Algorithm for finding names in Chinese texts I am writing an application for extraction information from Chinese texts. One of the tasks is finding names (personal, geographical or something else). The algorithm is not required to find all 100% of the names. 50% is enough.

In European languages(for example English or Russian), I can detect names by first capital letters: if a word in the middle of the sentence begins with a capital letter then this word is name. This criterion is not 100% reliable and it does not allow to find all names but for my purpose it is enough.

I know that sometimes (but not always) name can be after 叫. But I do not know how long this name.

Could you tell me some sings (criterions, features) by which the algorithm can find the names in Chinese texts?

This doesn't work with all texts but it should provide a 100% grab for supported texts.
You can use parameters to find proper name marks throughout texts:

In Chinese writing, a proper name mark (Simplified Chinese: 专名号, zhuānmínghào; Traditional Chinese: 專名號) is an underline used to mark proper names, such as the names of people, places, dynasties, organizations. The related book name mark (Simplified Chinese: 书名号, shūmínghào; Traditional Chinese: 書名號) indicated by a wavy underline (﹏﹏) is used to mark the titles of publications or texts.
For example:
屈原放逐，乃賦離騒。左丘失明，厥有國語。（司馬遷 《報任安書》）(using double underline to indicate wavy underline)
屈原放逐，乃賦離騒。左丘失明，厥有國語。 (using CSS 3; wavy underline may not be visible in all browsers)
Qu Yuan was exiled, and thus composed the Li Sao. Zuo Qiu (or Zuoqiu1) lost his sight, hence there is the Guo Yu. (Sima Qian, Letter to Ren An)

(Underline doesn't seem to be supported, check the Wiki link for the better example.)
The problem is that:

The proper name mark is rarely used in modern Chinese publications, and the Guillemet (《 》or〈 〉) is more commonly used to indicate titles. It is occasionally used in Taiwan and Hong Kong in school textbooks. However, in scholarly editions of classical Chinese texts, especially vertically typeset texts (where they appear to the left of the text instead of underneath), use of both the proper name mark and the book name mark is common, as they help readers avoid misinterpretations of the text.


Some unknown marks: are they in Chinese? If not, what language is it? What do they mean? I have been given a nice set of small white tea set with bamboo motifs and some foreign oriental marks. There is no single English character. I spent the whole morning trying to draw these marks and see if I can find their meaning but no luck so far. Thanks in advance! Jane

in top picture set of characters looks like 1st column  鹏雅, 2nd column 精瓷, always top to bottom, anyhow googling  鹏雅精瓷 yields as 1st result zhidao.baidu.com with 鹏雅精瓷酒杯

picture below more clearly looks like 鹏祥


原来你什么都不想要. Why 不想要, and not just 不要? Title from a popular Mandarin song, 原来你什么都不想要

So, why 不想要 rather than 不要? What is the difference?

What is the 想 doing there?

I would like to hear from people here?

basically in this sentence both of them have the similar means is 'don't want' or 'don't need',but 不想要 may more emphasizes the subjective idea of 'want'.
As it is one sentence of the lyrics,maybe they just want to express strong emotions or just matching with melody.


What is the equivalent in Chinese for the English word "horny"? As Mr. Confucius said, 食色性也, food and sex play important roles in one's life, when you wants to eat, there is a word in Chinese 饿 to illustrate this state, but there seems no such a word in Chinese to describe the situation when you are horny, or perhaps there is, but beyond my knowledge. So anybody can help?

Horny
4. (Slang: Vulgar): lustful; sexually excited.
發情
be horny; libidinous
Examples:
He is horny - 他在發情
Horny woman -  發情的女人
Horny man - 發情的男人

To be subtle, you can use 亢奮

亢奮
very excited
Examples:
He is horny - 他亢奮起來


What does this handwritten phrase mean? (Characters identified: 见有广告的他特别高兴) What does this sentence mean in this hand writing?

It was ”见有广告的他特别高兴“, when seeing the commercials, he is especially happy.


What is the difference between these sentences? (过 vs 了) What is the difference between:

你最近看过电视吗？
你最近看了电视吗？

and

你最近去过杂货店吗？
你最近去了杂货店吗？

And similarly, if I want to say "recently I went to my favourite cinema and found it's closed down" would I say 我最近去了我最喜欢的电影院，可是发现了它已经关闭了? Or should the first and second 了s be omitted? I know that this 了 means "action completed" but I've seen many example sentences where actions are completed yet there is no 了, which has left me confused about when I should include it.

In casual conversation without further context, sentences in the first two groups are almost the same.  If no additional information is available, both expressions are acceptable to a native speaker. But using "过" is still better.

"了" vs. "过" :

"你最近看过电视吗？" means "did you watch TV at least once recently."  The time, TV program and duration of the action "watching TV" is not being asked.

"你最近看了电视吗？" means "have you watched TV recently".  And "了" here implies that "watching TV" is finished/done.  It is used when talking about the consequence of the action.

The translation of the last sentence in your question ("recently I went to my favorite cinema and found it's closed down") is acceptable.  But it is better to omit that "了" after "发现".

"发现了" is used when a noun is after "发现了". Example: "X发现了新大陆", "X found new continent".  But when a sentence with "了" is used after "发现了", then you can omit "了" in "发现了".


How do you pronounce Erjie? I have an interview and the interviewer's name is Erjie. I'd like to be able to pronounce when I get there. Can anyone give me guidance on how to pronounce his name?

FWIW, the person is from Singapore.

I'm assuming that this person's name is spelt according to standard Mandarin Pinyin.

[jie] is pronounced something like "jyeh".
[er], in the International Phonetic Alphabet, is /ˀɤɻ/, made up of the close-mid back unrounded vowel and the retroflex approximant. Speaking for an American English audience,

A fair approximation of the close-mid back unrounded vowel is IPA /o/, which is the vowel in the English word "go".
The retroflex approximant can be given as the consonant in the English word "red". See http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/research/gsound/Eng/Database/Phonetics/Englishes/ByWord/Word_075_red.htm and listen to "Standard American".

Putting this together, and ignoring the tones, you should be pronouncing the name like the following:

[er] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8AOX0FssQk
[jie] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-m6bQVJtPT8

(The sound plays at about 4 seconds in both videos.)


The Many Pronunciations of 法 Regarding the various pronunciations of 法字, how much of the below is accurate?
法 as in 法国:

Mainland: Fǎ
Taiwan: MoeDict has Fǎ, with Fà listed only as “旧音”, but my understanding is that most Taiwanese people use “Fà” even in modern times. Is this correct?

法 as in 法律 etc.

Always fǎ, as fǎr as I know.

法 as in 没法儿:

Every dictionary I have lists this as fǎr, but I'm pretty sure I've always heard it as fār (at least in northern China). Is this right?

法 as in 法子:

I haven't really heard this word used much, but listed here for completeness. MoeDict has this as fá, whereas mainland dictionaries list it as fǎ.

In all your examples, it is more productive to think of 法 as having the pronunciation of fǎ and that alone. But your examples illustrated 2 systematic situations where tones are customarily shifted:
Situation 1

when followed by a character with the third tone, third tone is shifted to second tone

In 法子, outside of colloquial use or regional dialect, 子 has the third tone. Thus 法 which usually has the third tone now has second tone. In actuality, you are welcome to pronounce both in third tone. But I suspect it will sound like second + third nevertheless.
Situation 2

In dialects

法儿 is a dialectic idiom for "method". This Baidu page on Beijing dialect contains the word. To someone not from the area, 法儿 is still a legible word but the dialectic pronunciation is not known. Hence, the word may be used but pronunciation is the standard fǎ. The interesting thing is that standard Mandarin is supposed to have modeled after Beijing dialect. At least pronunciation should have. But that's clearly not being the case.
法子 (with 子 pronounced as the shortened neutral tone) is also a colloquial idiom for "method". I would not be surprised if it is pronounced differently in different regions. I can see both second and third tone being used. (It can potentially mean a person in ~Warring Era due to 子. In that case it would not have this pronunciation of 子.)
Situation 3

When 1st tone is at the end of a word, in certain cases, it is shortened.

That's story of another day.

most Taiwanese people use “Fà” even in modern times. Is this correct?

Not sure about most. But I have heard it as Fà many times and have not heard otherwise from Taiwanese.

The people who study phonetics do have particular theories on why and when tones shift. They have more to do with way sounds are made -- not mechanically second -> third. Phonetic studies in Chinese start way way way back as well, without which we would not know how to pronounce classical Chinese and classical poetry. But at this moment in history, tones are much simplified in Chinese. This double third tone -> second + third scenario is one of the few 'rules' that are still prevalent.


How to enter pinyin itself under Windows? Is it possible to enter text as if normal Chinese text is entering

i.e. with guessing of correct characters, but later entering Pinyin of entered text, not characters themselves?

zhèzhīgǒu

Usual IME's won't have that feature... so I think you have two approaches here.

Use a special IME or IME scheme, for example 地球拼音 from 中州韵输入法引擎(RIME). Reference: this Chinese post
Type Chinese first, then search for a Chinese-Pinyin conversion tool/online app, for example http://hanyu.iciba.com/pinyin.


The exact meaning of 就 as a linking word I know 就 is a linking word in these sentences, but what's the exact meaning? I don't really know if it's rather "and" or "then", "and later", "immediately", "right away", "and right after that", "at once"... Help, please!

她又怕他不高兴，就哄他说

她穿上一件花裙子就上路了

大大小小的野兽吓得撒腿就跑

俩人商量了一阵， 就各自回家了

大家觉得他要做的工作太多，就把他那根扁担藏了起来

小马水也顾不上喝就跑开了

I've got a few additional questions too...

Sometimes a comma is put, sometimes isn't. Does the meaning depend on the comma?
If it doesn't, then which version is correct - with or without a comma?

The closest rendition of 就 into English is "and then" or "and straight away"; "then" can denote a temporal or a logical connection.
就 in sentences 1–4 can be read in the temporal sense, in sentences 1 and 5 in the logical sense. Sentence 6 is a little peculiar because the most natural translation would be "The pony could not even afford to take a sip of water before running way," but if you squint a bit, you could say that 就 here simply means one action is immediately followed by the other in time.
Here are several more examples of 就 as a logical connective:

要是我有錢就好了 "if only I were rich" (literally: if I have money, then it is good)
聽說她幸福快樂，我就安心了 "I am glad she is living happily ever after" (literally: I heard she lives happily, I am therefore relieved)
你睡一覺就舒服點了 "you will feel better after a night's sleep" (literally: you have one nap, then it will be a bit more comfortable); a temporal reading is also possible

The comma is optional in most cases; it is used for rhythm purposes when the second clause is too long. There are, however, are a few set phrases that do not use a comma, 撒腿就跑, 倒頭就睡, 見好就收, 一管就死, 一放就亂 being some of them. I am not sure if 束手就擒 falls under this category because 就 here could also mean "to reach (the state of being caught)."
The phrase "and later" would be closer to 然後, which has a stronger temporal sense.


How do you ask how old a building is? I know to say to a person how old they are you can say "你多大" or "你几岁". But, how could you express "how old is this building?"

Would you say "这楼有几年的历史？" Or would that only be used for something grand like 故宫?

You're correct that 历史 is too splendid a word for an ordinary office building. Besides, you cannot put it together with 几年 without humor, because the question word 几 usually stands for a small, namely one digit number. (几十年 or 几百年 is acceptable.)
(EDIT: It's a universal fact in Mandarin that you should use 多少 for asking a truly indeterminate number of anything.)

"How old is this building?" would be:

  这楼有多久了？
  这楼盖了有（多久／多少年）了？ (How / How many years) old is this building since it's been built?

(EDIT #2-1: 有多少年 doesn't seem as much approvable as 有多久. In fact, none of them exactly mean "how old (a thing) is". The former is "how many years it has", and the latter, "how much time lapse it has". Using the former alone has a risk to meet with "How many years of what?" kind of response, depending on the context. At least, I prefer this to that, and moreover prefer the second example to the first.)

But I can also imagine I'd ask:

  这楼多少年盖的？ In what year was this building built? (See better solution in 杨以轩's answer)
  这楼什么时候盖的？ When was this building built?

(EDIT #2-2: Here you can see that I ran into another difficulty since Chinese doesn't really have a casual question word exactly equivalent to "what year". In this sense, 杨以轩's choice is far better than mine, and what is more, he seems to be a realtor.)


How old is Chinese grammar? Anyone here knows how old Chinese grammar is?  In my memory, I never read the term "语法" in all the historical works, especially those of Tang and Song dynasties, the peak of Chinese literature achievement.

As a modern Chinese word, the age of "语法" is about 100 years. Because modern Chinese originated from the May 4th Movement, which took place on May 4, 1919. But there was also the word "语法" in ancient Chinese, for example:
Case1：
《左传·昭公二十年》：“尔其勉之！相从为愈” 。
唐-孔颖达疏：“服虔云：‘相从愈於共死。’则服意‘相从’使员从其言也。语法，两人交互乃得称‘相’，独使员从己，语不得为相从也。”。
Case2：
金-王若虚《论语辨惑二》：“故凡解经，其论虽高，而於文势语法不顺者，亦未可遽从，况未高乎！”

It can be seen that the word "语法" was used in the Tang Dynasty，about 1200 years ago.  In ancient Chinese, there are two words: "语脉" and "文理"，they are similar in meaning to the word "语法" in modern Chinese．Here are some examples:
1."语脉＂
Case1：宋-朱弁 《曲洧旧闻》卷三：“ 王临川 语脉与 南丰 绝不相类。”
Case2：明-胡应麟 《少室山房笔丛·丹铅新录六·笨字义》：“凡读古人文字，务须平心易气，熟察上下语脉，得其立言本意乃可。”
Case3：清-张尔岐 《蒿庵闲话》卷一：“今详语脉，首句自为一事，重在无出乡。”
2."文理"
Case1：《三国志·吴志·张严程阚薛传论》：“ 张紘文理意正，为世令器， 孙策 待之亚於 张昭 ，诚有以也。”
Case2： 宋-司马光《进通志表》：“文理迂疏，无足观采。”
Case3： 明-谢谠《四喜记·双桂联芳》：“圣旨到来，宋祁文理精通，第一甲进士。”
Case4：《红楼梦》第二三回：“单把那文理雅道些的，拣了几套进去。”
Case5：鲁迅《伪自由书·不通两种》：“文理总未免有点希奇。”

Whether it is "语法" or "语脉" or "文理" in ancient Chinese; Neither of them is quite equivalent to "语法(grammar)＂ in modern Chinese.  Because there is no such thing as grammar in Chinese, it is only the comparison of modern Chinese people that gives rise to this concept．The grammar of ancient Chinese is mainly reflected in the use of vocabulary and sentence structure.The most prominent feature of standard Chinese grammar is that there is no morphological change in strict meaning. Nouns have no case, also have no part of speech and singular or plural．Verbs are not personal and have no tense. This characteristic, which is different from that of European languages, makes Chinese regarded by many linguists as having neither grammar nor part of speech for a long period of time in history.
《马氏文通》is the first systematic work on Chinese grammar in China. Its author is Ma Jiantong(马建通).Written in 1898, this work officially initiated the study of Chinese grammar.Taking ancient Chinese as the object of study, the book drew on the theories of Western grammar studies (mainly Latin), as well as some Chinese sayings on function characters, and established the first complete Chinese grammar system．Therefore, the real Chinese grammar can be said to have originated in 1898, at the age of 131.


性质 vs 性格 vs 个性 - all mean personality? Sad to say, my research has thrown up basically nothing on the differences between these three words, which is a bit annoying. They all seem to be someone's personality. Am I right in thinking that they are therefore fully interchangeable?!

(Grrr, why does Chinese have so many similar words...?! Or - more to the point - why are dictionaries so pants at distinguishing them lol Thinking of writing my own Chinese dictionary...!)

As Becky stated 性质 = property. It is unrelated to personality

性格 = personality
个 in 个性 means individual, therefore, 个性 implies 个人性格 (individual personality)


Ordering and grouping of Chinese characters I'm learning Cantonese (native Danish speaker, I use traditional Chinese characters) and I'm compiling a list of characters that I've learned. I have two questions about creating this list.

Since (many) single characters can be words, what is the most logical way of organizing such a dictionary? I figure that I should not group by nouns, verbs, adjectives etc. since that would lead to many repetitions. What do you think?
If I simply create a list of characters (with translation, phonetics, etc.), then what is the most logical way of ordering this list? Using the Latin alphabet, I would simply use the alphabet ordering.

Because I do not know your competence in Chinese / Cantonese, here's some vague advice:

Maybe 2 lists. The first list of characters / words are grouped by function:

e.g. number (1, 2, 3 ...), location / direction (here, there, east, west).

Have a look at the Lonely Planet Cantonese phrasebook; you'll know what I mean.

http://shop.lonelyplanet.com/china/cantonese-phrasebook-7/

Then, another list is sorted by alphabet, just like a dictionary. Again, have a look at these free resources from the internet archive:

An English and Cantonese pocket-dictionary

Cantonese for beginners

English and Cantonese dictionary

The Cantonese made easy vocabulary

Just a reminder, these books are published in the 18-19th centuries, some terms are not politically correct nowadays.

Another source: the 國語辭典 from Taiwan is authoritative. You may download 3 Excel files, sort all volumes, then find a suitable way for yourself.

Have fun :)


Is this book in simplified or traditional Chinese? To learn Chinese, I'm going to read the Chinese edition of a book I've already read in English. This is it:

www.amazon.cn/阿特拉斯耸耸肩-安·兰德/dp/B00DA281J2

Can someone please go into the "See Inside" feature, look at the preview pages, and tell me whether the book is in traditional or simplified Chinese?

Just looking at the title you can tell it's simplified.

Why?

耸 is the simplified version 聳.

Although, technically possible, it's highly unlikely that a book with a simplified title would be "in" traditional.


The phrase "Brush Stroke Order" This is my first post here and I apologise if this isn't quite the right forum for such a question - although I'm hopeful that it is. I'll be happy to edit and refine my question if necessary, or delete it at worst. I should also just mention that English is my only language.

I would like to know what the most appropriate translation of the phrase "Brush Stroke Order" would be in written Chinese (if it matters - although I'm lead to believe it doesn't - in a Cantonese dialect/context).

As I'm discovering, there are many ways this could be translated depending on the precise intention. Of course, there's the obvious meaning that pertains to the formalities of constructing Chinese characters, but this isn't quite what I'm after. The phrase in this particular context refers to the broader idea of the act of writing, more specifically writing well - giving literary form to ideas, refining structure, and creative flair - in any language. I expect there's no translation that would directly encompass all of these, but hopefully they act as a something of a guide.

Edit

To be clear, I'm not as interested in the obvious, "character writing" meaning of the phrase - I specifically want to focus on how it could be translated in a much wider, literary sense; the art of creative writing as a whole.

well, verism, do you want:

"name of a stand-alone project, concerned with creative writing"

"translated in a much wider, literary sense;
 the art of creative writing as a whole"

"writing well - giving literary form to ideas,
 refining structure, and creative flair"

in general, "creative writing" would be translated as "創意寫作", clearly, it's not creative enough

at this moment, i would suggest "創翰作坊" as the name of your project.

坊, or 作坊 is workshop; while "創作" is creation. "翰" has several meanings: brush pen, writing, . . .

so, may i ask the importance of a translation of "brush stroke order", and why you prefer cantonese? it's possible that a more "creative" term would be made, with more information.

info added.

so, this time maybe "揸筆創撰"

"揸" is take up with fingers, "筆" is pen; "揸筆" is a cantonese term for "holding a pen".

"創" is creat, a hint of creative,"撰" is "to write, or, talent".

there're characters for "write", i choose this one for "out of the box" feel; and, for the "balance" of the cantonese pronunciation.

have fun :)


What is the exact meaning and etymology of 拜年？ Since Chinese New Year is on the way (and thanks to Xiaohouzi's great suggestion), I've been thinking all about the new year. One term the sticks out is 拜年.

I'm very curious to know the exact meaning, where the 拜年 tradition stems from, how we could best translate it to English, and the etymology of this term. Does anyone have any insight?

When Chinese new year comes, families will go out to visit their relatives, friends or seniorities. According to this page from Baidu Encyclopedia, at earlier time, the kids should kowtow(叩头, the same as 拜) to salute. In return, the elders will give them pocket money in red envelop. Nowadays kids don't have to kneel, but pocket money is still a tradition.

And you can say "pay a New Year call" in English.


Am I interpreting this correctly? 凡物只所持，不外乎三种，神念、灵气、元血。只是，一旦错了。就不知会如何了。 I'm reading a web novel called "凤凰仙尊，刁妻萌娃好难训." There's a sentence which confused me, so I hope someone could tell me if my interpretation's already correct.

  凡物只所持，不外乎三种，神念、灵气、元血。只是，一旦错了。就不知会如何了。

I assumed the meaning is

  There are only three kinds of things to be controlled: divine comprehension, spiritual aura, and primordial blood. But (we) don't know what'd happen if a mistake occurs.

凡物只所持，不外乎三种，神念、灵气、元血。只是，一旦错了。就不知会如何了。

In my opinion,i translate to 凡是万物若想要控置他们，不外乎三个，神圣意念，灵魂气息，元血。只是，其中一個一旦错了。就不知会如何了。

If all things want to control them, there are only three kinds of things to be controlled
: divine ideology, spiritual aura, and primordial blood. But (we) don't know what'd happen if a mistake(at least one of three concept is in incomprehension) occurs.

神念 means the mindset of the thing(or person,creature).

灵气 means the fourth dimension of the thing.

元血 is the medium to communicate to the third dimension of physical body.

reference by myself


Cantonese called white language by mainland chinese Often when I interact with chinese folks coming from mainland China, they called cantonese "white language" (Ba Hua).

Maybe my understanding is incorrect.

Can anyone let me know if I'm mistaken and if not, why is it called White language?

Standard Cantonese speakers like myself sometimes call '广东话' as '白话', which literally means "plain speech",  in contrast to all other regional dialects (方言) and local dialects (鄉下話) within Canton province.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantonese
in Hong Kong and Macau, as well as among overseas Chinese communities, the language is referred to as "Guangdong speech" (广东话; 廣東話; Gwóngdūng wá)

"Guangdong speech" (广东话; 廣東話) is "plain speech"(白话) to us.


自习 vs 自学: what's the difference? What's the difference among:

自习     (zì xí)
自学     (zì xué)

They should be something like "to study by oneself", "to study on one’s own", but still, I don't get the difference.

自习 is more frequently related to the "self-study sessions" of high-school and colleges.

自学 generally implies teaching oneself about sth., i.e. no connotation to schools.


What's the Chinese equivalent of 将就? (成语) For Example:

  正版 Windows 太贵了, 只能拿盗版Windows或Ubuntu将就一下了.

Which can be translated to

  Genuine Microsoft Windows is too expensive, I'll have to make do with pirated Windows or Ubuntu.

Are there any Chengyus similar to this?

You can use 不得已而求其次 or 将陋就简.

Both have the same meaning with 将就 or 勉强凑合.


What contributes to negative emotion / sentiment in this example? I have got the following text labelled as negative. Could you please point to what would (lexically, syntactically) contribute to negative emotion here? Is it sarcastic in any way?

  #LE CREUSET#全球獨家發售首個粉紫色花形琺瑯鑄鐵鍋-只限於國泰航空之「非凡精選」府上送貨服務中獨家發售

The text seems to describe this pot:

I have to second Ringil's suggestion that your source considers such pots stupid, and so the source takes the text to be sarcastic.  It is a semantic issue rather than lexical or syntactic.


What is the difference between 没 and 不 when used with 又? What's the difference between these sentences:
他又没来上课
他又不来上课()
Here: https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_%22again%22_in_the_past_with_%22you%22#Negative_Form
it says both 没 and 不 can be used, and also after asking some native speakers one say the first is better, one say the meaning is different and one say that they're the same but the second sentence should have 了. Can anyone clarify?

A. 他又没来上课;
B. 他又不来上课
These two sentences are showing different feeling of the speaker. Sentence A is describing a rather objective fact: He had been absent from class often, and he was absent once again today. It may translate to "he doesn't show up the class again."
The sentence B is spoken with a tone of condemnation beside describing the same fact in sentence A. The words "不来上课" indicate an extra meaning that he was absent from class without reasons or on purpose. It may tranlate to "he doesn't want to show up the class again."
Both sentences can be ended with "了" to have an emphasizing tone, simply trying to attract more attention of the audience. Without "了", it is a rather flat tone. The translation is "he doesn't (want to) show up the class, once again."


Resources for Cantonese speakers learning Mandarin? CantoDict is awesome, and often contains translations from Cantonese phrases to their Mandarin equivalent, but sometimes it lacks Mandarin entries for words like 剩翻: http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/48306/.

Are there other Cantonese resources or dictionaries that also help Cantonese speakers learn Mandarin?

Pleco is selling two unique dictionaries that could help you:

  Guangzhouhua Fangyan Cidian

  $9.99 (version 3 only)
  Chinese-Chinese dictionary of Cantonese-specific vocabulary with approximately 8000 entries, from Commercial Press.

and

  Guangzhouhua-Putonghua Cidian

  $9.99 (version 3 only)
  Cantonese-to-Mandarin (focused on diffs between them), 10k entries

A problem you might find in Cantonese is that, while there is a measure of standardization, overall standardization is lacking.

Take 剩翻 for instance.

If you search it by character in Pleco you will only get one result:

剩翻

  剩翻 zing6 faan1 {shèng fān}

  this is what's left

That might work for you if you're looking for English results and even if so maybe not because of the poor quality of the English.

But if we use Jyutping:

we can see all the results with the sound we're looking for and may even find out that 剩翻 is written 剩番 in most dictionaries.

Pleco also has a number of Cantonese to English or English to Cantonese based products as well.

  ABC Cantonese Dictionary
  $29.99 (version 3 only)
  Brand new (published in 2017) Cantonese-to-English dictionary, the first new one in several decades; featuring 16,000 Cantonese-specific vocabulary entries and a whopping 15,000 Cantonese example sentences (all with Jyutping/Yale pronunciation). Edited by Robert S. Bauer and produced by Wenlin Institute.

  The Right Word in Cantonese
  $9.99 (version 3 only)
  English-to-Cantonese dictionary focused on idiomatic translations; 6500 entries

  CC-Canto Cantonese-English Dictionary
  Free
  Pleco's first self-published dictionary project, an open-source Cantonese-to-English dictionary with about 25,000 entries, designed as a Cantonese extension to the open-source Mandarin dictionary CC-CEDICT that's built into Pleco. (basically, we only define words when they don't, or when their definition differs from the Cantonese one).

  Also available online at our website cantonese.org - much more information on the project is available at http://cantonese.org/about.html


What does this Cantonese sentence "冧哥覆咗你未?" mean in English? What does this Cantonese sentence "冧哥覆咗你未" mean in English?

冧哥 (the subject) roughly means "Mr. Sweet talk" (冧 has the meaning of "sweet talk" or "coax"; adding 哥 to the end of a noun is a common way to nickname someone. )

覆咗 = replied (覆 is short for 答覆; 咗 is a word particle that indicates the verb is completed, It functions the same as 了 in Mandarin)

你 = you (the object)

未 = has not/ not yet

"冧哥覆咗你未?" = "Mr. Sweet talk replied you? (or he) has not?" = "Has Mr. Sweet talk replied you yet?"


Is there a difference between 患者 and 病人? Both 患者 and 病人 can mean patient. When would you prefer one over the other?

患 = contracted (of disease); 者= the one who

  患者 = the one who contracted (disease) = patient

The term 患者 describes 'a patient of a specific disease'. For example: '癌症患者' (cancer patient), '皮膚病患者'(skin disease patient).
We cannot use '患者' without referencing the disease

  病人 = sick person/ patient

The term 病人 is a general term for 'sick people/ patient'. You can use this term to designate a unwell person without mentioning the disease. For example "病人需要更多的休息" (sick people/ patients need more rest). *-doesn't matter what kind of sickness
It can be used interchangeably with 患者 when referring a patient of a particular disease. For example 癌症病人 (cancer patient), 皮膚病病人(skin disease patient)


Where to put 不 when responding in negative This question is related to the Verb + Result Complement discussed here, but I think it's different.

Here are my instructions*:

Change the following into interrogative sentences (a) with a potential complement and then give negative answers to them (b)

请把下列问句改成带可能补语的问句， 并用否定句回答：

(5) 你能拿来那本书吗？

So I feel comfortable with part (a), I think to make a potential complement it's all about 得.  Correct me if I'm wrong:

(5a) 你能拿得来那本书吗？

But I struggle with part (b). I know to give a negative Result Complement, we use Verb + 不 + Result Complement. However, the use of 能源动词　"能" is begging to be negated (maybe my instinct is wrong...).

Should I put 不 between 那_来?

(5b)  我能拿不来那本书。

...or 不 before 能:

(5b) 我不能拿得来那本书。

This lesson is teaching me the former, but it feels awkward to leave a "positive" 能 in there...

By the way, what kind of rude person says "No, I cannot bring the book"?! (Just kidding... kinda. Maybe this person is physically incapable of bringing the book?)

*I promise you're not helping me cheat, I study Chinese on my own :)

As far as I can tell, the question does not require you to leave the 能 in the sentence. Since the 能 is already implied by the 可能补语 structure, the most natural way to solve your problem would be to leave off the 能:

你拿得来那本书吗？
我拿不来那本书。

By the way, to me it sounds more natural to move the object to the start of the sentence:

那本书你拿得来吗？
那本书我拿不来。

... but it's grammatically correct either way.


How does 周到 mean "thoughtful"? I'm trying to learn the few remaining HSK5 words I haven't fully learned yet.  This one I keep forgetting:

周到 (zhōudào / zhōudao)
CC-CEDICT: thoughtful / considerate / attentive / thorough

It would help to understand the underlying logic here, but I can't figure it out: 周到 seems like the combinations of two random characters.

周 (zhōu)
CC-CEDICT: to make a circuit / to circle / circle / circumference / lap / cycle / complete / all / all over / thorough / to help financially
到 (dào)
CC-CEDICT: to (a place) / until (a time) / up to / to go / to arrive / (verb complement denoting completion or result of an action)

I get nothing from this, and googling 周到 etymology didn't give anything useful.
Question: How does 周到 mean "thoughtful"?

Sorry I don't know this word's etymology. But maybe understand the synonym helps to remember.
As far as I know, 周到 has nearly the same meaning as 面面俱到（miàn miàn jù dào）.
周 (zhōu) is like 面面（miàn miàn）, meaning in almost all aspects; and 到 (dào) means taking care of it. So that 周到 means taking care of all aspects, that is thoughtful.


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

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

You are not the first person to wonder about the difference between 'commission and committee.'

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

Seems to me, in English, the difference is how they are formed: a committee is formed of volunteers, a commission is appointed. In China this distinction seems not so apparent, so they use 委员会 for both.

The original meaning of committ-ee was 'person to whom something is committed/entrusted'.
The original meaning of commission was 'authority entrusted to someone'.
So, actually, there is not much difference in English either! Both come from Latin 'committere'.


Why is the radical of 难 > 隹 and not 又? 难 nan2, difficult; hard. Kangxi radical 172 隹.

My teacher says the radical for this character is 又 but the dictionary says clearly it's 隹.

As @50-3 has mentioned, the 难 is the simplification of the traditional character 難. Most Chinese characters are phono-semantic compounds (形声字), in which the radical hints at the meaning while the phonetic hints at the pronunciation. In the case of 難, the phonetic component is 堇 while the radical is 隹. In modern Chinese, the pronunciation of 堇 has diverged from 難, but their pronunciations in Old Chinese were presumably closer.

Why is the radical 隹, which typically refers to birds? This link gives the explanation: http://font.zenque.com/zidian/4796.html

  難，今单用简作难，读nán，本义指一种鸟。因其从“堇”（火焚人祭雨）取得声义，故借以表示①困难；艰难

難 originally referred to a type of bird, but because the pronunciations coincided, the character ended up being borrowed to also refer to hardship and difficulty.


What does 一不留神 mean ...还写了不少东西，一不留神写了不少军报头条? I get 'take care' or 'be careful' for 留神。

I‘ve seen '一不留神‘ translated as 'accidentally', but this guy did not write his stuff 'accidentally'. It seems to mean 'surprisingly' here. Is that right?

我是1970年入伍的。我主动要求当最艰苦的工程兵，我当兵10年，参与抢险、修路盖房子，还写了不少东西，一不留神写了不少军报头条。

一不留神写了不少军报头条。 Surprisingly, I wrote a lot of lead stories.

留神 means "pay attention"

一不留神 means " not paying attention for just an instance"

In the sentence,  "一不留神" implies " before I notice it"

  一不留神写了不少军报头条

"Before I noticed it, I had already written many lead articles in Military News"

You could use "Before I noticed it" or "Before I knew it"


Bigrams ending in third tone where first syllable is second tone vs. third tone This is regarding tone sandhi for consecutive third tones.

I notice CC-CEDICT has over 200 bigrams with tone pair 3-3 where there also exists a separate bigram 2-3.

One such example is:

白果 bai2 guo3
百果 bai3 guo3

Tone sandhi says that the second should also be pronounced bai2 guo3.

I have two main questions about this:

Are both words pronounced exactly the same?
If no, can a native speaker (listener) consistently distinguish the two words apart from one another?

In general, I'm curious whether tone sandhi is merely an approximation (that the first 3rd tone should be pronounced as a second tone).

As a bonus question, if the words have exactly the same pronunciation, why do dictionaries not standardize so that both words show the same pinyin (e.g. "bai3 guo3")?

There have been conflicting claims on whether the second tone and the "raised third tone" are distinct, but according to Jerry Norman's 1988 book, Chinese, "Perceptual tests done by Dreher and Lee (1966) and Wang and Li (1967) established that native speakers are unable to make a consistent distinction between second tones and raised third tones" (147). So all 2-3 and 3-3 compounds are homophones; the only way to tell which is intended is by context.

[After new edit to question] The question is divided into two parts: 1) Do native speakers actually produce 2-3 and 3-3 pairs in an acoustically distinct way? 2) Can "native listeners" accurately distinguish  between 2-3 and 3-3 pairs when they hear them?

The studies Norman cites address the problem of the listener, i.e. they are perceptual studies.  I have Wang and Li (1967); I won't try to summarize it, but I think the subjects, the sample, the format of the experiment, and the statistical analysis are good. Wang and Li found that the accuracy with which native listeners distinguished 2-3 and 3-3 pairs "in neutral speech" ranged from 49.2 to 54.2 percent. In other words, they were wrong half the time. This is no better than guessing, so Norman says they are 'unable to distinguish consistently.'

This is the perceptual side, not the production side.  You also want to know if people actually "pronounce" the two differently.  I presume you mean that by using physical measurements we can come up with a consistent set of differences between the two members of each pair.  Wang and Li discuss and reject this idea:

  Does tone 3 become tone 2 when it occurs before another tone 3?
  Attempts to answer this question have been made by extensive
  measurements of spectrographic data on voice pitch. Such attemps have
  not yielded, and indeed cannot yield, any conclusive results. The
  nature of phonetic variations is such that we would expect to find a
  great deal of overlap in the physical measurements of the two types of
  tone sequences mentioned above.

Putting this in my own words, there is no principled way to decide which of the vast number of acoustic components produced by an individual utterance of a 2-3 and a 3-3 compound people might use to distinguish the two.  We can't look at the signal and pick out what part "means" something. This is a familar problem in linguistics, right? Perceptual tests avoid this problem and produce an objective answer, which is simply that people can't distinguish these pairs.

Let's put it another way. Imagine that native speakers actually produce 2-3 and 3-3 pairs that are "distinct." Distinct here means a physically measurable difference (pitch, loudness, duration, or some combination) that is used consistently in all such pairs, regardless of their otherwise different phonetic/phonemic structure, and can be detected using acoustic instrumentation and/or analysis.

Forget that we can't do this; suppose we can. Wang and Li have already shown that for some reason, native listeners are not able to detect this distinction at better than 50-50 accuracy.

I think this is at least a paradox, if not a contradiction: do languages have sounds or sound patterns that everyone uses, and are physically different in a consistent way between phonologically "minimal" pairs of different words, but that no one can distinguish? What does it mean for "distinct" words to be "undistinguishable"? Note we are not talking about "performance" issues here.

Wang and Li do consider the problem of making clear which pair you want to express: "It is obviously possible to distinguish the 3-3 sequences by employing various additional features, such as extra stress, pause, etc." This is why the phrase "neutral speech" is added in their description of their results.

Bonus answer: you seem to be asking why the dictionary lists the pronunciation of 百果 as bǎiguǒ instead of báiguǒ.  Most dictionaries give only the 'isolation' tones for single characters, even in compound words.  For example, the Pinyin Chinese-English Dictionary says 'Tonal changes within compound words are not generally marked.'

There are several reasons not to mark tone sandhi in dictionaries. Convenience is an important one; changing compounds to use sandhi forms is more complicated than just leaving them alone.

Another reason is that the domain of sandhi rules often crosses word boundaries. Since sandhi occurs whether something is a word or not, a dictionary perhaps need not register such non-lexical changes.

By the same logic, the morpheme bái 'white' and the morpheme bǎi 'hundred' are phonologically distinct. Although they merge phonetically in some environments, that doesn't mean we should ignore the distinction between the two and give the 'surface' form in dictionary entries where sandhi rules may apply.


What does the notation 【方】 mean in a Chinese dictionary? In a dictionary entry reading…

saggy adj.【方】下垂的；垂曲的；中陷的。

…, what does the notation 【方】 mean?
(Other examples of this notation that I understand include “【美俗】” (American slang), “【解剖】” (anatomy), and “【數學】” (mathematics).)
I’d prefer source material in an answer.

【方】

Is short for 方言.
方言 is defined by mdbg as:

topolect / dialect

Why saggy is considered topolectical or dialectical, though, is beyond me.


Are idioms affected by tone changing rules? For example, if I have the idiom:

一路平安

Does the tone of the 一 change to a second tone because 路 is fourth tone?

Yes it should be pronounced as the 2nd tone because it's put before character with the 4th tone. The sandhi rule applies with idioms too.

The cases 一 should be pronounced as the 1st tone, i.e. shouldn't change the tone, are listed as the follows:

  单独念时。如：一，一、二、三
  用在一词或一句的末尾。如：统一祖国，唯一条件，单一成分，表里如一，不论三七二十一
  表示年、月、日。如：1911年1月1日，一二•九运动，九•一八事变
  表示序数。如：第一村，第一名，第一等，第一位

(1. when used alone; 2. when used at the end of the word or sentence; 3. when used in date; 4. when used as ordinal number with the meaning "first".)

  “一”在上述语境中，不管它后面跟的字是什么声调，“一”的读音都保持其原调阴平，不发生变调。特别要引起注意的是第四种语境，因为许多序数在表述时采用了省略“第”的格式，这时“一”字也应读原调。

(Under the above circumstances, no matter what the following character's tone is, 一 should keep its original tone (i.e. the 1st tone) and doesn't change.)

试析“一”声调的读法


Proper use of 了 in Chinese For my Chinese language class, I need to go through this practice worksheet and fill out which uses of 了 are correct. However, while I think I know decently when to use 了， I am not sure about some of my answers, as we have not discussed some things in class.

| 我们现在一起吃饭了。       | I'm not sure about this one. I think it might be correct because it could say "Now we can eat," which uses 了 to indicate a change.
            |
| 我明天要跟你去健身房了。   | I don't think this one is correct because it uses 明天 and 要which  indicates it will happen in the future.                                          |

| 我已经吃了午饭。           | I think this one is correct, it says "I already ate lunch."                                                                                |

| 我看电影了。               | This one seems correct, "I watched TV."                                                                                |

| 她穿新的裙子了             | This one also seems to use 了correctly, it says "She wore a new skirt."                                                                              |
| 我去了中文课了。           | Again, this one also seems to use 了 correctly, I believe it translates to "I have been going to Chinese class."                                     |
| 他会说中文了。             | This one also seems correct. "He can now speak Chinese."                                                                                |

| 你真的买了两个新的电视吗？ | I also think this is correct, because the 了 occurs before the numbers and  indicates a the past tense of 买。 “Did you really buy two televisions?" |

| 他买四本书了               | This one isn't correct because 了occurs after the quantity and not before the quantity and after the verb like it should.                            |

| 你们回家了                 | I think this one is correct, it translates to "You have returned home."                                                                              |

I got this from another forum, I find it useful:

  了和过的区别

  了和过都能用在动词后面。   了 有表示过去时，现在进行时，将来时的意思。   如：我去了一趟超市。（过去）   我睡觉了。（现在）
  我到了给你打电话。（将来）
  过 只表示过去发生的某些事情。不能表示现在时和将来时。
   如：我去过中国。

  了 和 过的用法是非常相似的，希望你能慢慢体会，多多练习。(ง •_•)ง,加油

My take on your sentences:

我们现在一起吃饭。
我明天要跟你去健身房了。
我已经吃了午饭。
我看电影了。
她穿了新的裙子。
我去了中文课了。（第二个‘了’是语气助词）
他会说中文了。
你真的买了两个新的电视吗？
他买了四本书。
你们回家吧。


How do you say "none available"? How do you say "none available"? As in: "There is none available" (without the "there is". Or not.).

(In this context )There is none available .= 沒了 = 沒貨 = 沒提供

Is the seat available ? No,it is not available. = 座位有人。 = 有人。

I'm not available at the moment = 我現在沒空。

The book is available from the bookshops.= 這本書可以從書店買到


Did ancient Chinese have tones (声调)? This question has puzzled me since I have no training in ancient Chinese and ancient phonetics. What is puzzling me are the following facts:

The tones in different regions are quite different. If they are from Ancient Chinese, why are they not more consistent?
When Chinese characters were borrowed by Japanese and Korean around 1000 years ago, the tones are not picked up by their languages. Did Chinese actually have fixed tones at that time, or not?
Ancient Chinese had codas (Cantonese codas like [p], [t], [k]) but modern Chinese doesn't. Is it possible that the information in the codas is transformed to tones? Otherwise, a lot of information would have been lost.

Any ideas?

Linguists divide pre-modern Chinese broadly into two periods: Old Chinese and Middle Chinese. I wanted to preface my answer by noting that Bernhard Karlgren used the term "Ancient Chinese" to refer specifically to Middle Chinese, and it appears that your questions seem to be referring to Middle Chinese as well, though I will be making a note about Old Chinese in my answer.

Middle Chinese is documented as having tones (in particular by the Qieyun in 601) while Old Chinese has been postulated as being atonal. I will go into more detail as I address your questions in order:

The tone contours of the various modern Chinese varieties can appear to be superficially quite different, but the tones themselves are actually quite consistent in the way they evolved from the tones of Middle Chinese. Words that belong to particular tone categories tend to remain in the same tone category across the various modern Chinese varieties, even though the ways the tone itself is pronounced has diverged among differing dialects.

Take for example, the word 平, which generally always has the 陽平 tone across all of the modern Chinese varieties; however, the 陽平 tone itself has evolved into having, for instance, the contour 35 in Standard Mandarin but contour 21 in modern Cantonese.

Various tone categories can end up getting split or merged though during the evolution of any particular Chinese variety due to various phonological environments, so for instance, Middle Chinese 陰去 and 陽去 tones both ended up merging into one 去 tone in Mandarin (with contour 51), while they remained separate in Cantonese (with contours 33 and 22, respectively).

One area where tone mergers were not very consistent is the loss of the checked tones (入) in Mandarin. Words with this tone ended up being redistributed to the other 4 modern Mandarin tones seemingly randomly in Beijing Mandarin (and thus also in Standard Mandarin which is based on Beijing Mandarin); however the redistribution in other dialects of Mandarin appear to more consistent in this regard (refer to the table in this article). One explanation for this inconsistency is that checked tone words in Beijing Mandarin ended up being pronounced in a variety of different tones once the distinguishing feature of checked tone words (namely the stop consonant codas) were lost and the confluence of various dialects in the capital reshaped the tones with which these words were pronounced in different ways.

Refer to the table in this article for how the various modern Chinese varieties map the original tones of Middle Chinese into their modern tones and tone contours.
Japanese and Korean belong to separate language families that are not related to Chinese even though they imported many Chinese words. The time period during which most Chinese words were imported fall squarely during the Middle Chinese period, which was documented as already featuring tones. Japanese and Korean though, are not tonal languages, and because they don't distinguish lexical tone, it's not unexpected that they would also not distinguish tones in the words they imported.

For a parallel example, English is an atonal language that has also imported a few words of Chinese origin, such as bok choy from Cantonese and feng shui from Mandarin, and the tones with which these words are originally pronounced are similarly ignored in English.
As I mentioned above, the words with stop codas were classified under the checked tone in Middle Chinese, and when the stop codas were lost in Mandarin, their tone contours ended up being redistributed to the other tones. Strictly speaking, yes, this did end up resulting in a loss of information leading to a possible increase in ambiguity; however, this is not an uncommon occurrence in the evolution of any language. Distinguishing features have been lost in the history languages across the world, but their speakers generally make up for it in other ways. Mandarin, in particular, lost many of the distinguishing features that were present in Middle Chinese, leading to a reduced syllable inventory, but it has compensated by increasing the number of disyllabic words in its vocabulary.

It is interesting to note, though, that loss of certain codas in the transition from Old Chinese to Middle Chinese did indeed get transformed to tones. It is postulated that Old Chinese was actually not a tonal language, and words ending in a glottal stop (-ʔ) in Old Chinese ended up cheshirizing to the 上 tone and words ending in -s to the 去 tone. See this article for more details.

Similarly, a later tonal distinction caused by voiced vs. unvoiced initial consonants in Middle Chinese lead to the split of the four 平上去入 tones into two registers, 陰 and 陽, leading to 8 tones (this marked the transition from Early Middle Chinese to Late Middle Chinese). The voiced vs. unvoiced distinction has disappeared in most modern varieties of Chinese (a notable exception being the Wu dialects), but the tonal distinction still remains in many of them.


Is there a difference between 有趣 and 有意思? They seem to mean the same thing, but I've seen 有意思 quite a few times in my books, and never 有趣. When is 有趣 used and why (especially in comparison with 有意思)?

有趣 - fun
有意思 - interesting

To break the vocabulary literally, we have 有/趣 and 有/意思. The word 有 carries the meaning similar to "there is something" or "it has something". 趣 can be interpreted as "fun". 意思 can be translated to "meaning".

So, these two vocabularies can be broken down literally as:

X有趣 - there is fun in X / X is fun
X有意思 - X is interesting


What's the difference between 保育院 and 孤儿院? Per title. Both describe an institution for children who have no parents.  I've looked around on the Internet and asked several people about this, but no one seems to have a definitive answer? Does it have anything to do with how they become orphans, i.e., whether they were abandoned by their parents/caretakers or whether their parents/caretakers died?

孤儿院 sounds more straightforward to me while 保育院 seems a more considerate name. 孤儿院 is much more frequent in casual talk, at least just for me, it's not common to use 保育院 in my dialect. I think the recent usage of 保育院 might be a protection of children. I didn't look up in a dictionary or any other reference. Literally, 孤儿院 implies the children have lost their parents, which in reality that might not be the case. 保育院 doesn't have that implication. Chances are the children still have their parents, but for some reason, the custodies are taken over.

Anyway, I'll vote for 保育院, that's definitely a better name. It's safer to use 保育院, especially in formal situations.


How do you 'second best'? To say something or someone is the best or most we use 最, but how about second, third, fourth best/most etc?

For example:

He's the second most expensive player in football history.
He kept the third most clean sheets in the Premier League this season.

What structure should be used to express these ideas?

Ignore the translation for "Most/Best" if it's not the top one
He's the most expensive player in football history
他是足球历史上最贵的选手
He's the second most expensive player in football history
他是足球历史上第二贵的选手
He's the third most expensive player in football history
他是足球历史上第三贵的选手
You can find it's using "第二贵" instead of "第二最贵"
In Chinese when talking about "最" it usually referring only the top ONE.


Is there an alphabetic system in the Chinese language? Just wanted to confirm, is there an alphabetic system in the Chinese language? Like in the Korean language, the Hangul is in alphabetic system.

Also does the official Chinese Language adopts word spacing? Or is it more like, certain countries that has Chinese as an official Language does adopt word spacing and others don't?

The official way to write Chinese uses Chinese characters, which is not an alphabetical system.
There have been various phonetic systems developed to either write or transcribe Chinese. Some of these systems are alphabets. To emphasise, these phonetic systems are not official ways of writing Chinese.
The official way of writing, using characters, does not use word spacing. When using a phonetic script, word spacing is commonly adopted; see Spacing Guidelines for Modern Chinese Writing.

Example phonetic systems:

Writing Chinese

Pe̍h-ōe-jī, a Roman alphabet for Minnan;
Dungan Cyrillic, a Cyrillic alphabet for a the Dungan language, a dialect of Central Plains Mandarin;
Xiao'erjing, a Perso-Arabic-based abugida for Mandarin.

Transcribing Chinese

Hanyu Pinyin, a Roman alphabet for Mandarin;
Yale Romanisation for Cantonese;
Bopomofo, a semi-syllabary for Mandarin.


Differences between 咱们 and 我们？ 我们 [wǒmen] and 咱们 [zánmen] both means: we, but when I should use 咱们， 我们？

What is the difference?

我们 can be used both formally and colloquially across all Chinese speaking regions, while 咱们 appears more in spoken language and more in Northern China.
我们 may or may not include the listener, depending on the context, while 咱们 almost always includes the listener.
Although 咱们 includes both parties, there can be a strong or even exclusive focus on one party, either the speaker (e.g. 瞧咱们的 = "we'll show you how it's done") or the listener (e.g. 咱们不怕 = "let us not be afraid"). This type of usage is very common in Northern China but can be quite unfamiliar/unnatural to other Chinese speaking regions.

References:

[1] http://www.chiculture.net/0615/html/d16/0615d16.html

[2] http://www.fed.cuhk.edu.hk/~pth/pth_passage01.php?passage=99


what is the difference between 覆盆子 and 树莓? As the title says what is the difference between 覆盆子 and 树莓? It feels like 覆盆子 is more formal / "fancier" than 树莓？ Or is it just traditional characters vs simplified?

Check wiki, basicly 覆盆子(Rubus idaeus) is one kind of 树莓(Raspberry), 树莓(Raspberry) also include 山莓 （Rubus corchorifolius）, 牛叠肚 (Rubus crataegifolius) etc.

树莓英文为“Raspberry”也可以指覆盆子（Rubus idaeus）但是它只是其中一种，广义来讲还可指悬钩子属内的部分物种。


What are the rules surrounding word order when talking about time (e.g. are 八点钟我想吃早饭 or 我想今天吃早饭 okay)? During my time learning Chinese, I've heard two distinct word orders when referencing the time at which something will occur. For example, I was taught to say 今天我想吃早饭 to talk about 今天, 明天, etc, but I was taught to say 我想八点钟吃早饭 when speaking about a specific time, which seems a rather different word order.

What are the rules surrounding the word order when talking about time in this context? Are both ways acceptable (that is, would 八点钟我想吃早饭 and 我想今天吃早饭 also be okay)?

I think it's just the same when it is in english:

今天我想吃早饭 - Today I want to have breakfast
我想八点钟吃早饭 - I want to have breakfast at eight

我想今天吃早饭 - I want to have breakfast today
八点钟我想吃早饭 - At eight, I want to have breakfast

All these sentence make sense and are acceptable.


Is 进 correct: 他喜欢进我的房间(来)和我聊天儿？ 他喜欢进我的房间(来)和我聊天儿。A website gives me another option: 他喜欢到我的房间(来)和我聊天儿.

It changes 进 into 到.

Is 进 correct? Or are both 进 and 到 OK?

进 means 'enter'

  他喜欢(进)我的房间(来)和我聊天儿 --> he like to (enter) my room (to) chat with me (X)

As you can see, it is not a good choice of word in English. A better wording should be  "he like to (go to) my room (to) chat with me". In Chinese, it would be

  他喜欢(到)我的房间(来)和我聊天儿 (O)

Other example:

他喜欢(进)旅馆过夜 --> He like to (enter) hotel to spend the night (X)

他喜欢(到)旅馆(去)过夜--> He like to (go to) hotel (to) spend the night (O)

  You can use 去(go to) or 来 (come to) instead of 到, and you can omit 来(to) in Chinese

Example:

他喜欢(去/来)我的房间和我聊天儿

他喜欢(去)旅馆过夜


What does this symbol mean? I'm trying to figure out the meaning of this symbol.

It is 氏 as in 姓氏 (family name)

In ancient time, China was a 母系社会 (matriarchal society). People got their family name from their mother side. That was called '姓'.

Eventually, 父系社会 (patriarchal societies) started to develop. People began to add the family name from their father side in addition to their 姓 (family name from the mother side) and that family name from the father side was called '氏'

For example: A woman's family name was 杜 and gave her son the name 明, this 明 person would have a 姓 of 杜 and his full name would be 杜明.

However, his father's family name was 李, and this 明 person could legally call himself  '杜姓李氏' (杜 was his family name from his mother's side, and 李 was his family name from his father's side)

Eventually, matriarchal society societies was replaced by patriarchal societies completely. The term 姓氏 was consolidated to mean family name (from the father side)

In modern Chinese, the term '姓氏' refers to 'family name' and '姓' is the standard shortened form of '姓氏'

When you ask what is someone's family name, you only ask what is his 姓, never what is his 氏. The full term '姓氏' is rarely used colloquially. It appears mostly in written form.

氏 on its own refers to:

A woman's maiden name. For example: 杜门李氏 (married to the 杜 family and maiden name was 李)
Clan's name (interchangeable with 姓) -  both '杜姓一族'  and '杜氏一族' means 'the clan of 杜'


Need a Chinese/English technology translation website 请求汉英电脑技术词典的网站 When speaking to Chinese folks in the Bay Area, when you hit a technology word ("load average", "I/O thruput"), you just break into English.

Is there a good site with translations for ALL the fancy words? The Google doesn't always do a good job (surprisingly!), and searching has come up blank.

在美国，跟中国人聊聊电脑界，常用半中半英的chinglish。 对港陆台人不合适。有没有电脑界的汉英技术词典网站吗？美国霸王大哥、中国百度小弟都翻不成。

Me as a native Chinese speaker often runs into the similar trouble. The problem is that computer technology came to us as English with the original language describing it. All of those translation come after it, those good ones even later, and also they would mainly be used for education purpose in text book. And as a programmer myself I always find difficult to find the correct Chinese word for those new terms came into the industry.

There were also quite some time when I tried to use the Chinese term while talking with other Chinese that studied abroad and they just looked at me with a confused expression on their face. So I don't bother doing so anymore.

Also during those time that I worked for foreign invested software companies in China, even most of the co-workers are Chinese we would still mix English in our conversation, classic examples are 'bugs', I run into no Chinese calling it 缺陷 but only myself, and even that was trying to tell an American what's the Chinese word for 'bug' and it felt so wrong to me at that time when I speak it. So I would say don't bother to find such a thing. :)

EDIT:

As OP insist I went on searching such a thing. There was actually a term on this '计算机专业英语', and I recall I indeed need to pass the test for this one back in the university study. So I went on googling '计算机专业英语词典', like I said it's mainly for educational purpose and for text book, those things are so out of date like at least four years ago, also I suspect it would consider as out of date even back at that time.

Again it looks all of those tools/resources are trying to targeting students, some of them even are just a simple copy from text book.

There is this one looks promising main has the potential as a candidate, but as it's a mobile app I didn't try it myself: 外教社计算机英语词典


Techniques for improving listening comprehension under background noise conditions I have noticed that there is a big gap between my listening comprehension under ideal conditions (f.e. listening to a chinese movie/TV show/ChinesePod at my computer) and real-life listening comprehension (f.e. listening to friends at a loud chinese restaurant or sometimes just stuff like listening to a clarification question after I ordered milk tea at a noisy street).

I'm sure most Chinese learners face similar issues and I haven't come across any good strategy how to tackle this. Since I do not live in China I do not get enough input to use the "just listen more under non-ideal conditions"-strategy.

Do you have any suggestions/ideas?

Try your best.

Similar to any language that being "localised", it took "origin" speaker time to adapt in order to understand different slang. E.g. A GB English speaker will have a hard time following Australian English, New Jersey slang, Mississipi slang.

If you watch series from PRC, it is mostly Beijing slang. If you don't understand most of the words speaking by some Chinese, then you probably hearing some sort of dialect, e.g. Shang-hai-hua, Guang-dong-hua ,etc.


How do non-native speakers get to perceive tones in Chinese? Recently I've been teaching an English-speaking friend some basics about Chinese, but inevitably he got stuck with the tones. I've demonstrated to him the 4 tones with audio files, yet it seems hard for him to distinguish between them. (That being said, he is still able to imitate the pronunciation immediately after listening, though not knowing what tone he is repeating.)

As a native speaker, I have picked up the tones through years of immersion in the language environment, which is of little help to a busy non-native speaker.

What can I do to help my friend perceive the tones? Is there a transition from "cannot perceive" to "can perceive", or are there stages that I can guide him through? How can I describe the differences to him so that he can learn the nuances? Experience from teachers who are used to adult learners (especially learners whose native language is English) would be welcome.

Here are some different things that I have seen that has helped people pick up tones:

Starting out

Most books use graphs which show how each of the tones rise, fall, flatten etc (example here). It helps some people to see the difference visually and the graphs show how great an extent the tones differ.
The tones also have names (not official) e.g. rising, falling. Show the learner the graphs and ask them how they would describe each of the tones. Then ask them to pronounce tone X based on their descriptor.
Almost everyone I've seen starting with tones have started with the exercise: mā, má, mǎ, mà.
This is a bad habit, but it helps some people: using your head or your hand to move in the right direction of the tone while saying it. May help with beginners, but not recommended to keep this habit for long.

Stepping up

Try using pairs of words, I suggest using names of places because the speaker will have something they are familiar with e.g. běijīng， táiwān， shànghǎi
Counting 1 to 10 is a good exercise because it covers all four tones and as per above the speaker is familiar with the concept so they can concentrate on learning.
Family members is another good one (bàba, māmā) that uses a variety of tones.

Becoming competent

A good exercise for learning tones is practicing basic songs. I prefer to use children's songs than pop music as people tend to get distracted by the meaning of pop songs rather than concentrating on learning.
Learn to recite simple poems (again, don't concentrate on meaning, just on exercising your tongue and mouth)
There is a concept which has spread across children's Mandarin classes in the West. I will check with my wife what it is called. It involves getting children to read and recite very old writing where the meaning is completely obscured. The purpose as with the examples above is to make the learner concentrate more on how they are speaking and getting the tones precise than understanding what they are saying.
Practice reading out loud, even to yourself, as often as possible. This helps to train the mouth. Once you become more fluent start singing along to your favourite pop songs.

In my personal experience learning tones is one of the hardest skills and it took me at least 5 years before I started getting over 90% correct in conversation. My 5 year old son, who had the benefit of learning as a baby from his mother and grandparents, still corrects me daily when I slip up.


How is 天论问宪 translated in English? I caught this phrase in a Chinese novel. Based on my understanding, the literal translation would be "The law of asking and discussing Heaven", which sounds really clumsy and lengthy. Is there any comfortable translation for this?

Thanks to user6065 commenting below, I decided to go with "Principles of Heaven", which sounds best imo. Feel free to reply if you have a better one.

Edit: This was just a name taken from a novel. The full paragraph is:

  “这本《天论问宪》我花了一个月时间才看完，其中道理讲的都好，可唯独‘以德报怨’这四个字，我万万不能苟同！”罗征轻声低语，看着豆丁大的灯焰，脸上透出哀伤的神色：“若不是父亲宅心仁厚，信了这四个字，我长房一脉也不会落到如此下场，父亲更加不会死去……”

which I translated as:

  “A month reading this ‘Principles of Heaven’, all of the principles are great. But only these four words – ‘repay cruelty with kindness’ – I absolutely cannot agree with!” Luo Zheng whispered softly to himself. Staring at the bean-sized flame of the lamp, his face revealed a sad expression: “Had my father not been kind, not believed those words, how could I, the main house’s direct bloodline, have fallen into such a situation? And he – he wouldn’t have died...”

The novel name is 百炼成神. I'm trying to make an English translation that is comfortable to the native. How is the translation? Is it fluent, correct to the meaning or something else? I would be really thankful if someone could make a nice title out of this. As of now I was planning to name it "Refining to God", which lacks a lot of meanings imo, but sounds rather nice.

I have a complex feeling about Chinese trashy-novel "fever" in the West...
OK, time for the answer.
Translating literature is far beyond correctness. I'm not an expert, so I'd just bring you some suggestions.
For the title:
Thousand Miles To Become A God
Although a thousand is ten hundreds, the meaning of this title is not away from the original one.
For name of the book:
I don't know if the book appears more than once in this novel, but if it doesn't, it will still be fine even if we just name it by our instinct. By my observation, most authors of this kind of novels don't really care about proper names.
On Heavenly Principles
宪 has the meaning of "principle" as in 宪法 (constitution).


Is there a proverb that means something like an enemy's best tactic is to hide himself? I'm looking for a 成语 that means something along the lines of an enemy's best tactic is to hide himself, or to make you believe he doesn't exist.

In 36 stratagems, there's one called Openly repair the gallery roads, but sneak through the passage of Chencang

(明修棧道,暗渡陳倉／明修栈道,暗渡陈仓, Míng xiū zhàn dào, àn dù chén cāng)

Deceive the enemy with an obvious approach that will take a very long time, while surprising him by taking a shortcut and sneak up to him. As the enemy concentrates on the decoy, he will miss you sneaking up to him.


What does 还真别说 mean? Some commented about a joke,

  还真别说，这个笑话有点意思。

The translator gives

  Don't mention it

I don't think it's right.

说 is the key to understanding. Here it means to judge, deny, or disapprove (especially quickly). 还真别说 translated character by character is "just really don't judge too soon". As a whole it means "(contrary to what I expected,) I just realize that...", or "admittedly".


Character Identification What do the following characters say in english.

Forgive me but I can't put them into google translate because it is an image.

The characters are 從昨天 - From yesterday/since yesterday.

By itself, it sounds and feels like something is missing.

The song by popular Chinese band S.H.E. - 老婆 Wife, uses it in their lyrics, "從昨天 到今天 還有明天. 感謝老天 讓你們 陪在我身邊." (From yesterday, till today, and tomorrow, thank heavens for letting you stay by my side).


What's the difference between “睡不着” and "没睡着“？ Please help me clarify the difference between the two phrases:
I thought that 睡不着 means that you cannot fall asleep (可能补语）
for example: 我经常失眠， 睡不着觉。
and that 没睡着 means that you didn't sleep （结果补语）
for example: 牙疼死了， 一夜没睡着。

But there were also examples like
昨晚我一夜睡不着
is it the same meaning as 没睡着？

"睡不著" implies that you want to sleep but you cannot, while "沒睡著" just means that you did not fall asleep. So if you say "昨晚我一夜沒睡著" you could mean that you successfully kept yourself awake all night last night, which is apparently different from "昨晚我一夜睡不着".

Actually, although "牙疼死了，一夜沒睡着" is OK, "牙疼死了，一夜睡不著" is better.


How many English words does 4000-8000 Chinese characters correspond to? I have to write a grant application in Chinese. I intend to write it in English first, and then get a friend to translate it for me. I am supposed to give an overview of my research project with a word count of 4000-8000 Chinese characters. What word count should I be aiming for when I write the English version?

The text is about mathematics, but since it is an overview intended for a general scientific audience it will not be overly technical. In particular, it will contain some  mathematics terminology, but almost no mathematical equations.

If you plug the text you just wrote into Google Translate, then paste the output of that into wordcounter.net, you get 151 characters from your above 96 words.  That approximately matches my experience.  Plan for about 1.5 characters per English word.


What are the HSK3.0 measure words? Question: What are the HSK3.0 measure words?
I went through the book 汉语国际教育用词语声调组合及轻重音格式实用手册 by 刘英林 [ed.] (considered the likely candidate for the upcoming HSK3.0 vocabulary) and inspected what was classed as "量" (measure word).  I list them as a self-answer.

Assuming I haven't missed any, the following are the 141 measure words (or classifiers) from the aforementioned book.  They're sorted according to frequency based on the LWC corpus.  The definitions are mostly from CC-CEDICT (truncated), the HSK3.0 level from the book (一①, 一②, 一③, 二, 三, or 附; and I include the word's index for reference), and the HSK2.0 level if relevant.  Collocations were sourced from Collocation Search (and should reflect the most common use of the given measure word) unless marked by an asterisk.

HSK3.0 measure words
个 (gè)

HSK3.0: 一① [2717]; HSK2.0: 1
/people or objects in general/
一个人   一个月   一个小时   一个字   一个孩子   一个星期   一个朋友   一个国家

只 (zhī)

HSK3.0: 一③ [10473]; HSK2.0: 3
/birds and certain animals, one of a pair, some utensils, vessels etc/
一只手   一只猫   一只狗   一只船   一只眼睛   一只脚   一只老虎

次 (cì)

HSK3.0: 一① [1317]; HSK2.0: 2
/enumerated events: time/
一次机会   一次车   一次会议   一次面   一次经历

种 (zhǒng)

HSK3.0: 一② [10656]; HSK2.0: 3
/types, kinds, sorts/
一种方式   一种人   一种感觉   一种动物   一种方法   一种习惯

家 (jiā)

HSK3.0: 一① [3857]; HSK2.0: 1
/families or businesses/
一家公司   一家人   一家企业   一家餐厅   一家店   一家商店

把 (bǎ)

HSK3.0: 一② [78]; HSK2.0: 3
/objects with handle/small objects: handful/
一把椅子   一把伞   一把雨伞   一把双刃剑   一把钥匙

两 (liǎng)

HSK3.0: 一② [5153]; HSK2.0: 2
/tael, unit of weight equal to 50 grams (modern)/
一两银子

点 (diǎn)

HSK3.0: 一① [1806]; HSK2.0: 1
/items/
一点菜   一点钱   一点东西   一点水   一点飞机

分 (fēn)

HSK3.0: 一① [2333]; HSK2.0: 3
/part or subdivision/fraction/one tenth (of certain units)/unit of length equivalent to 0.33 cm/minute (unit of time)/minute (angular measurement unit)/a point (in sports or games)/0.01 yuan (unit of money)/
一分钱   一分货   一分价钱   一分饱

元 (yuán)

HSK3.0: 一② [9989]; HSK2.0: 3
/currency unit (esp. Chinese yuan)/
一元钱   一元人民币   一元奖金   一元大奖

名 (míng)

HSK3.0: 一③ [5631]; HSK2.0: -
/people/
一名大学生   一名学生   一名妇女   一名志愿者   一名留学生

张 (zhāng)

HSK3.0: 一② [10254]; HSK2.0: 3
/flat objects, sheet/votes/
一张照片   一张桌子   一张票   一张地图   一张纸   一张床

回 (huí)

HSK3.0: 一② [3567]; HSK2.0: 1
/acts of a play/
一回事   一回事儿   一回好汉

行 (háng)

HSK3.0: 一③ [3204]; HSK2.0: 4
/row/line/
一行字

件 (jiàn)

HSK3.0: 一② [3989]; HSK2.0: 2
/events, things, clothes etc/
一件事   一件事情   一件衣服   一件衬衫   一件毛衣   一件礼物

双 (shuāng)

HSK3.0: 一② [7540]; HSK2.0: 3
/pair/
一双鞋   一双眼睛   一双筷子   一双皮鞋   一双人间   一双袜子   一双手   一双儿女

岁 (suì)

HSK3.0: 一① [7731]; HSK2.0: 1
/years (of age)/
一岁时   一岁时候

套 (tào)

HSK3.0: 一② [7865]; HSK2.0: 5
/sets, collections/
一套房子   一套公寓   一套西服   一套衣服   一套程序   一套沙发

句 (jù)

HSK3.0: 一② [4511]; HSK2.0: -
/phrases or lines of verse/
一句话   一句俗话   一句名言   一句诗   一句歌词

条 (tiáo)

HSK3.0: 一② [7982]; HSK2.0: 3
/long thin things (ribbon, river, road, trousers etc)/
一条路   一条腿   一条裤子   一条裙子   一条胡同   一条河   一条鱼   一条街   一条狗

场 (cháng)

HSK3.0: 一① [855]; HSK2.0: 4
/classifer for events and happenings/
一场灾难   一场病   一场京剧   一场招聘会   一场雨   一场电影   一场运动   一场雪   一场球   一场考试

头 (tóu)

HSK3.0: 一② [8108]; HSK2.0: -
/pigs or livestock/
一头牛   一头老牛   一头骆驼   一头驴   一头大象   一头毛驴   一头河马   一头水   一头黑熊

本 (běn)

HSK3.0: 一① [304]; HSK2.0: 1
/books, periodicals, files etc/
一本书   一本词典   一本杂志   一本小说   一本字典

位 (wèi)

HSK3.0: 一② [8434]; HSK2.0: 3
/people (honorific)/binary bits (e.g. 十六位 16-bit or 2 bytes)/
一位朋友   一位老人   一位老师   一位先生   一位姑娘

所 (suǒ)

HSK3.0: 一③ [7750]; HSK2.0: 5
/houses, small buildings, institutions etc/
一所大学   一所学校   一所小学   一所中学   一所医院   一所房子

首 (shǒu)

HSK3.0: 二 [7416]; HSK2.0: 5
/poems, songs etc/
一首诗   一首歌   一首词   一首歌曲   一首民歌   一首曲子   一首乐曲

号 (hào)

HSK3.0: 一① [3252]; HSK2.0: 1
/classifier used to indicate number of people/
一号嘉宾

份 (fèn)

HSK3.0: 一② [2377]; HSK2.0: 4
/gifts, newspaper, magazine, papers, reports, contracts etc/variant of 分[fen4]/
一份工作   一份报告   一份文件   一份礼物   一份遗嘱   一份报纸

段 (duàn)

HSK3.0: 一② [2009]; HSK2.0: 3
/stories, periods of time, lengths of thread etc/
一段时间   一段话   一段经历   一段路   一段故事   一段时期   一段历史   一段相声   一段长城   一段日子

片 (piàn)

HSK3.0: 一② [6092]; HSK2.0: 5
/slices, tablets, tract of land, area of water/CDs, movies, DVDs etc/used with numeral 一[yi1]: scenario, scene, feeling, atmosphere, sound etc/
一片叶子   一片土地   一片面包   一片空白   一片树林   一片笑声

度 (dù)

HSK3.0: 一② [1993]; HSK2.0: -
/events and occurrences/
一度电

部 (bù)

HSK3.0: 一③ [655]; HSK2.0: -
/works of literature, films, machines etc/
一部电影   一部小说   一部书   一部著作   一部作品   一部机器   一部电视剧

滴 (dī)

HSK3.0: 二 [1742]; HSK2.0: 5
/a drop/
一滴水   一滴眼泪   一滴泪   一滴泪珠

块 (kuài)

HSK3.0: 一① [4841]; HSK2.0: 1
/lump (of earth)/chunk/piece/pieces of cloth, cake, soap etc/(coll.) money and currency units/
一块钱   一块石头   一块糖   一块土地   一块人民币   一块饼干   一块地   一块手表   一块空地   一块蛋糕

些 (xiē)

HSK3.0: 二 [8946]; HSK2.0: 1
/classifier indicating a small amount or small number greater than 1: some, a few, several/
一些日子   一些东西   一些钱   一些药   一些水果   一些礼物

声 (shēng)

HSK3.0: 二 [7156]; HSK2.0: -
/sounds/
一声巨响

台 (tái)

HSK3.0: 一③ [7777]; HSK2.0: 4
/vehicles or machines/
一台电脑   一台电视   一台电视机   一台彩电   一台计算机   一台笔记本   一台拖拉机   一台洗衣机

包 (bāo)

HSK3.0: 一① [176]; HSK2.0: 3
/bundle/packet/
一包烟   一包东西   一包药   一包饼干

米 (mǐ)

HSK3.0: 一② [5557]; HSK2.0: 3
/meter (classifier)/
一米处   一米地方   一米速度

口 (kǒu)

HSK3.0: 一① [4787]; HSK2.0: 3
/things with mouths (people, domestic animals, cannons, wells etc)/bites or mouthfuls/
一口气   一口人   一口井   一口锅   一口家   一口水   一口钟   一口小锅   一口普通话   一口汉语

面 (miàn)

HSK3.0: 一③ [5585]; HSK2.0: -
/flat surfaces such as drums, mirrors, flags etc/
一面镜子   一面墙上   一面墙

秒 (miǎo)

HSK3.0: 二 [5609]; HSK2.0: 4
/second (unit of time)/
一秒钟

座 (zuò)

HSK3.0: 一② [11081]; HSK2.0: 4
/buildings, mountains and similar immovable objects/
一座城市   一座山   一座桥   一座大山   一座楼   一座城   一座山峰   一座古城   一座小山   一座建筑

颗 (kē)

HSK3.0: 二 [4700]; HSK2.0: 5
/small spheres, pearls, corn grains, teeth, hearts, satellites etc/
一颗心   一颗星星   一颗珍珠   一颗种子   一颗星   一颗牙齿   一颗杏子   一颗牙   一颗原子弹

篇 (piān)

HSK3.0: 一② [6089]; HSK2.0: 4
/written items: chapter, article/
一篇文章   一篇论文   一篇报道   一篇小说   一篇课文   一篇作文   一篇短文   一篇日记   一篇报告

班 (bān)

HSK3.0: 一② [123]; HSK2.0: 3
/groups/
一班飞机   一班火车 (*)

期 (qī)

HSK3.0: 一② [6213]; HSK2.0: -
/issues of a periodical, courses of study/
一期杂志   一期款子 (*)

集 (jí)

HSK3.0: 二 [3770]; HSK2.0: -
/sections of a TV series etc: episode/
一集电视剧 (*)

顶 (dǐng)

HSK3.0: 三 [1877]; HSK2.0: 5
/headwear, hats, veils etc/
一顶帽子   一顶毡帽

间 (jiān)

HSK3.0: 一① [3923]; HSK2.0: -
/rooms/
一间屋子   一间房子   一间房   一间卧室   一间正房   一间小屋   一间房间

则 (zé)

HSK3.0: 三 [10180]; HSK2.0: 5
/written items/
一则广告   一则故事

门 (mén)

HSK3.0: 一① [5519]; HSK2.0: 2
/large guns/lessons, subjects, branches of technology/
一门课   一门艺术   一门学问   一门手艺   一门学科   一门外语   一门功课   一门科学

群 (qún)

HSK3.0: 一③ [6661]; HSK2.0: 5
/group/crowd/flock, herd, pack etc/
一群人   一群孩子   一群羊   一群骆驼

道 (dào)

HSK3.0: 一② [1675]; HSK2.0: -
/long thin things (rivers, cracks etc), barriers (walls, doors etc), questions (in an exam etc), commands, courses in a meal, steps in a process/(old) circuit (administrative division)/
一道菜   一道题   一道难题   一道风景   一道命令   一道门

毛 (máo)

HSK3.0: 一② [5451]; HSK2.0: 4
/Chinese fractional monetary unit ( = 角[jiao3] , = one-tenth of a yuan or 10 fen 分[fen1])/
一毛钱

堆 (duī)

HSK3.0: 二 [2016]; HSK2.0: 5
/pile/heap/stack/
一堆人   一堆砖   一堆垃圾

顿 (dùn)

HSK3.0: 一② [2055]; HSK2.0: 5
/meals, beatings, scoldings etc: time, bout, spell, meal/
一顿饭   一顿晚饭   一顿饺子   一顿美餐

类 (lèi)

HSK3.0: 一③ [5004]; HSK2.0: -
/kind/type/class/category/
一类人   一类学生   一类东西   一类父亲   一类事情   一类国道   一类商品

枚 (méi)

HSK3.0: 三 [5484]; HSK2.0: 6
/coins, rings, badges, pearls, sporting medals, rockets, satellites etc/
一枚硬币   一枚奖章   一枚卫星 (*)

瓶 (píng)

HSK3.0: 一② [6168]; HSK2.0: -
/wine and liquids/
一瓶啤酒   一瓶水   一瓶饮料   一瓶可乐   一瓶酒   一瓶汽水儿   一瓶矿泉水   一瓶空气   一瓶红葡萄酒   一瓶酸奶

克 (kè)

HSK3.0: 一② [4732]; HSK2.0: 5
/gram/
一克水 (*)

支 (zhī)

HSK3.0: 一② [10463]; HSK2.0: 5
/rods such as pens and guns, for army divisions and for songs or compositions/
一支烟   一支箭   一支笔   一支曲子   一支玫瑰   一支卫队   一支钢笔   一支蜡烛   一支歌   一支喜烟

辆 (liàng)

HSK3.0: 一② [5165]; HSK2.0: 3
/vehicles/
一辆车   一辆自行车   一辆汽车   一辆出租车   一辆轿车

排 (pái)

HSK3.0: 一② [5961]; HSK2.0: -
/lines, rows etc/
一排书架   一排旗帜 (*)

斤 (jīn)

HSK3.0: 一② [4257]; HSK2.0: -
/(PRC) weight equal to 500 g/(Tw) weight equal to 600 g/(HK, Malaysia, Singapore) slightly over 604 g/
一斤钱   一斤香蕉   一斤肉   一斤苹果   一斤猪肉   一斤白酒

项 (xiàng)

HSK3.0: 一③ [8862]; HSK2.0: 5
/principles, items, clauses, tasks, research projects etc/
一项调查   一项指标   一项原则   一项工程   一项任务   一项内容   一项运动   一项国策   一项技术   一项结果

盘 (pán)

HSK3.0: 三 [5982]; HSK2.0: -
/food: dish, helping/to coil/coils of wire/games of chess/
一盘菜   一盘饺子   一盘棋   一盘豆腐

页 (yè)

HSK3.0: 一② [9455]; HSK2.0: 4
/page/leaf/
一页书   一页纸

餐 (cān)

HSK3.0: 二 [711]; HSK2.0: -
/meals/
一餐三明治   一餐饭菜 (*)

根 (gēn)

HSK3.0: 二 [2735]; HSK2.0: 5
/long slender objects, e.g. cigarettes, guitar strings/
一根柱子   一根竹竿   一根头发   一根小棍儿   一根绳子

轮 (lún)

HSK3.0: 二 [5362]; HSK2.0: -
/big round objects: disk, or recurring events: round, turn/
一轮满月   一轮明月 (*)

番 (fān)

HSK3.0: 二 [2186]; HSK2.0: 6
/occurrences (of an event, action or speech utterance)/iterations: times, -fold (as in twofold etc)/situations: kind, sort/
一番话   一番道歉   一番结婚纪念日 (*)

封 (fēng)

HSK3.0: 一② [2420]; HSK2.0: -
/sealed objects, esp. letters/
一封信   一封邮件   一封回信   一封电报   一封信件   一封情书

笔 (bǐ)

HSK3.0: 一② [353]; HSK2.0: -
/sums of money, deals/
一笔钱   一笔财富   一笔遗产   一笔收入   一笔资金

团 (tuán)

HSK3.0: 一③ [8175]; HSK2.0: 5
/a lump or a soft mass: wad (of paper), ball (of wool), cloud (of smoke)/
一团火

股 (gǔ)

HSK3.0: 二 [2904]; HSK2.0: -
/long winding things like ropes, rivers etc/smoke, smells etc: thread, puff, whiff/bands of people, gangs etc/sudden forceful actions/
一股力量   一股味儿   一股邪气   一股清香   一股浪潮   一股暖流

节 (jié)

HSK3.0: 一② [4182]; HSK2.0: 4
/segments, e.g. lessons, train wagons, biblical verses/
一节课   一节车厢

公里 (gōnglǐ)

HSK3.0: 一② [2797]; HSK2.0: 4
/kilometer/
一公里处   一公里长

届 (jiè)

HSK3.0: 二 [4244]; HSK2.0: 5
/events, meetings, elections, sporting fixtures, years (of graduation)/
一届运动会   一届任期

趟 (tàng)

HSK3.0: 二 [7840]; HSK2.0: 4
/times, round trips or rows/
一趟车   一趟家   一趟航班

阵 (zhèn)

HSK3.0: 二 [10370]; HSK2.0: 5
/events or states of short duration/
一阵清风   一阵炮火 (*)

样 (yàng)

HSK3.0: 二 [9390]; HSK2.0: -
/classifier: kind, type/
一样东西   一样菜   一样食品   一样花   一样点心

副 (fù)

HSK3.0: 二 [2520]; HSK2.0: 6
/pairs, sets of things & facial expressions/
一副对联   一副样子   一副眼镜   一副模样   一副墨镜   一副耳机   一副手套   一副象棋   一副春联

角 (jiǎo)

HSK3.0: 一② [4102]; HSK2.0: 3
/unit of money equal to 0.1 yuan, or 10 cents (a dime)/
一角钱

朵 (duǒ)

HSK3.0: 二 [2083]; HSK2.0: 5
/flowers, clouds etc/
一朵花   一朵红花   一朵浪花

架 (jià)

HSK3.0: 一③ [3899]; HSK2.0: -
/planes, large vehicles, radios etc/
一架飞机   一架机器

批 (pī)

HSK3.0: 二 [6052]; HSK2.0: 5
/batches, lots, military flights/
一批货   一批人   一批志愿者   一批知识分子   一批产品   一批留学生   一批货物

盒 (hé)

HSK3.0: 二 [3312]; HSK2.0: -
/small box/case/
一盒月饼   一盒蛋糕   一盒牛奶   一盒罐头   一盒录音带   一盒饼干   一盒茶叶

卷 (juàn)

HSK3.0: 二 [4545]; HSK2.0: 6
/small rolled things (wad of paper money, movie reel etc)/
一卷书

粒 (lì)

HSK3.0: 三 [5100]; HSK2.0: 6
/small round things (peas, bullets, peanuts, pills, grains etc)/
一粒米   一粒纽扣   一粒药 (*)

桩 (zhuāng)

HSK3.0: 三 [10827]; HSK2.0: -
/items/
一桩事 (*)

码 (mǎ)

HSK3.0: 三 [5407]; HSK2.0: -
/length or distance (yard), happenings etc/
一码路 (*)

幅 (fú)

HSK3.0: 二 [2468]; HSK2.0: 5
/textiles or pictures/
一幅画   一幅图画   一幅画儿   一幅山水画   一幅字   一幅中国画   一幅作品   一幅油画   一幅地图   一幅肖像

箱 (xiāng)

HSK3.0: 二 [8832]; HSK2.0: -
/box/trunk/chest/
一箱啤酒   一箱垃圾   一箱橘子 (*)

棵 (kē)

HSK3.0: 二 [4699]; HSK2.0: 4
/trees, cabbages, plants etc/
一棵树   一棵大树   一棵草   一棵苹果树   一棵茶树   一棵白菜   一棵杨树   一棵树上   一棵花生病

壶 (hú)

HSK3.0: 二 [3417]; HSK2.0: 5
/bottled liquid/
一壶酒   一壶茶

厘米 (límǐ)

HSK3.0: 二 [5024]; HSK2.0: 5
/centimeter/
一厘米面积 (*)

局 (jú)

HSK3.0: 二 [4482]; HSK2.0: -
/games: match, set, round etc/
一局比赛 (*)

串 (chuàn)

HSK3.0: 二 [1248]; HSK2.0: 6
/things that are strung together, or in a bunch, or in a row: string of, bunch of, series of/
一串珍珠   一串钥匙 (*)

列 (liè)

HSK3.0: 二 [5182]; HSK2.0: -
/trains, motorcade, columns/
一列火车

栋 (dòng)

HSK3.0: 三 [1951]; HSK2.0: 6
/houses or buildings/
一栋楼   一栋房子   一栋楼上

户 (hù)

HSK3.0: 二 [3430]; HSK2.0: -
/a household/door/family/
一户人家   一户家庭   一户居民

缕 (lǚ)

HSK3.0: 三 [5343]; HSK2.0: -
/wisps (of smoke, mist or vapor), strands, locks (of hair)/
一缕头发   一缕烟   一缕云 (*)

盏 (zhǎn)

HSK3.0: 附 [10225]; HSK2.0: -
/lamps/
一盏灯

截 (jié)

HSK3.0: 三 [4211]; HSK2.0: -
/section/chunk/length/
一截绳子   一截粉笔 (*)

摊 (tān)

HSK3.0: 三 [7799]; HSK2.0: 6
/paste or think liquid/
一摊血   一摊泥 (*)

枝 (zhī)

HSK3.0: 二 [10477]; HSK2.0: 6
/sticks, rods, pencils etc/
一枝笔   一枝箭   一枝玫瑰

公斤 (gōngjīn)

HSK3.0: 一② [2793]; HSK2.0: 3
/kilogram (kg)/
一公斤咖啡   一公斤西红柿 (*)

胎 (tāi)

HSK3.0: 三 [7775]; HSK2.0: -
/litter/
一胎政策

束 (shù)

HSK3.0: 一③ [7500]; HSK2.0: 6
/bunches, bundles, beams of light etc/
一束鲜花   一束花   一束花儿

艘 (sōu)

HSK3.0: 三 [7682]; HSK2.0: 6
/ships/
一艘船

堂 (táng)

HSK3.0: 三 [7832]; HSK2.0: -
/classes, lectures etc/sets of furniture/
一堂课

立方 (lìfāng)

HSK3.0: 三 [5080]; HSK2.0: 6
/cube (math.)/
一立方公尺   一立方英里 (*)

尺 (chě)

HSK3.0: 二 [1041]; HSK2.0: -
/a Chinese foot/one-third of a meter/
一尺宽 (*)

伙 (huǒ)

HSK3.0: 二 [3659]; HSK2.0: -
/groups of people/
一伙人   一伙罪犯 (*)

匹 (pǐ)

HSK3.0: 二 [6073]; HSK2.0: 5
/horses, mules etc/
一匹马   一匹骏马   一匹千里马   一匹小马

平方米 (píngfāngmǐ)

HSK3.0: 二 [6137]; HSK2.0: -
/square meter/
一平方米玻璃 (*)

剂 (jì)

HSK3.0: 三 [3821]; HSK2.0: -
/dose (medicine)/
一剂药

毫升 (háoshēng)

HSK3.0: 二 [3219]; HSK2.0: -
/milliliter/
一毫升水   一毫升血 (*)

亩 (mǔ)

HSK3.0: 三 [5714]; HSK2.0: -
/fields/
一亩地   一亩良田 (*)

磅 (bàng)

HSK3.0: 附 [175]; HSK2.0: 6
/(loanword) pound/
一磅牛肉   一磅豌豆 (*)

宗 (zōng)

HSK3.0: 三 [10954]; HSK2.0: -
/batches, items, cases (medical or legal), reservoirs/
一宗寿司   一宗抢劫案 (*)

株 (zhū)

HSK3.0: 三 [10698]; HSK2.0: 6
/trees or plants/
一株树 (*)

担 (dàn)

HSK3.0: 三 [1595]; HSK2.0: -
/loads carried on a shoulder pole/
一担水   一担柴火 (*)

幢 (zhuàng)

HSK3.0: 三 [10845]; HSK2.0: 6
/buildings/
一幢楼   一幢房子

毫米 (háomǐ)

HSK3.0: 二 [3218]; HSK2.0: 6
/millimeter/
一毫米雨量 (*)

平方 (píngfāng)

HSK3.0: 二 [6136]; HSK2.0: 5
/square (as in square foot, square mile, square root)/
一平方毫米 (*)

立方米 (lìfāngmǐ)

HSK3.0: 三 [5081]; HSK2.0: -
/cubic meter (unit of volume)/
一立方米泥土 (*)

公顷 (gōngqǐng)

HSK3.0: 三 [2804]; HSK2.0: -
/hectare/
一公顷森林 (*)

千克 (qiānkè)

HSK3.0: 二 [6320]; HSK2.0: -
/kilogram/
一千克米   一千克黄油 (*)

捆 (kǔn)

HSK3.0: 三 [4881]; HSK2.0: -
/bundle/
一捆劈柴   一捆树枝 (*)

I left off some from the list that are different (but still labeled as 量 in the book):
下 (xià)

HSK3.0: 一② [8679]; HSK2.0: 1
/measure word to show the frequency of an action/

成 (chéng)

HSK3.0: 二 [954]; HSK2.0: -
/percent/

刻 (kè)

HSK3.0: 一② [4736]; HSK2.0: 3
/short time intervals/

遍 (biàn)

HSK3.0: 一② [421]; HSK2.0: 4
/actions: one time/

倍 (bèi)

HSK3.0: 二 [293]; HSK2.0: 4
/(two, three etc) -fold/

章 (zhāng)

HSK3.0: 二 [10259]; HSK2.0: -
/chapter/section/clause/movement (of symphony)/

人次 (réncì)

HSK3.0: 三 [6702]; HSK2.0: -
/number of people participating/

摄氏度 (Shèshìdù)

HSK3.0: 三 [7051]; HSK2.0: 6
/°C (degrees Celsius)/

马力 (mǎlì)

HSK3.0: 三 [5401]; HSK2.0: -
/horsepower/

丸 (wán)

HSK3.0: 三 [8286]; HSK2.0: 6
/ball/

The following arise in the HSK2.0 and/or HSK3.0 vocabularies, and are considered measure words in CC-CEDICT, but are not listed as measure words in the aforementioned book:

付 令 任 册 出 刀 剑 发 口子 听 和 响 喷 圈 堵 处 孔 季 层 席 床 扇 手 扎 折 抹 挂 挺 文 方 服 杆 杯 枪 标 档 棒 水 泡 注 火 环 画 眼 票 窝 管 纸 组 绞 缸 脚 记 贴 起 转 辈 进 通 造 领 骑


What does "禦姐" mean? I was reading a description of a web novel, and it said something about "禦姐/御姐", and I'm wondering what does it mean?

I know it is describing females, but what would be a good english translation?

It's a loan word from Japanese Kanji word "御姉".

It's wildly used in ACG subculture. ACG is short for Anime (not animation), Comics (Manga actually) and Games. Now it has become ACGN with the addition of "Light Novel" which holds similar market niche in Asia like Twilight does in western.

Anyway, in those subculture, popular characteristics of "ideal" image of Asian girls are cuteness and petiteness. "御姉", in contrary, is used to describe females that can be characterized as sexy, mature.

To gain a more vivid impression, you can google pictures for 御姐/御姉 and compare the result with the result of 蘿莉/ロリ.

!! Warning !!

I just know these stuff based on my intellectual curiosity. Don't blame me if people call you a pervert if you keep saying these stuff to them.


How to translate "detangling knot" or "knot that unties"? I need to use the expression "detangling knot" (knot that unties). It's for a poem and I should write it with two kanji and no more... is it possible or is it better for me to use something like this 開結 (should be "untied/open knot")?

活结
Pleco Basic Chinese-English Dictionary

knot that can be undone by a pull; slipknot (opp. 死结)
系了个活结
xì le ge huójié
make a slipknot

活扣
ABC

slipknot; knot that can be easily untied


What are the grammatical functions of 一米八五 and 一个小时? In the following examples, we have a subject + an adjective + a quantity. What are 一米八五 and 一个小时 in terms of grammar? Do they have a specific grammatical name? I cannot find it in grammar books.

他高一米八五。
他晚了一个小时。

Quantity complement
Also known as: 数量补语 (shùliàng bǔyǔ), quantitative complement and complement of quantity.
A quantity complement follows a verb and supplies information regarding an amount.

~

他高一米八五 (he is 1.85M tall)

他 (he) is the subject

高 is short for 身高 (height). It is a noun that acting as a verb in this context

一米八五 (1.85M) is a 'quantity complement'  that complements the verb 高

Similarly: 姓(surname) is a noun, but it can act as a verb as in 我姓王 (I am surnamed Wang)

他晚了一个小时 (he is late for an hour)

他 (he) is the subject

晚了 (late for) is an adjective acting as a verb in this context

一个小时。is a 'quantity complement'  that complements the verb 晚

Examples of quantity complement complements verb:

他的身高[是][一米八五] - his height [is] [1.85M]
他[来晚了][一个小时]  -  he [came late] [(for) an hour]


What is the difference between 随手 and 顺便？ These two have the same meaning which is "conveniently" but I'm not sure if there is any difference in using these two.

How should 顺便 be used?
顺便 does not mean "conveniently" per se. One can say, 从我家去地铁站很方便, but one cannot say 从我家去地铁站很顺便.
Rather, as stated by Shudong's answer, 顺便 implies that the action is part of a larger set of events. Moreover, this action is something of an "afterthought", something we might as well do because it's convenient (as a result of the larger context). For instance:

今天我去见我导师，顺便去大学图书馆借本书。
Today I'm going to see my advisor, so I might as well stop by the university library to borrow a book.

These dictionary suggestions of "on the way" or "by the way" can thus also be more appropriate than "convenient", although they are rather lacking.

"on the way" suggests some sort of ordering that may be inappropriate (since that would imply that whatever is "on the way" comes before the more important event). (For instance, in my example, it's possible that I might go to the library after seeing my advisor; there's nothing to suggest otherwise.)

"by the way" doesn't give us the full picture. I would translate 顺便问一下 more closely as "while I'm at it, I might as well ask", even if "by the way" does work as a gloss of the entire phrase (once an appropriate verb -- here which should be related to speaking -- is added to 顺便).

What is the meaning of 随手?
My dictionary gives "at one's convenience" as the definition for 随手. This can work for an approximate gloss, although "carelessly" (or words with the same connotations) tend to fit more the scenario consistently. For instance, using examples taken from here:

废旧电池即使没有了使用价值也不可随手乱丢，因为它们会污染环境！Old batteries can't be discarded casually even when they are no longer useful, because they'll pollute the environment!
"at one's convenience" still works, because "at one's convenience" would imply a certain lack of care.

护林人随手扔下的一个烟头居然引燃了这场森林大火。A [cigarette butt] left in passing by a forest ranger could have caused the forest fire.
"at one's convenience" definitely doesn't work here. Nor does "conveniently".

However, "carelessly" still fails as a translation in cases like 请随手关门 ("please close the door on your way out"). There are similar examples in the source I linked to. Given all this, it would seen that there's no one-size-fits-all translation for 随手. However, we can at least deduce that it is used for actions that can be done with a lot of convenience, which is also why "carelessly" is sometimes a good fit.
Moreover, 随手 is restricted to actions that involve the hands. For instance, we cannot say 随手问. (As pointed out by NS.X., there is also 随口 or 顺口. As with 随手, 随口 tends to only be used for the relevant body part, here things related to speaking, although it can be more consistently interpreted as "careless" than 随手 can be. While 顺口 can mean something like "flowing" even if a similar lack of restraint can be implied in the right contexts, it also is restricted to things that might involve some sort of speech.)
So what's the difference?
随手 does not imply that the related action is connected to a larger set of things. The example sentences with 随手 would still make sense out of context if I removed the unrelated clauses, whereas a sentence with 顺便 must be at least be understood to fall within a larger framework. (I can say 我顺便去图书馆借本书, but it's understood that I am also going to do something else because of the use of 顺便.)
"conveniently" is a poor fit as a direct translation for both terms, for the reasons I described above. In terms of clearly connoting convenience, 顺便 does a slightly better job, but it can only be used in specific scenarios. Moreover, the convenience aspect when 顺便 is used may be a bit more dependent on context than when 随手 is used -- it's convenient for me to go to the library because I'm already meeting my advisor, whereas it's almost always convenient to simply throw batteries in the trash.
Finally, 顺便 can generally be used for any types of actions, whereas 随手 cannot be.


雷 vs 雷聲 vs 雷鳴 for "thunder", which is most common? There's a huge thunderstorm here in Kaohsiung right now so I thought I would learn the word for "thunder".

I can find three words in the dictionary and wonder which I should use for everybody to understand me:

雷 léi
雷聲 léishēng
雷鳴 léimíng

I know often single-character words are technically correct but not usually used on their own. But also quite a few are, such as 雨.

Also some words are poetic or technical or archaic or dialectal, etc.

Which of these three words should I use most of the time for "thunder"?

打雷 is the best for describing action.
現在外面正在打雷 There's thunder outside right now

雷聲 is also good for describing what you hear
我剛被雷聲嚇到 I was surprised (shocked) by the sound of the thunder

雷 by itself means thunder, and used a little less often
but it also means bomb as in 地雷.
這家店有雷. This store is a bomb. (When joking to friends that this food store sucks and is like stepping on a bomb/mine)

You could say, 外面有雷 There is thunder outside
But it would sound awkward, the common phrase would be, 外面正在打雷


How to express: a narrator is narrating an event in the past, and wants to describe an event 2 years before that In English this is very easy to express, but I'm struggling to express it in Chinese. I've asked multiple natives and they are all struggling with this (much to everyone's surprise).

Basically, you have the following situation: a story with a narrator explaining some events in the past. The events are happening during some time during the narrators high school years. The narrator at one point wants to explain the equivalent of: "Two years before I had gotten a bad sickness, which is why I drank so much water."

We have all sort of thought up the following:

在那之前的两年……

but the problem with this is that in Chinese if you use this it's unclear whether the event was 2 years before, or sometime during those 2 years. It's a duration, not a specific time.

Is there any way to express "2 points before some ambiguous time"? I don't want to have to resort to absolute times for everything. Thank you for your help!

In my opinion,

  在［那事］之前的兩年……
  在［那事］的前兩年……

both mean during the two years before［那事］. Compare

  在［那事］之後的兩年……
  在［那事］的後兩年……

  During the two years (immediately) after［那事］

I suggest

  在［發生Ｘ］的兩年前， 。。。。。。

  Two years before X happened, ...

Another technique, which is perhaps not strictly the answer you're looking for, is to make the context very clear in a printed book. Specifically, an occasional first-person narrative should be actually using a different font, akin to English novels sometimes using italics.

  Excerpt from a digital edition of 紅樓夢 from 國立臺灣大學中文系 (source). The main body of the text is in Song/Ming Typeface, while direct quotes are given in a regular script typeface.

I believe this is why it is difficult for native speakers to answer your query. Printed books may employ the following font styles for different parts of the text:

Song/Ming typeface for the main body;
Regular script typeface for quotes, or a short segment indicating first-person narratives;
Imitation Song typeface for annotations.

In your case, all that's needed for clarification is to print the narration in regular script, and simply write “兩年之前，。。。。。。”.


Is it ok to answer only the day of the month to the question "今天几号?"? Is it ok to answer only the day of the month to the question "今天几号?"?

First dialog:

-- 今天几号?

-- 今天是八月二十号. (it is OK, common phrase)

Second dialog:

-- 今天几号?

-- 今天是二十号. (is it Ok? Why not?)

If the second dialog is not grammaticaly correct, how can I ask for a day of the month?

UPDATE:

It is ok to use month when asking 你的生日是几月几号? But the date (month + day) is asked without month (from book 汉语会话301句) just 今天几号?

Yes, it totally makes sense to answer only the day since the question is asking for the day only instead of month and day.

If one is asking for month it would be something like: 今天是几月几号？


How to express "have fun!" or "enjoy!" in Chinese? In English, when a friend is doing some activity, we typically say to him/her:

Have fun!

or

Enjoy!

How can we say this in a idiomatic way in Mandarin Chinese?

玩得开心 or 尽兴。 Seems that in Chinese, there's no equal saying of having fun.


How was 言 created by adding one mark to 舌? To create 言 - Wiktionary, mustn't you add more than one mark to 舌? Sorry for not being able to visualize abstractly!

Ideogram (指事): 言 was created by adding a mark to 舌 to indicate movement of the tongue.[1] This indicates speech where 舌 is a mouth (口) with a tongue sticking out.

The description

言 was created by adding a mark to 舌

should really be

言 was created by adding one or two horizontal marks to the top of 舌

Details aside, it is a fairly accurate character component arrangement description. For it to make sense, you have to first determine the shape of the character components that it's talking about.
Wiktionary's glyph evolution table of 「舌」 doesn't show enough examples of 「舌」 in oracle bone script for the description to immediately make sense. The shape we have today is originally inherited from Series 1, shown below:
Series 1

Crossed out samples are ones where spittle is also drawn, which doesn't survive today.

The confusion arises because Wiktionary is only showing a sample of 「舌」 from Series 2 below:
Series 2

It doesn't really matter which shape of 「舌」 that 「言」 is derived from, 「言」 is still made up from one or two horizontal marks added to the top of 「舌」:

「言」 derived from Series 1 「舌」:
商甲甲499合集30697

「言」 derived from Series 2 「舌」:
商甲拾8.1合集21082商甲乙766合集22072

You can even get 「言」 derived from 「舌」 with spittle drawn:
商甲後2.41.9合集21631

Glyph origins summary
商甲甲499合集30697戰國金中山王方壺集成9735秦簡秦律十八1睡虎地秦簡西漢隸老子・甲馬王堆帛書楷
「言」 (to speak) was originally comprised from one or two horizontal marks 「一・二」 added to the top of 「舌」 (tongue). The shape which survives today is made up from two horizontal marks 「二」 on top of a 「舌」 shape coming from Series 1.
「舌」 is no longer evident in 「言」 due to some minor shape corruptions to the forked tongue shape occurring post-Qin. Compare 「音」, which is actually comprised from 「言」 with a differentiating mark added inside of the 「口」 part of 「言」.

References:

季旭昇《說文新證》
小學堂
國學大師

郭沫若《甲骨文合集》
中國社會科學院考古研究所《殷周金文集成》