g.

好吃 ("good to eat") is tasty/delicious or
有趣 ("has interest") is interesting and
难看 ("hard to look at") is ugly.

These are not really adjectives, but their best English counterparts are adjectives, so you can think of them as 'adjectives'.

Similarly,

可爱 ("can be loved") is cute/lovely.

You can use 可爱 to describe people, especially children, or animals, and even inanimate things.

这只狗很可爱！This dog is very cute! (可爱 is the predicate of the sentence)
可爱的小女孩 cute (little) girl (可爱 is used as an adjective to describe a noun)

In case of animals, you can also use 萌物 ("cute thing") to denote an animal that is just cute, 萌宠 is a cute pet and 卖萌 means "to act cute/behave in a cute way".


A guy looked at me in the bathroom, what should I have said You know those situations where you think back on the situation and wish you would have said something different? Here is one of those.

Situation

I am a male in my lower 20's and I was using the urinal at an airport in China. It was an odd hour of the day and the bathroom was empty. A minute later a Chinese man, 40'ish years old, comes in and chooses the urinal beside me. If you are a male you know this is against the bro code...

While doing our thing the other guy peers over the divider at my 下面的 (private parts) and looks at me and smiles.

I was so taken aback that I froze and couldn't say anything, not to mention my Chinese was not that good at the time. I was also shocked and a little angry.

Question

What would be appropriate to say in this situation? I was pretty angry at the time.

Thoughts

I feel like I would have said something like:

你干看着什么啦？！
你是农村人吗？
天啊。

Does those sentences make sense in that situation? What is an appropriate response in Chinese?

I don't think there is any "appropriate" response for the old guy since his behavior is abnormal. But you can think about it if it happens in your hometown and how would you react or say in English? Maybe some curse words or yelling.


Chinese Font - Some Characters Rendered Strangely (外，将） I am seeing some characters rendered strangely and would like to know what I can do to fix it.

In Google search bar, rendered strangely.  Inside translate box, rendered as desired:

In Google Docs, Firefox or Chrome:

In my terminal:

Is it perhaps trying to render in a Japanese font automatically?

OS: Ubuntu 16.04
Browsers: Firefox & Chrome (seems to be browser independent)
Tested in incognito mode

Fixed in both my terminal and browser:

Since I noticed this problem across all browsers and in my terminal, I figured the proper way to adress it would be at the system level.  I found a fix here and have outlined the steps below.

Navigate to /etc/fonts/conf.d/
Edit 64-language-selector-prefer.conf, moving the SC suffixed fonts to the top of each preference list:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
    <alias>
        <family>sans-serif</family>
        <prefer>
            <family>Noto Sans CJK SC</family>
            <family>Noto Sans CJK JP</family> # Original top choice
            <family>Noto Sans CJK TC</family>
        </prefer>
    </alias>
    <alias>
        <family>monospace</family>
        <prefer>
            <family>Noto Sans Mono CJK SC</family>
            <family>Noto Sans Mono CJK JP</family> # Original top choice
            <family>Noto Sans Mono CJK TC</family>
        </prefer>
    </alias>
</fontconfig>

Edit 69-language-selector-zh-cn.conf, adding WenQuanYi Micro Hei font to the top of each family (serif, sans-serif, monospace):

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>

    <match target="pattern">
        <test name="lang">
            <string>zh-cn</string>
        </test>
        <test qual="any" name="family">
            <string>serif</string>
        </test>
        <edit name="family" mode="prepend" binding="strong">
            <string>WenQuanYi Micro Hei</string> # Added by me
            <string>HYSong</string>
            <string>AR PL UMing CN</string>
            <string>AR PL UMing HK</string>
            <string>AR PL New Sung</string>
            <string>WenQuanYi Bitmap Song</string>
            <string>AR PL UKai CN</string>
            <string>AR PL ZenKai Uni</string>
        </edit>
    </match>
    <match target="pattern">
        <test qual="any" name="family">
            <string>sans-serif</string>
        </test>
        <test name="lang">
            <string>zh-cn</string>
        </test>
        <edit name="family" mode="prepend" binding="strong">
            <string>WenQuanYi Micro Hei</string> # Added by me
            <string>Noto Sans CJK SC</string>
            <string>WenQuanYi Zen Hei</string>
            <string>HYSong</string>
            <string>AR PL UMing CN</string>
            <string>AR PL UMing HK</string>
            <string>AR PL New Sung</string>
            <string>AR PL UKai CN</string>
            <string>AR PL ZenKai Uni</string>
        </edit>
    </match>
    <match target="pattern">
        <test qual="any" name="family">
            <string>monospace</string>
        </test>
        <test name="lang">
            <string>zh-cn</string>
        </test>
        <edit name="family" mode="prepend" binding="strong">
            <string>WenQuanYi Micro Hei Mono</string> # Added by me
            <string>DejaVu Sans Mono</string>
            <string>Noto Sans Mono CJK SC</string>
            <string>WenQuanYi Zen Hei Mono</string>
            <string>HYSong</string>
            <string>AR PL UMing CN</string>
            <string>AR PL UMing HK</string>
            <string>AR PL New Sung</string>
            <string>AR PL UKai CN</string>
            <string>AR PL ZenKai Uni</string>
        </edit>
    </match>

</fontconfig>

Saving the changes and opening a new terminal, the characters are now rendered as desired:

After restarting the computer, one also sees the characters properly rendered in the browser:


Tree: 树 (shù) vs 木 (mù) Is there any difference between 树 (shù) and 木 (mù), in the meaning of "tree", or they are interchangeable?

树 more often means tree in modern language, while 木 usually means wood, as in 木板 (plank) or 木材 (timber).

An olive tree is 橄榄树, while a birch is 桦木. Most trees are 树, though.


Is 视死如归 seen as "See death as returning home"(Respect to someone who died) or "Not afraid of death"(arrogance) I cant understand chinese at all and I found this phrase: 视死如归 which translates to "See death as returning home" but also to "Not afraid of death". I think the second translation comes over as very arrogant.

If you would say or write this to someone, would they take it as so to speak "Death could be a good thing(as you will find rest when you die or something like that)" or "Be tough"? If this is more hanging to the second translation, is there a better chinese sentence that would mean something like the first phrase?

Both definitions are correct.
多功能成语词典 explains:

解释 视:看待;归:回家｡把死看作像回家一样｡形容不怕死｡多指为了正义事业而勇于牺牲自己的生命｡

视: treat ;归: returning home. to treat death the same as returning home. To describe being fearless in the face of death. Refers mostly to bravely sacrificing oneself for a righteous cause.
They also give an example sentence:

例句 面对敌人的屠刀,革命先烈视死如归,大义凛然｡

A, more literal, translation would be something like:
Facing the butchers knives of the enemy, the martyrs to the revolution treated death as returning home, righteousness abounds.
Another translation you can have a look at from A Chinese-English Dictionary:

刘胡兰临刑时, 大义凛然, 视死如归。
Liu Hulan faced the executioner's ax with a fortitude that commanded admiration and respect.

This phrase is mostly seen in connection with martyrdom and warfare.
Some other definitions that might help:
ABC

face death unflinchingly

Oxford

meet one's death like a hero

CC-CEDICT

1 to view death as a return home
2 to not be afraid of dying
3 to face death with equanimity (idiom)

I doubt you'd ever use this phrase to console anybody, even if you did it'd be strange unless they were dying for some big cause or fighting in a war.
There is an antonym: 贪生怕死 which CC-CEDICT defines as:

1 greedy for life, afraid of death (idiom); craven and cowardly
2 clinging abjectly to life
3 only interested in saving one's neck


Maximum Number of Lateral Radicals Is there a and if yes what is the maximum number of radicals that can be there in a Chinese Character?

One.

Characters can be made up of -or- contain lots of "radicals" but there will only be one that is the actual radical.

For instance the character 落 has both 艹 and 氵as components but it's radical is only one: 艹.

Characters can also have simplified & traditional radicals.

For example: 卡 has a simplified radical of: 丨 and a traditional radical: 卜 - where 丨 is obviously not a simplification of 卜. The aforementioned 落 on the other hand also has simplified and traditional radicals 艹 & 艸 --- where 艹 is just a straight up simplification of 艸.


停止 vs. 停住 usage/difference? I am quite confused with the usage of both words as the some of the meaning is overlapping based in English translations. The dictionary shows that 停止 = stop, cease, halt while for 停住 = stop, halt. So what situation do you guys use 停止 and 停住?

Both 停 and 止 contains the meaning of 'to stop'.

"停止" is a compound word verb for 'to stop'
"停住" = "to stop (successfully/ and keep it this way). It is made up of the verb '停' and it's result complement '住' (住 as a result complement denotes: 1. successfully; 2. in a continuous state)

  停止 is usually used as an intransitive verb or auxiliary verb

Example :

(intransitive verb): 操作停止 (operation stops); 任务停止 (mission stops)

(auxiliary verb): 停止攻擊 (stop attacking); 停止操作 (stop operating)

  "停住" can be use transitive or intransitive

Example :

(transitive verb): 他停住車子 (he stops the car)

(intransitive verb) 車子停住了 (the car stops)


How did 子, meaning "child", become a noun suffix? It's really impressive how 子 [zi] is super productive as a noun suffix. But I can't see any relation of how the idea of "child" could turn into a suffix.

Thanks!

It's called a diminutive suffix, about which you can read these entries:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diminutive

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_diminutives_by_language


Is this [Ivanka Trump] Chinese proverb real? —“Those who say it can not be done, should not interrupt those doing it” This was going around as a real proverb, any reality to it?

  ’Those who say it can not be done, should not interrupt those doing it’

NPR did a pretty good article covering this.

  After Ivanka Trump Quotes 'Chinese Proverb,' A Hunt For The Proverbial Author : NPR

  Ivanka Trump's quote of a Chinese proverb — "Those who say it can not be done, should not interrupt those doing it." — prompted a search for the original source. Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

  On the eve of her father's meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Ivanka Trump seemed to be calling on her inner Yoda as she tweeted:

  "Those who say it can not be done, should not interrupt those doing it."
     -Chinese Proverb

  Neat quote. But it was the first daughter's attribution to "Chinese Proverb" that sent social media sites into overdrive in China, where people scrambled to find who, among their ancestors, actually said this.

  After presidential adviser Ivanka Trump tweeted what she called a "Chinese Proverb," many in China (and beyond) tried in vain to track down the quote's author. Twitter/Screenshot by NPR

  After a thorough search of the Analects of Confucius, Taoist texts and everything in between, nothing definitive has come up. But that hasn't stopped millions of Chinese social media users from making wild guesses like these, straight from Weibo, one of China's most popular social media sites:

  临渊羡鱼不如退而结网 — It's better to knit a fishnet instead of standing by the river and hoping for fish.
  观棋不语真君子 — Don't give advice while watching others playing a chess game.
  勿以善小而不为 — Don't ignore small acts of kindness simply because they seem trivial.
  己所不欲，勿施於人 — Don't force others to do things you don't want to do yourself.
  吃不到葡萄说葡萄酸 — If you haven't tasted the grapes, don't say they're sour.

  A lack of a clear source for Trump's tweet has some people speculating the first daughter either made it up or, a more likely explanation, cut and pasted the saying from an unreliable website. In the meantime, the search for this "proverb" through ancient Chinese texts has become something of a viral Quixotic quest in China, filled with many a sarcastic comment:

    "Did you get that from a fortune cookie?"

    "估计是 fortune cookie 上学来的..."

    "Don't mistake something as a Chinese proverb simply because it's written in Chinese characters."

    "不能因为某句话上面配了个鬼画符的"中国字"，就觉得那是句中国谚语。——鲁迅"

    "Many foreigners make up Chinese proverbs much like we make up English ones."

    "都想多了。其实，很多欧美人说的中国谚语，都是他们自己编的，如同我们也编了他们的不少谚语。"

    "I think Jack Ma said that."

    "我想是马云说的。"

    "A Chinese proverb from Ivanka has killed the brain cells of Chinese netizens."

    "伊万卡一句中国谚语，累死了全中国网友脑细胞啊。"

  And finally, a tweet from an actual Chinese literature scholar, Brendan O'Kane:

  "You can call any old [s***] a Chinese proverb on the internet."
    — Confucius

  Who knows? Maybe someday one of these might become a Chinese proverb, too.


What is the fastest method to type Chinese using a computer? I know that there are numerous Chinese input methods such as Pinyin, Bopomofo, 區位碼, Wubi method, Cangjie (Tsang-chieh) input method and many other methods. But once mastered, on average which input method will be the fastest one?

I belive this question should have an objective answer independent of anyone's preference.

Edit Here I am not asking about how long it takes to learn the method; I am asking about once learnt, which method is the fastest way to type Chinese. Image that there is a Chinese typing competition that everyone is required to type ten thousand randomly chosen Chinese characters. Each competitor can choose any input method he/she likes and the winner will be awarded a million dollars. Everyone has a year or a few years to learn and practise any Chinese input method. What Chinese input method will be the most likely choice by the winner?

Theoretically the fastest method seems to be 速录.

  亚伟速录常用于会议的听打，最快可达500字/分。

Apparently you can type five hundred characters a min. It is basically a type of shorthand used by stenographers. The learning curve is, obviously, going to be quite high though, as you would expect of stenography.

There's a short article saved here from China Daily that talks about it a little if you're interested.

  For decades, Tang Yawei's name has been synonymous with stenography in China.
  In the 1930s he developed a standardized Chinese shorthand method, Yawei Chinese Shorthand, which is now widely used, especially by journalists and professional stenos.

  Then in 1994, at the age of 79, he invented the Yawei Chinese steno machine, allowing stenos to record up to 200 words per minute - about 75 percent faster than shorthand while eliminating the need to transcribe notes.


Difference between 最高领导人 and 主要领导人之一? I've just been looking at the wikipedia entry for Xi Jinping and the word used for the position he will be taken on Wikipedia is incumbent "paramount leader" with paramount leader pointing to this Wikipedia article. There is also a Chinese version of that page which translates paramount leader as 黨和國家最高領導人.

However if I look at Hu Jintao's Chinese page it uses the phrase 中国共产党和中华人民共和国的主要领导人之一. With 主要领导人 pointing to this page 党和国家领导人.

If I look at the very bottom of the 党和国家领导人 it also has 习近平（最高领导人）.

I'm hoping someone can help me, and forgive me if the answer is on the linked pages (my reading is too slow).

Here are my questions:

党和国家领导人 - Is this singular or plural or both?

What is the difference between 最高领导人 and 主要领导人之一?

党和国家领导人 is both. It can refer to a few people or just someone. For example, 党和国家领导人某某(和某某)出席了某个活动。
最高领导人 can be translated as supreme leader. There must be only one at one time. And 主要领导人之一 is just some one important.  For example, only 5 最高领导人 in PRC history. But anyone in the Political Bureau is one of 主要领导人。

The address(称呼) of important people of CCP is significant and subtle. Similar address may have big difference. Here is a great Chinese post analysing how to call CCP leaders after their passing, the best I've ever read.


Is this placement of 於 wrong or just unidiomatic? I tried sentence ordering exercises from TCB for HSK 5. Below the second sentence was considered wrong. Is it simply unidiomatic or is it wrong? Does the problem come from the preferred placement of 和⋯結成連理, or the preferred placement of 於？

徐良泉於1937年和妻子結婚

In this sentence, [徐良泉] is the subject. and the rest of the sentence "於1937年和妻子結婚" is in order

  徐良泉和妻子於1937年結婚

In this sentence [徐良泉和妻子] is the subject, and the rest of the sentence "於1937年結婚" is in order

're-organise sentence into correct sentence order' here seem referring to the correct order of the four sentences, not the word orders in each sentence.

The couple now have children, grand children and great grand children
He married his wife in 1937
The old man was born in Jiangsu
This hundred years old couple have been through a lot of hardship

The correct order of these four sentences is 3, 2, 1, 4

The goal of this exercises is to use your comprehension skill to construct a logically coherent paragraph. All you need to do is to figure out the correct time-line.

None of the sentence is grammatically incorrect

Edit:

Ludi wrote:

  Thank you. The goal is to arrange the words of the sentence, but I had already done that. There is no possibility to choose the order.

May be they think 和 in "於1937年和妻子結婚" should had been 與. As in "徐良泉於1937年與妻子結婚"(which is a better preposition when 徐良泉 was the subject)

presuming 和 is incorrect (or not the optimal choice), the only option is to rearrange the sentence into "徐良泉和妻子於1937年結婚" and make "徐良泉和妻子" the subject.

A likely explanation is the author already set the answer as "徐良泉和妻子於1937年結婚" but overlooked the fact that 和(and) can function as 與 (with) too. That meant there could be two correct answers, but the author only allowed one.


How do I say "from now on, every time I hear 拔, I will think of you going to the dentist"? My Chinese colleague wrote to me on WeChat:

  我刚刚拔了三颗门牙
  I just had three teeth pulled out

I attempted to reply, but I think I totally botched it:

  从来每一次我听到“拔”我会想你在牙医时。

I was trying to say

  From now on, every time I hear 拔, I will think of you going to the dentist.

I realize now that 从来 should be 从此 (cóngcǐ; henceforth), but the rest of the sentence feels rather uncomfortable to me.

Question: How do I say "from now on, every time I hear 拔, I will think of you going to the dentist"?

Being a bit more careful, I came up with this attempt:

  从此我一听到“拔”那个字就记起你在牙医时拔出牙齿。

"从此我一听到“拔”那个字就记起你"
"from now on" is translated as "從今以後", not just "从此" (since this moment/ since that moment)
"记起" means "remember", you should use "会想起" (will think of) instead

~

在牙医时
"牙医" means "dentist", which is a person, you should either write "在牙医診所时" (when you were at the dentist's office) or "去看牙医时" (when you went to see the dentist)

~

拔出牙齿 should be reduced to "拔牙"
"拔牙" is a common verb

~

從今以後，我一听到“拔”这个字，就会想起你在牙医診所拔牙
From now on, whenever I hear the word "pull", I will think of when you were at the dentist's office getting your teeth pulled

It is a good enough sentence, however "你在牙医診所拔牙" is an "image/ scene" in your mind, which is the object for the verb "想起". Therefore, a better sentence should be:

從今以後，我一听到“拔”这个字，就会想起你在牙医診所拔牙这件事

Use 这件事 (this event) instead of 那件事 (that event) because it is an immediate respond to the event you just heard of.
Use “拔”这个字 (the word "pull") instead of “拔”那个字 (that word "pull")

從今以後我一听到“拔”这个字就会想起你在牙医診所拔牙的情況/情景

Replace 情況 (situation) or 情景(scene) with 慘況 (horrible scene) would sound much more dramatic


Why is Sherlock Holmes translated as "福尔摩斯" (Fuermosi)? The last name of the detective Sherlock Holmes is translated as "福尔摩斯"(Fuermosi) in Chinese, which seems to be strange, since the Chinese pronunciation is nowhere close to the English one, beginning with the "F" sound instead of the "H" sound. Since the word "福" doesn't vary significantly in pronunciation across dialects, it probably is not a dialectal issue.

Furthermore, the "ho" phoneme is definitely present in Chinese, and translating it as "侯尔摩斯" would be significantly closer in pronunciation to the original.

Is there a reason this strange translation was carried out in the first place, and was furthermore maintained over the years?

I was myself confused by this translation, when I saw the book in a Chinese library and could not initially place any detective story starting with "Four" or the equivalent, and only realised the true translation after browsing through the book.

The term "福爾摩斯" was used in newspapers as a detective example (中國亦有福爾摩斯), as early as 1905.

香港華字日報, 1905-10-25

  Title: 香港華字日報, 1905-10-25 = The Chinese Mail
  Bib ID: NPTCM19051025
  Publisher: 香港 : 香港華字日報有限公司
  Date Created/Published: 1905-10-25
  Page: 7th

An article talked about this topic:

福爾摩斯譯名及其他

i edited this answer, with sound files of "福", in min nan (閩南話) and cantonese (廣東話). one may compare these with the 1st syllable of english pronunciation of "holmes", have fun

in min nan (閩南話), according to 教育部臺灣閩南語常用詞辭典:

福　hok　mp3 file

in cantonese (廣東話), according to 漢語多功能字庫, using sydney lau scheme:

福　fuk1　mp3 file


Meaning of "~~" at the end of a sentence I see quite often a few "~" characters placed at the end of sentences, especially in e-mails, texts, and social networks.

Is this an informal exclamation or an emphasis mark?

For example, the sentence below was extracted from a Facebook comment:

  大家都在婚禮指認朋友 ~~

Non-Standard Usage

Is this an informal exclamation or an emphasis mark?

No, it's neither an exclamation nor an emphasis. It's used for

[Informal] Showing a casual, lively mood. This is the situation of your example sentence. In fact, you can put this symbol freely if you are not so serious, and the number of waves is not strict.

  事实上～只要你不需要很严肃，你可以随意地使用这个符号～～～而且数量也是随意的～～

  [In fact ~ you can put this symbol freely if you are not so serious ~~~ and the number of waves is not strict ~~]

[Not in standard, but considered formal] Illustrating the continuation of the voice (suggesting the cadence of the voice). Usually, it is used in the double wave form taking place of two characters, i.e. ～～, and is written vertically middle of a line. For example,

  喂～～ [Hey~~]

Though this usage isn't listed in the official standard, interestingly, in the famous primary school's text, Lu Xun's 《从百草园到三味书屋》, there is a sentence:

  铁如意，指挥倜傥，一座皆惊呢～～；金叵罗，颠倒淋漓噫，千杯未醉嗬～～

And in some other essays and novels

  大男孩的胳膊给老妇人抱住，不能取那翡翠簪儿，“哇～～”突然哭起来了。（叶圣陶《夜》）

  “咳～～开～～啦！”桩家揭开盒子盖，也是汗流满面的唱。（鲁迅《阿Q正传》）

You can call it 象声号 (《标点符号使用手册》 has included this usage). So, as many famous writers use ～～ in their works, considering it informal may be controversial.
[Not in standard, but undoubtedly formal] Standing for the mentioned character in a dictionary (seen in most authoritative dictionaries, like 新华字典). In some reference, it is called 代替号(replacement symbol). This should be a formal usage, but I don't know why the standard hasn't included it.

  省 shěng  ㄕㄥˇ

  地方行政区域：～份。～会。

Standard Usage

The standard usage of this punctuation is a connective, called 浪纹(wave symbol). See the standard 《中华人民共和国国家标准标点符号用法》.

  4.13 连接号

  4.13.1 连接号的形式为“－”，占一个字的位置，连接号还有另外三种形式，即长横“－－”（占两个字的位置）、半字线“-”（占半个字的位置）和 浪纹 “～”（占一个字的位置）。

For example

  亩产1000公斤～1500公斤 [from 1000 kilograms to 1500 kilograms]

EDIT1: definition of "formal" and the very informal usage

Thanks for @fefe's comment. To make it more clear, let me clarify the definition of formal in this answer here.

The word formal in this answer means grammatically formal in punctuation, but NOT suggesting wording or phrasing formal.

In the non-standard usage,

Case 3: It's the de facto standard in Chinese dictionaries. Personally I cannot imagine saying "this punctuation in dictionaries is informal" :)
Case 2: the punctuation "illustrates" the continuation of the voice, so that is to say, you were writing some voice in your works. Such a sentence is usually in a colloquial circumstance, so to this extent, the whole sentence is "informal". However, it's related to the wording and phrasing, but not the punctuation itself. So I said the punctuation is still grammatically formal.

Now let's go further ~~ I think this topic would be related and interesting ~~

On the Internet, people aren't so aware of the grammar. Or, we can even say, the netizens are creating new grammar, though there's a debate resulting in the rule that you should not use the Internet grammar in your Chinese examinations. In fact, there is a much more informal usage of ~, which is so informal that I consider even not to list it in the non-standard usage list. It is widely used in emoticons in China and Japan. For example

  ~~~^_^~~~ [laughing to tears. ~ stands for tears.]

  (～ o ～)~zZ [sleeping. ~ stands for closed eyes and the snore.]

  ~\ (≧▽≦) /~ [hooray! ~ may stand for something waving in the hands.]

EDIT2: brief history of the establishment of punctuation standard

History of the official standard of modern punctuation in mainland China.

  1919 Some renowned scholars (馬裕藻, 朱希祖, 錢玄同, 劉復, 周作人, and 胡適) submitted a proposal for promulgating the modern punctuation standard (《請頒行新式標點符號議案》).

  1920 The ministry of Education of the Northern Warlords government promulgated Order for Adopting Modern Punctuation (《通令采用新式标点符号文》). It is the first standard for modern punctuation published in the form of law.

  1951 The General Administration of Press of the PRC government promulgated Usage of Punctuation (《标点符号用法》).

  1990 As the punctuation had changed a lot in the past forty years, Press and Publication Administration promulgated the revised version of Usage of Punctuation.

  1995 State Bureau of Technical Supervision promulgated the National Standard for the Usage of Punctuation (《中华人民共和国国家标准标点符号用法》 GB/T 15834-1995). On June 1st, 1996, this standard was executed. It is the standard we are using today.

Punctuation and language are changing gradually all the time. I personally believe there will be some day that some of the informal usage of ~ will become formal standard ~~

EDIT3: "Which tilde should I use?"

The wiki page of "tilde" points out there are many kinds of tildes. Because your browser may not correctly render all the characters on that page. I illustrate the table as a picture here (open it in a new page to see full size):

So, according to the standard (providing the size and the position of the 浪纹), in formal text, you should use unicode U+FF5E, i.e., ～. In informal usage, a simple tilde on the keyboard U+007E, i.e. ~, is just OK.


Why does the order of 人口 change? One of the first questions in my book is 你家有几口人？ But the book highlights the word "人口" as people. Why does it change? Is it because 口 is the measure word for 人? Could you say 三口人口? When do you use each form?

You're right that 口 is one of the measure words for 人, but 人 (people/person) and 人口 (population) are two different words. The word 人口 is mostly used for the population of a city or a country instead of a household.

You can say 几口人 (how many 'units' of people), 三口人 (three 'units' of people), but not 三口人口 (three 'units' of population).


Is mapping from simplified to traditional characters injective (one-to-one function)? There is a plethora of online simplified to traditional characters converter like this one: https://www.chinese-tools.com/tools/converter-simptrad.html

Is it safe to use them? Won't it cause any mistakes in "translation"? My question boiles down to:

Is the mapping between traditional and simplified characters a one-to-one function? That is, does every simplified character only one traditional character equivalent?

If not, could you list the most prominent examples?

One simplified character may mapping to multiple traditional ones:

皇后 -> 皇后，後天 -> 后天
頭髮 -> 头发，發財 -> 发财

As reversed, one traditional character may mapping to multiple simplified ones too:

乾燥 -> 干燥，乾隆 -> 乾隆
瞭望 -> 瞭望，瞭解 -> 了解

This wikipedia article had discussed such thing for further reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambiguities_in_Chinese_character_simplification


把 grammar and when it MUST be used, not when it CAN be used Is there such case in which 把 must be used or otherwise a sentence is incorrect?

I am not interested in when it can be used because that's an issue that is rather widely covered.

我感谢你们的帮助。

The short answer is that the "ba" construction is required when a direct object representing a human or an animate item or a non-specific indefinite inanimate item is moved before the verb. Moving such an object before the verb is done for the purposes of topicalisation or adding focus to it.
For example:

He hit the ball.
他球打了
他把球打了

In the above 把 is optional, although having it makes it clearer. The optional nature of the 把 comes from 球; it is inanimate, so does not require 把.

He hit me.
*他我打了
他把我打了

Here, 把 is obligatory when 我 is put before the verb for emphasis. Why? Because it is animate (and because it is a pronoun).
Why you would have to put an object in front? It depends on the verb, and specifically: when certain verbs can take two objects or "arguments", only the indirect /positional one fits after the verb, and so the direct object must go before the verb in Mandarin. The most well-known one is 放, but others like 送 / 丢
/ 仍 also exist.

He puts the cake on the plate.
*他放蛋糕在盘子上
他把蛋糕放在盘子上

Notably however, this restriction is relaxed in dialectal Mandarin and in other Chinese topolects like Cantonese: it is not obligatory to use 将 (the Cantonese equivalent of 把) for verbs like 放:

He puts the cake on the plate
Cantonese only
佢將蛋糕放喺碟上
佢放蛋糕喺碟上


What does TJ mean in the Chinese Language? The picture above is 1 example.

Are there other variations of symbols that resemble TJ?

The whole thing is a 行 character.

pronunciation:
háng 　ㄏㄤˊ
or
xíng 　ㄒㄧㄥˊ

háng xíng:
to sail,
to fly,
to navigate.


Is 不错 used only to mean "good" and never mean "not bad"? 不错 is a composite word of 不 and 错, the former means "NOT" and the latter means "wrong", if I understand it correctly.

However, when I look up 不错 in my dictionary (macOS's built-in dictionary), it only shows "right" and "pretty good", and not "not bad".

Is 不错 never used to express "not bad"? And do you have nothing to do but just look up in the dictionary and memorize them one by one in case of these composite words? I happened to look it up today, but without that I would keep misunderstanding its meaning...

In addition to the other answers:

The exact phrase 不錯 is almost always used to mean "pretty good". But there are variations on the phrase that mean "not wrong", "not mistaken" without having the same positive implication:

沒錯

This one is still somewhat positive, but it's more of an agreement than an endorsement:

  他說得沒錯 - What he said is correct.
  他說得不錯 - He said it well / what he said is good.

不是錯的

Use this phrase if you just want to say "not incorrect" without implying anything else about the quality:

  這個答案很不錯 - This answer is pretty good.
  這個答案不是錯的 - This answer is not wrong.

In response to your general question, most composite words do mean exactly what you'd think from looking up each individual character. But when it comes to this kind of nuance in their usage, you'll have to learn each compound word individually.
Occasionally you'll find a compound word where the meaning is quite far removed from the component characters, but this will normally be apparent from context.


What are some US Mandarin curriculum standards? I'd like to start tutoring Mandarin through software I am writing. What are US domestic curriculum standards that I can base my teachings off of, starting at the middle- high-school level?

Please provide links and an explanation for why you selected a particular one. I'm looking for a curriculum example, learning objectives, exercise samples, and evidence of learning examples.

For example, I'm thinking US AP (Advanced Placement) language curriculum would be a good starting point.

If not, should I be using China's HSK?

I'm thinking AP because I'd eventually like to bring on more languages into my software and AP offers many language choices.

I am not familiar with AP Chinese curriculum but I would recommend go by China's HSK.

Reasons:

HSK is designed for non-native speakers and is administered by an agency of Ministry of Education.
If you adapted the HSK, you might lower your cost of authorisation. Even though I don't have the actual number, you could tell from the exam fees.
HSK is harder than AP Chinese. It's not easy to get 'A' in HSK.


Is there a list of characters specifically used for western proper nouns? When learning country/place names or reading about non-Chinese people in the media I see the same characters used for similar phonemes (see these celebrities). What rule or list do the writers follow when 'coining' a hiterto untranslated name into Chinese?

No list. It would be easy to make a list because it would be all characters (point 3). In general I think these are the rules:

1) The standard (which is really based off the next point).
2) The frequency/stroke count of the character.
3) The desire to represent style.

The standard

I just mean x character has been used before, lets use it again because folks already know about it. Really just based off 2 and 3 below.

The frequency/stroke count of the character.

I feel like Starbucks is an interesting example, a phono-semantic one too.

星巴克
xīng ba kè
star 'phonetic placer' 'phonetic placer'

The last two characters are the most interesting because they have no meaning and are used because of their sound and frequency/stroke count.

巴 - 697 frequency (also the first ba in the list)
克 - 493 frequency (also the first ke in the list)

http://www.zein.se/patrick/3000char.html

The desire to represent one's style.

I've never heard about a law that saws parents cannot use x character to name their children. I think such censorship would cause a revolution before youku got shutdown. So following this point theoretically any character is up for grabs.


What is the difference between 顾客 and 客户？ This is a relatively simple question， but until now I have not consistently heard or seen a dominant choice. Is there a difference? And if so what is the difference.

顾客 is a customer, a shopper, an end user.

客户 is a client, an intermediary purchaser.

They overlap somewhat, but these are the principal definitions.


Character and word frequencies I'm trying to build some automated tools for processing Chinese text. I'd like to know the relative frequencies of different characters and character combinations. Are there any web sites with this data that I can download?

Chih-Hao Tsai has published a bunch of useful resources like this. I've used the character frequency and phrase frequency lists.


Is there a rule of thumb for distinguishing male and female names in Chinese? I often get tripped up when reading names of Chinese people, and trying to work out if they are male or female. Is there a good rule of thumb to follow to determine which is which?

In a previous post "How do we choose the correct characters for a westerner name?", I listed some characters that I think are popular in names nowadays. Remember, characters don't express the gender, so there are only some "rough clues" to guess the gender of the person.

One example would be “芳”, which means "fragrance,good smell".It's very common to be seen in a woman's name as in 梅艳芳(a last female singer from HongKong) and 谢杏芳(a famous female badminton player). However, I few cases, it appears in a man's name. I.e. 单田芳(a famous Pingshu performer. Note: here 单 pronounces shàn as a family name)

I agree with point 1 in 景洛弘's answer, that meanings could be a clue, but I don't agree with point 2, because in chinese, many characters share the same sound.

Counterexamples to point 2:

ye. There is a famous actor 刘烨(liu2 ye4).

li. li could be “力(li4)", which means "strength". There was a famous linguist 王力(wang2 li4).li could also be "莉(li4)",and “茉莉” means "jasmine". There is a famous actress 牛莉(niu2 li4).

hong. Hong could be "宏(hong2)“, which means "huge". There is a famous comedian 黄宏(huang2 hong2). Hong could also be "虹(hong2)", which means "rainbow". There is a famous actress 陶虹(tao2 hong2).


What is the difference between 怀疑 and 疑惑? I have found the following definitions:

怀疑 [doubt; suspect; scepsis]

疑惑 [feel uncertain; be not convinced], and it is additionally defined as  "Puzzle" and "Unpeaceful"

From what I feel the former is more about skepticism, while the latter is more about uncertainty

怀疑 is a verb for 'to suspect'

Example: 我怀疑他杀了他儿子 (I suspect he killed his son)

  怀疑 is also a noun for suspicion (2.the state of mind or feeling of one who suspects)

Example: 这只是我的怀疑 (It is only my suspicion)

  疑惑 is an adjective for 'uncertain (2. not confident, assured, or free from hesitancy); puzzled'

Example: 你这话使我感到疑惑 (these words of yours make me feel uncertain)

  疑惑 is also a noun for ' doubt; uncertainty; puzzle'

Example: 有疑惑 (have doubt) ; 重重疑惑 (layers upon layers of uncertainty); 这个疑惑 (this puzzle)

  嫌疑 is noun for 'suspicion' (4.state of being suspected)

Example:他有杀了他儿子的嫌疑 (he is under the suspicion of killed his son)


Tool which can convert web pages from Hanzi to either Pinyin or Zhuyin Fuhao Are there any tools that can convert an entire webpage from characters into either Pinyin or Zhuyin Fuhao?

Ideally something like Google Translate. So perhaps a website where I enter the URL of the page I want converted. Or a browser extension that allows me to convert whichever page is currently displayed in the tab or window.

I don't mind if it does only pinyin or zhuyin, but one that handles both would be great.

Something like this is handy when you want to focus on learning or practicing words and phrases, comprehension, etc when you don't know all the characters, especially when you don't have any speakers to practice with.

(Yes I know there are all kinds of tools that can pop up the pronunciation of an individual word or character in running text in the browser. Or where you can cut and paste plain text. For the purposes of this question I'm only asking about full-page conversion please.)

On Android you could try the "Pinyin Web Browser" app in the Play Store (free and no ads), or "Cantonese Web Browser" for Sidney Lau / Yale.  Both apps print their romanisation with word-groupings, formatted as large as the characters, and cope with on-page changes made by Javascript etc (the two apps also share their bookmarks with each other).  But because every line of text ends up being twice as high as the webmaster intended, sites will break if they use too much "pixel-perfect" vertical positioning (which was not part of Tim Berners-Lee's original plan for the web, but too many webmasters do it anyway).  The app does contain a couple of kludges for the layout code of sites listed on its start page, but one dev can't fix the entire web so YMMV.

The underlying annotators were trained using a variant of the Yarowsky algorithm and therefore take context into account for things like 差 (chāi or chà) and 为 (wèi or wéi) although it still makes some mistakes.  Training data included proprietary documents, so, although the apps are free, the data cannot be fully open-source, and annoyingly CC-CEDICT could not be used because its CC license conflicted with this situation.  But there are some limited English definitions available, or the apps will link to Pleco or Hanping if you have either installed (tap on any word to access the popup definitions and Pleco/Hanping button, unless that word is part of a web link, in which case tapping on it just opens the link as normal).  The code without the data is Apache-licensed if you want to re-train it on another corpus yourself, but the results are not likely to be as good unless you have access to a better corpus than I do.

There exists code for an iOS version, but the Apple developer programme is incredibly unhelpful (1 they only accept apps compiled on a decent Mac with latest OS, not a few-years-old one, 2 they demand 100 pounds a year to subscribe to the programme, universities can be exempt but individual university members cannot, and 3 I have no idea how much extra they invoice for testing new releases).  There are however a couple of established iOS developers who have been given the back-end code, so let's hope they release browsers soon.

As for desktop browsers, I have had some success making "bookmarklets" (like mini browser extensions), but these rely on sending the page to a third-party server to get the pinyin and are therefore not great for privacy unless you can also set up the annotation server on your own machine.  Also an increasing number of sites are blocking the use of bookmarklets altogether in their "Content Security Policy" (CSP), so if you want bookmarklets you now need a browser extension to turn off CSP as well (or a proxy that does the job, but then the proxy has to rewrite secure HTTPS into insecure HTTP; an increasing number of sites have user-side scripts that break when this happens).  There is however a Windows 10 developer who has the back-end code and is making a Win10 "universal app" for both desktops and mobile devices.  In all cases the problem remains of fixing up the sites that are too fussy about layout.  (You could work around this by cramming pinyin into the very small existing space between the lines, but the result would not be half as easy to read.)


How to say "as you wish" in Chinese I want to know what to say in the following scenario: I am pushing someone for his own good, and he is not doing what I want, so I would then say to him "Okay, as you wish." How can I express this in Chinese?

Update: 如你所愿（rúnǐsuǒyuàn）from Google Translate is not understood as having the same meaning by Chinese speakers.

I think that “随你便” may suit your needs.  This phrase can be translated as "as you wish" or "suit yourself" or even "whatever."


What is the colloquial/comman usage of '棒' I have seen it as usage of 很棒, but I don't get how that means thumbs up as it were?  Was I misunderstanding the comment on the video??

I know that on mdbg.net there is a different meaningg = = ~~~~ : )

It says:  stick / club / cudgel / smart / capable / strong / wonderful / classifier for legs of a relay race

Whenever I search it on Google images, it only shows thumbs up..O_O

I seen this on a video about 楚辞, I think it is worth a share :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlkBPOX2u7I

According to this answer which have over 600 people voted to agree

木棒的“棒”，乃是强盛的木
'棒' (rod) is 'strong hard wood'
你说一个人“棒势”，那么就是说他屌大
When you say someone "rob form" , it means he has "huge penis"

棒 means 'baton / rod',  which is 'stiff and hard'
The term “好棒" was originally a slang for 'excellent, great, wonderful' -- meaning something is as great as a 'good hard rod' (hard rod is a metaphor for stiff penis)


What is the difference between 安排 and 布置 Both mean "organize" but is there any different between these two words?

安排is more often used with people to assign them to a position or prepare them for something.
布置is more often used on things like concrete items like a room. May be used on events such as create a scene in a movie set.

That doesn't mean we can't interchange them in sentences to get the same meanings， yeah, you could almost say they are the same.

Here are examples where 布置 and 安排 are different：

布置一个房间（Furnishing a room)

安排一个房间(Assign a room( to someone))

布置餐桌 (Arrange a dinning table)

安排餐桌(Assign a dinning table(To someone))

天子离乡， 布置坐御床(Prince is leaving, so decorate the bed while he is gone)

天子离乡， 安排坐御床(Prince is leaving, so prepare the bed to carry him)

Here are examples where they could be interchange to create the same sentences:

教授给我们布置啦一周的作业（The professor assigned a week of homeworks).

教授给我们安排啦一周的作业（Same as before）

布置这陷阱的人实在做的天衣无缝（Whoever set this trap did it flawlessly)
安排这陷阱的人实在做的天衣无缝（same， although we could replace set with initiate）.

So you see, 安排 could mean something that hasn't happen yet(AS it sometimes mean prepare) whereas 布置 most often mean something that has been done already.


What are some profanity words in classical Chinese? It is easy to find profanity words for modern Chinese, but I could not find any profanity words for classical Chinese. Even such simple ones as "to fuck". Please help to promote this knowledge.

As to classical Chinese in the strict sense I know no examples.  Going up to 8th century, The poem "To send far way" by Li Bai (701--762), also known as Li Po, contains two lines translated by David Hinton as

We made clouds and rain love our farewell,
Then nothing but autumn grasses remained.

I cannot find the Chinese on line.  The expression is often traced back further to a classical work "Gao Tang Fu/高唐賦" (for which my historical source is https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_Yu) and you can see the original at https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hant/高唐賦.  But that work only sets up a vague association between sex, clouds and rain.  The phrase  "clouds and rain/云雨" for sex seems to owe more to Du Fu's Tang Dynasty poem: " Wu Gorge and more clouds and rain the night," see http://baike.baidu.com/view/130025.htm

For whatever reason, the phrase "clouds and rain/云雨" has come to refer to sex.  It is not a verb.

For more, follow the advice of 倪阔乐 above.  I am afraid you will not find what you are looking for.


How to change line in dictation? I am using an ipad, but I assume it is platform independent.
The iPad understands what I say extremely well, as long as I don’t use formal expressions.
I want to change the line and have already tried 提行、回車、新行, all to no avail.

Do you mean to create a newline? 换行 huànháng works.


What is the most appropriate literal translation of 赚钱 In European languages the literal meaning of the verb that is used to describe earning money varies from language to language.
Some examples:
British:    earn money (money is something you harvest)

American:   make money (money is something you create)

German:     Geld verdienen (literal: deserve money)
(money is something you are entitled to have because of your work)

Spanish:    ganar dinero (literal: win money)
(money comes with luck)

French:     gagner de l'argent (literal: win money)
(money comes with luck)

What is the most appropriate literal translation of 赚钱 to English in that sense?

赚钱 has multiple context in mandarin.

工作赚钱 ； work for living

做生意赚钱 ： making/earning a living from the trade

这生意很赚钱 ： the business is profitable

买一送二， 这次赚了 ： buy 1 free 2, what a gain.

So which context you are referring to ?

There are few more meaning as describe by zdnet on 赚, which carry specially meaning in various literature.


Tàu-tīn vs. tsò-hué in Hokkien According to 臺灣閩南語常用詞辭典, both 鬥陣 (tàu-tīn) and 做伙 (tsò-hué / tsè-hé) mean 一起 (though the former is also explained as 一块儿 and the latter as 結伴、偕同). I was therefore wondering what differences there are between them, if any. Also, how is it that in 流浪到淡水 they are together in the phrase 斗阵来做伙? What does that mean? PS some context:

趁着下昏暗欢欢喜喜
斗阵来做伙
你来跳舞    我来念歌诗

Thàn-tio̍h ing-àm huann-huann-hí-hí
Tàu-tīn lâi tsuè-hué
Lí lâi thiàu-bú    guá lâi liām kua-si

Profiting of tonight, let us be very happy,
????
If you dance, I will read a poem.

NOTE: If anyone is wondering, 下昏暗 | ing-àm is a contraction of Min 下昏暗 | e-hng-àm, meaning "tonight". My reference dictionary doesn't give a spelling for the contraction, so I had to use the uncontracted spelling, but then I had to match the transliteration to the song, which has the contraction. I just came up with a way to spell it: 暎暗. No idea if anyone else has thought about how to spell this contraction in Hànzì yet.

Though "鬥陣" and "做伙" roughly mean the same thing, there are subtle differences in between these two phrases.

As a native speaker, I would say "做伙" is more at "be a friend", whereas "鬥陣" is more at "together". This explains why they appear in the song interesting you.

Nevertheless,
in everyday speaking nearly nobody would deliberately differentiate one from another.


Why does 点 mean "to light\to ignite" in certain compounds (such as in 点燃\点火\点灯)? These are the only character's acceptations I really can't relate to, does anyone know why it's used with such meanings?

点(點), the original meaning is a small black spot. --> create a small spot --> use the pointed edge to touch something --> ignite by touching the wick.


Which is the correct glyph origin of 入 I find 2 very different glyph origins for 入

It shows the roots of a plant entering the ground.
It is a picture of an open tent or tent door.

Which is correct?

http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/character-etymology.php?zi=%E5%85%A5

  (象形) Pictographic. Picture of the sharp point of an arrow used to pierce something.

~

  http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?characterInput=%E5%85%A5

  Primitive pictograph 入. An open tent door. Meaning enter.

~

  http://www.vividict.com/wordinfo.aspx?id=3197

  字源解说

  入，甲骨文像盒盖向下，表示收存物品，加盖封藏。造字本义：收存物品，加盖封藏。

  (入 in oracle looked like a lid facing down to represent "to store items in" , or 'seal something with a lid' .  "Enter" was an extended meaning.

  The original meaning of the word: the storage of items, stamped sealed.)

  金文承续甲骨文字形。有的金文形似屋“宀”。

  (金文 inherited Oracle shape. Some 金文 of 入 looked like "house")

  that may had been the origin of 'An open tent door' etymology

After studied the references, my conclusion is the earliest pictographic of 入 resembled a lid facing down.  Then evolved into 'open tent' shape.

The 'arrow' representing 'enter' (入) etymology is likely an later  interpretation. (depend on how early 'arrow head' was invented, it might had been developed concurrently with 'lid'  for the meaning of 入)


Confusion about 要 and 药 Both of these are pronounced in the same way. In latin they are spelt Yào and Yào. I thought each word had four tones. So now I'm confused at how to approach things like this

Am I looking at this from the wrong point of view?

要 and 药

  Both of these are pronounced in the same way. In latin they are spelt Yào and Yào.

99% correct.  When 要 means "to request" it is pronounced yāo.  Although, most of the time 要 is pronounced yào.

  I thought each word had four tones.

Incorrect.  There are four/five tones in Mandarin (mā mǎ má mà ma), but individual characters are pronounced using just one. Each character in modern Mandarin has a single-syllable pronunciation comprising of an "initial", a "final", and a "tone".

Indeed, there's only a small number of possible pronunciations of individual characters (listed here: left = initial; right = final [and you can apply any of the tones]), so many characters are homophones.

How do we know what someone is saying?

Most words in Chinese consist of two characters (not one), e.g., 天气 (tiānqì) = weather.  There's a lot more possible two-characters combinations.
Many words with single-character forms 菜 (cài) = "vegetable" (among other meanings) also have longer, more precise forms 蔬菜 (shūcài) = "vegetable" (no other meanings).
Whoever is speaking is aware of the potential for ambiguity, typically familiar with commonly misheard words, and phrases sentences accordingly.

Usually the most confusing one is shì:

  是 事 市 式 试 室 世 视 适 示

These are all always pronounced shì, and they all arise fairly early in one's Chinese studies.  But they're usually combined with other characters:

是 (shì) = "to be"
事情 (shìqing) = "matter"
城市 (chéngshì) = "city"
日式 (Rìshì) = "Japanese style"
尝试 (chángshì) = "to try"
办公室 (bàngōngshì) = "office"
世界 (shìjiè) = "the earth"
电视 (diànshì) = "TV"
适合 (shìhé) = "to suit"
表示 (biǎoshì) = "to express"

So we can deduce the meaning of "shì" from the word it belongs to.


What are the characters in this image and what do they mean? What are the characters in this picture and what do they mean? I know the first one is 来    but I don't recognize the second one or know the meaning of these together. Thank you]1

来唷
Come on

来 means come.
唷 is a modal word that expresses the excited emotion of the speaker.


The abbreviation rule of a measure word In the following sentence:

  昨天晚上买了张彩票，结果中奖了。

If I understand it correctly, 张 means 一张 but 一 is omitted here.

Also, if you want to mean it in plural (i.e. buy multiple lottery tickets), the sentence should be the following.

  昨天晚上买了些彩票，结果中奖了。

Now, can I also omit 张 as well, to make the sentence the following:

  昨天晚上买了彩票，结果中奖了。

In this case, does the sentence mean singular, plural, or both (which makes the meaning dependent on context)? Or is the sentence invalid grammartically in the first place?

“昨天晚上买了（一）张彩票，结果中奖了。”，it indicates you buy One ticket. You'd better use 几张 to indicate that you bought several tickets. I am not saying you are wrong by 买了些彩票, but in practice, 些 is often used to describe uncountable nouns. For example, 我买了一些水果。这些事情。说些什么？

you can say '昨天晚上买了彩票', which conveys the fact/behavior itself you bought some/a lottery ticket(s) (how many you bought is not the point/important; Or you deliberately don't want to tell how many you bought; Or people don't care the number of tickets you bought.)


Can someone please translate this picture into english for me? I got this picture by a friend a  days ago, but I have no idea what it says. It is not a good picture, but I hope someone on here will be able to translate at least parts of it for me. I do not know if it helps, but my friend says he got it in Beijing.

Large lettering:

約翰娜
Johanna

First column to the right:

丙申年
Year of bǐngshēn

Far right column (best guess):

壯樂
Strong and Joyful (probably an art name)

Bottom right seal:

張月英
Zhāng Yuèyīng, probably the artist name

Left seal:

吉祥如意
Good fortune at one’s desire


Is "Big Nose" really used for Westerners? Neutral Terms for "White People"

got me thinking about someone (who knows less Chinese than I do) telling me that "Big Nose" is the Chinese term for westerners.  Is that true, and if so, is it considered racist, i.e., never said where we might hear and somewhat offensive even when we can't (like "nigger")?

If it is "harmless," is it written 大鼻子 ?

Yes, 大鼻子 is used for primarily white people, although it is regionally limited to the North East. See http://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%A4%A7%E9%BC%BB%E5%AD%90/940166

It is not really used these days; when it was used it was mostly used to refer, pejoratively, to Russians, due to the history of conflict with China's North East. Another similar pejorative (and antiquated) term is 老毛子.

I would argue that the term is racist, as it is pejorative and was originally intended to be offensive, even if current users don't intend to offend with the term. You should not use the term in polite company.


what does this sentece means 你是边度人? I need to know the meaning of this Chinese sentence, 你是边度人
I really don't know what the meaning could be.

This is a Cantonese  way of saying "Where are you from", equivalent to the Mandarin way of saying 你是哪里人. You could answer it by saying 我是____人, meaning, "I am from ___" (filling in the blank with where you're from; e.g. if you're from the USA, you would reply 我是美国人). Literally translated, it means you-are-where-person?

In Cantonese, there is a difference between the spoken form and the written form. What you've written is usually what is spoken (but I think it's usually 你係邊度人). More commonly, in writing, you would use 你是哪里人 instead of 你是边度人.


Difference between 等待 and 等到 I'm struggling to differentiate between the two. Can someone explain this? Perhaps include some example sentences too.

等待 simply means "to wait"
Example: 等待黎明 (Wait for dawn)
you wait for something to happn

等到 means "wait until" or "waited till" depend on the context.

等到: "wait until"

Example: "等到太阳落山" (Wait until the sun goes down)
You keep waiting until something happen

~

等到 "waited till"

Example: 等了三天，终于等到你回来了 (waited for three days, finally waited till you came back)
You have successfully waited till something to happen

user17686 wrote:

Are there instances that 等待 & 等到 can be used interchangeably?

No, 等待 and 等到 have different meanings.

等待黎明 (wait for dawn)

等到黎明 (wait until dawn)/ 等到黎明(waited till dawn)

However, 等, 等待 and 等候 can be used interchangeably sometimes.

等黎明, 等候黎明 and 等待黎明 all mean 'wait for dawn'


Looking for 2 legal terms I'm looking for legalese.

breach of fiduciary trust (fiduciary basically means, as an adjective, 'having financial responsibility for someone else's money' from Latin 'fidere' trust)
negligence

For 1. I have 违背受托责任 and for 2. I have 玩忽职守 but I have no way of knowing if these are in fact the terms a Chinese lawyer might use.

Are they acceptable? Any improvements welcome!

New Century E-C

fiduciary

  (of trust or trustee)

  受信托的；与受托人有关的

  They have a case against their directors for breach of fiduciary duty.

  他们掌握了足够的证据控告董事不履行信托责任。

negligence

  (civil wrong)

  过失(行为)；疏忽

  They tried to sue for negligence.

  他们试图就过失行为提起诉讼。

C&T Biz

negligence

  过失 guòshī

  negligence clause

  过失免责条款

  guòshī miǎnzé tiáokuǎn

  negligence liability insurance

  过失责任保险

  guòshī zérèn bǎoxiǎn

21st Century

negligence

  【法律】 过失的 [1300∼1350]


differences between 非常好 and 特别棒 ALSO if I know someone's name, do I 认识 them? I need help with a question for a Chinese assignment
I have to choose a suitable answer to the sentence, the sentence is
你知道吗？ 昨天的足球比赛我们沈阳队赢了天津队5：1。 沈阳队的水平比天津队高得多了 。
Question: 沈阳队的水平怎么样？
Choices:
A. 还可以
B. 不怎么样
C. 非常好
D. 特别棒
E. 天津队的水平比沈阳队高得多
I know the answer is either c or d but I don't know the difference between these two. Which is more suitable here??
ALSO...
for this following dialogue:
A:   你认识那个姑娘吗？
B:   见过，但是不认识，你呢？
A:   我知道她叫小燕子，但是我不太了解她.
B:   那她一定不是你的好朋友。
Question: person A 认识她吗？
Choices:
A.  不认识她
B.  认识她
C.  了解她
D.  她们是好朋友
I am really confused here. I don't know if person A 认识她 or not. I understand there is a lack of context in the question too so that also makes it a little difficult. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

The first question is very confusing. I do not agree that the answer has to be C or D. With only the information you gave us, I can only rule out answer E 天津队的水平比沈阳对高得多. Since Shenyang beat Tianjin 5:1, then Shenyang has to be playing at a much higher level than Tianjin. Other than that, we don't know how good Team Shenyang really is, unless we know how good, or bad a team Team Tianjin is. It is possible that Tianjin is a really, really bad team, and any mediocre team can beat them 5:1. Without further context, all four answers A B C D are possible.
The second question is much better. 认识 is to know personally. Knowing just the name doesn't count. I know the names of a lot of celebrities, but I know very few personally. I cannot say 我認識他們，only 我知道他們的名字。
Having said that, the second question is also a little bit confusing. A says：“我不太了解她”。 This means A doesn't know her well. But does that necessarily mean he does not know her at all? Personally, I would never say “我不太了解她” about someone I do not know at all.
Sorry if I managed to confuse the OP further. Without more context, these questions are just not clear and fair for the learner.


提交给 vs 提交 difference What's the difference between :
提交给 and 提交?

What does 给 indicate when it follows words like 提交, 借, etc.?

And should I use 把 whenever I use words like "return", "submit", "hand over", etc.?

提交 is merely an action. 提交给 requires a word to refer to the person who review/read the thing you submitted.
给 means "to" in English. When it appears right after 提交, 借 etc., it needs you to provide a word right after 给 to refer to the person that you submit [sth.] to or lend [sth.] to
把 is used in some expression like "send the book to you" which could be translated to "把 书交给你". Usually the word “把” does not have an explicit correspondence in English. For those words you've give, you could use “把” when you mean "return/submit something to someone". In other words, if you want to state the receiver, then you should use 给.