How come 驚 evolves to 惊 in mainland China Isn't it more intuitive to just replace 馬 with 马 at the base of 驚 to get a well inductive simplified one?
Quite weird, uh? Any historical, geopolitical, or other reason for the simplification of 驚 -> 惊?
Update
What's interesting is, 馬 -> 马 is used in simplification as well. 說文解字 清 段玉裁注本 gives a simple explanation for 驚 as 馬駭也. That is to say, 駭 is a synonym for 驚. We know that 駭 is simplified as 骇, as in, for example, 骇人听闻.

Brief Answer

The construction of 惊 follows the essence of the phono-semantic compound character. In folk culture, people who are not well-educated often invent characters in this way. Some of these characters became popular and then were included in the officially admitted simplified forms, and the others were eliminated. For example

  (admitted formal simplified forms) 竊 -> 窃, 響 -> 响, 癢 -> 痒, 憂 -> 忧, 認 -> 认

  (obsolete forms) 原 -> , 菜 -> , 灌 -> , 穩 -> , 酒 ->

You may have found some regular pattern, when such a character is invented, they tended to use the simplest character as the phonetic part. That is the reason for why not 憼 or  -- 京 is simpler and well-known.

For another question why 駭 as a synonym of 驚 was simplified just as 骇： though 駭 is a synonym of 驚, it is (and was) not often used by the under-educated people, so it wasn't invented by them and then simplified following another rule independently.
The history of the simplified 惊 is very interesting. My conclusion is:

  惊 as the simplified form of 驚, was invented between the end of Qing Dynasty and the first decades of the Republic of China (i.e. around the beginning of the 20th century), and formally seen in 手頭字第一期字彙. Interestingly, it happened to be the same as a variant form of 悢.

The relationship among 驚, 悢, and 惊 can be illustrated in the figure below (full size):

Textual Research

1. How and When did 惊 become the simplified form of 驚

Book 汉字字源: 当代新说文解字 by 窦文宇 and 窦勇 says

  篆文和繁体“驚”字由“敬”和“马”构成。“敬”字有让人听话的含义，整个字的意思是马不听话了，由此产生马毛了的含义。引申表示惊动、害怕、出人意料等。汉字简化时按近代产生的俗字形式简化。简体“惊”字是形声字，“心”字表意、“京”字表音。

    Seal character and modern traditional character 驚 is composed of 敬 and 马. "敬" has a meaning "let people be obedient", and the whole character means "a horse isn't obedient", then extends in meaning "a horse goes mad", and then "startle, scare, surprise, etc." The simplification follows the folk character form in modern times. The simplified 惊 is a phono-semantic compound character: 心 is the semantic part and 京 is the phonetic part.

And a better book -- which points out a good reference 手头字第一期字汇(手頭字第一期字彙) -- 简化字溯源 by 张书岩, 王铁昆, 李青梅 and 安宁 says

  【惊】“驚”的简化字。“惊”是近代群众创造的新形声字，最早见于1935年《手头字第一期字汇》。

    【惊】The simplified character of "驚". "惊" was created by the masses in modern times. It was first seen in 手头字第一期字汇(1935).

    Annotation: 手头字 is an old name for simplified characters, and 字汇 is a collection of characters.

The main points this book states, are

  1) 惊 as the simplified form of 驚 was created following the construction method of phono-semantic compound characters;

  2) 惊 as the simplified form of 驚 was first formally seen in 手頭字第一期字彙(1935).

This is the mainstream view (As already pointed out in @Phil's answer). But, are they reliable?

For Point 1), as I have analyzed in the "Brief Answer" above, 惊 can be constructed in that way, but it doesn't have to -- the character 惊 had appeared for a long time as a variant character of 悢. So there's possibility that 惊 was borrowed to be the simplified form of 驚 (such a case isn't rare, like 葉->叶). However, because 惊 wasn't simplified by just an individual, it's difficult to find out the original motivation. Anyway, I personally accept Point 1), so I said in the Brief Answer they happened to be the same.

For Point 2), it is possible for researchers to prove that, though still difficult, because proving "惊 had not been (once popularly) used as another form of 驚 before" needs much verification work. Personally, I also accept it, and I will demonstrate it in this logic:

  惊 was formally stated as a variant character of 悢 in authoritative dictionaries, and in the past, educated people were not so many, thus very probably they did follow the dictionaries well. That is to say, if the newer dictionaries inherited the fact "惊 is a variant character of 悢" well, 惊 was not so possible to be used as 驚 in that times. => So I just have checked some dictionaries from 說文解字(A.D. 100-121) to 康熙字典(A.D. 1716).

2. Inheritance Chain: 惊 as a Variant Character of 悢

We will see, after 集韻, "惊 as a Variant Character of 悢" was well kept in dictionaries. In these one thousand years, people would not use 惊 as the simplified character of 驚.

說文解字: there was no entry for 惊.
集韻 (钦定四库全书本集韵)

卷三-平声阳第十

  【惊】悲也。

    惊liáng, sad/sorrow.

卷八-去声漾第四十七

  【悢/惊/】博雅：悢悢，悲也。也或作惊、。

    悢/惊/liàng, 博雅:"悢悢", which means sad/sorrow. It can be also written as 惊 or .

類篇 (钦定四库全书本类篇卷三十-心部)

  【惊】呂張切，悲也。又力讓切。文一，重音一。

    惊, with consonant part of 呂 and vowel part of 張 (i.e. liáng), sad/sorrow. Also with consonant part of 力 and vowel part of 讓 (i.e. liàng). It has one character form and two pronunciations. Note that, 重(chóng)音 means polyphonic but not accent.

四聲篇海 (成化丁亥重刊改併五音類聚四聲篇海六-第十卷心母二十四-心部第四)

  【惊】呂張切，悲也。

    惊, with consonant part of 呂 and vowel part of 張 (i.e. liáng), sad/sorrow.

重訂直音篇 (卷二)

  悢，音亮，悲也。又音朗。惊、同上。

    悢, sounds 亮, and means sad/sorrow. Also sounds 朗. 惊 and  are the same. Note: this dictionary cited 陰祐's 餘文 for this character.

字彙 (五-卯集心部)

  【惊】呂張切，音良，悲也。又去聲，力仗切，義同。亦作悢。

    惊, with consonant part of 呂 and vowel part of 張, sounds 良, means sad/sorrow. Also in falling tone, with consonant part of 力 and vowel part of 仗, the same meaning. Also written as 悢.

正字通 (四-卯集心部)

  【惊】同悢。

    惊, the same as 悢.

康熙字典

  【惊】《集韻》呂張切，音良，悲也。又《集韻》力讓切，音諒，義同。或作悢、。

    惊. In 集韵, with consonant part of 呂 and vowel part of 張, sounds 良, and means sad/sorrow. Also in 集韵, with consonant part of 力 and vowel part of 讓, sounds 諒, the same meaning. Also written as 悢 or .

3. Modern Times: 惊 as the Simplified Character of 驚

I have checked some other resources for folk characters, like 敦煌俗字典(2005) by 黄征, but I couldn't find any clue showing 惊 was used as the simplified character of 驚 before 1900s.

Maybe you can find some text on ctext.org shows

  《黃帝內經·經脈》: 是動則病洒洒振寒，善呻，數欠，顏黑，病至則惡人與火，聞木聲則惕然而 惊 ，心欲動，獨閉戶塞牖而處。

  《通典·水利田》: 泉流灌 惊 ，所以育五穀也。

  《桃花扇·第六回阮學士懷怨進讒　楊知縣登樓報因》： 如此 惊 慌！」龍友說：「今日清議堂議事，阮圓海對著大眾，說你與左寧南侯有舊，常通私書，將為內應。

  《白圭志·第二回絕張宏廬山從學　遇菊英月下訂盟》： 歌罷琴息，庭瑞 惊 喜欲狂，暗思：「此必才女所作也。

  《廉吏傳·廉吏传》： ...其令长贪洁吏民良猾悉知其状郡内 惊 竦莫不震慑发兵击慈斩之贼既溃平...

However, after checking these classic works with their original scan versions, I just found those characters are 驚 but not 惊. Such mistakes may be made by the software conversion from simplified Chinese to traditional Chinese.

So, very probably the statement that "It was first seen in 手头字第一期字汇" in the book 简化字溯源 is true. Amazingly, it is very very difficult to find a clear copy of 手头字第一期字汇. Currently (before I post this answer :D), the best version one can directly find by Google would be this one:

Hmm, and after very tough search work, finally I found this piece of newspaper: 申報 Feb. 24, 1935. No. 22210. (Shun Pao). It is so valuable that I decide to upload the whole picture here (full size). Please ignore the advertisement on the newspaper.

The table in the middle is the full list of 手頭字第一期字彙. With an introductory article 手頭字之提倡:

  手頭字之提倡

  第一期手頭字共三百字  各界簽名發起者二百人

  　　中國文字、雖有種種優點、然筆劃過於繁多、而手寫體與印刷品又不一律、實爲民衆教育之一大阻力、近年全國有人主張减省漢字筆劃、以謀教學之便利、最近復由文化界人士、共同研究、已歷多時、頃始發表手頭字第一期字彙、各界人士簽名發起者二百人、各文化機關及刊物决定採用者已有十餘家、兹將推行手頭字緣起、及第一期字彙照錄如下、

  　　推行手頭字緣起

  　　我們往常有許多便當的字、手頭上大家都這麽寫、可是書本上並不這麽印、識一個字須得認兩種以上的形體、何等不便、現在我們主張把「手頭字」用到印刷上去、省掉讀書人設憶幾種字體的麻煩、使得文字比較容易識、容易寫、更能够普及到大衆、這種主張從　也有人提出過、可是他們没有實在做、所以没有甚麽影響、現在我們决定把「手頭字」鑄成銅模澆出鉛字來、拿來排印書本、先選出手頭常用的三百個字來作爲第一期推行的字彙、以後再逐漸加添、直到「手頭字」跟印刷體一樣爲止、希望開心文化的先生們、贊同我們的主張、並且儘量採用這個字彙、

  發起人丁淑靜·萬迪鶴萬家寶·小默·王人路·豐子愷·方光燾·巴金·王紀　·王獨清·王特夫·王國秀·王集從·王屏南·方景略·葉聖陶·朱自清·葉放·左胥之·白薇·葉龢士·朱少卿·朱文叔·任白戈·劉延陵·劉廷芳·劉良模·老舍·余之介·沈子丞·李公朴·吳文祺·沈西苓·沈體蘭·沈志遠·徐澤霖·李長之·米星　·艾思奇·沈兹九·沈起予·李南薌·李冠芳·陸高誼·吳朗西·吳組緗·吳研因·吳清友·蘇雪林·艾寒村·仿聯德·李貽燕·余楠秋·吳敬恒·吳廉銘·沈端先·李輝英·杜鋼百·艾蕪·辛樹幟·汪靜之·吳翰雲·劉薰宇·伯韓·汪馥泉·吳耀宗·邵力子·孟十還·周木齋·周予同·林漢達·林本僑·東平·金兆梓·金仲華·歐陽山·周伯棣·周伯勳·邵宗漢·羅叔和·阿英·邰爽秋·周越然·征農·金燄·胡仲持·胡風·洪深·姚紹華·姜琦·柳湜·范揚·胡愈之·郁達夫·夏丐尊·倪文宙·祝百英·奚如·祝佛朗·馬宗融·草明·唐弢·馬星野·孫俍工·孫師毅·高夢旦·馬國亮·馬國英·席滌塵·高鐵郎·徐蔚南·徐懋庸·郭一岑·章乃器·曹小端·陳子展·張天翼·曹禮吾·陶行知·張仲實·陸衣言·張肖梅·張良輔·陳君冶·陳克承·陳君涵·許幸之·郭沫若·曹亮·陳致道·郭挹清·陳望道·張夢麟·　彬龢·畢雲程·許傑·許達年·許欽文·曹聚仁·陳維姜·陳端志·陸德音·陳樟生·章錫琛·陸錫值·庶謙·張耀翔·黄石·顧君義·傅東華·馮和法·黄素封·舒新城·黄源·程演生·顧樹森·黑嬰·靳以·臧克家·楊青田·楊東蓴·路敏行·葛喬·葛綏成·楊潮·楊騷·楊霽雲·趙義凭·熊昌翼·趙家璧·蒯斯嚑·趙景深·管萃眞·蔡元培·潘公弼·潘式·樊仲雲·鄭君里·鄭伯奇·蔡希陶·魯彦·鄭振鐸·黎烈文·蔣徑三·鄧裕志·樂嗣炳·蔣弼·蔡慕暉·黎錦明·蔣鏡芙·盧冀野·穆藕初·謝六逸·鍾天心·謝扶雅·鍾韶琴·聶紺弩·魏猛克·潭友六·

Now we can find 驚->惊 is actually on the list. Interestingly, on Aug. 21, 1935, 第一批簡體字表 published by the Republic of China Government didn't include this simplified character:


Chinese words for "accent" The English word accent, as in the flavor of one's speech, is typically translated as 口音 or 腔调. What is the difference between these two Chinese expressions?

If you have London accent, it means, you have London 口音. it is nature.-----
If you talk like a manager, it means, you have manager 腔调, i.e. you want to command others, you have no accent, but you have 腔调.


Character translation chinese or japanese Can someone please help me figure out what characters are and how to translate the top four and the seal characters in the attached pic?
If you could please answer in a clear way to identify which is the top four characters and which are in the seal square

my guess:

the top one is 呈 (u+5448)

http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=呈

the second one is 瑞 (u+745e)

http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=瑞

others, it takes time to recognise :)


What is the difference between 只要 and 如果? What is the difference between these two sentences?

只要明天不下雨，我们就去爬山。
如果明天不下雨，我们就去爬山。

They seem very close in meaning.

The difference is, 只要 is used for the only condition, while 如果 usually doesn't.

  只要明天不下雨， 我们就去爬山。

[ As long as it doesn't rain tomorrow, ... ]

"It doesn't rain tomorrow" is the only one condition, the other things don't matter, e.g. wind blowing. So you could follow the sentence with 即使刮风我们也去。 (Even it's windy we still will go.)

  如果明天不下雨， 我们就去爬山。

[ If it doesn't rain tomorrow, ... ]

"It doesn't rain tomorrow" isn't the only condition, that means if it's windy tomorrow, we might not go climbing too.


Something I came across in a movie 你说它真它就真说它假 I came across this in a Chinese television show, which I would like some help to translate.

你说它真它就真，说它假它就假，它是真真假假假假真真谁也弄不明白.

The first part I do understand. It means: "If you say it is real then it is real, if you say it is fake then it is fake".

But the second part of the sentence I can't make much sense of.

Is there some brilliant mind out there that can?

你说它真它就真，说它假它就假， 它是真真假假假假真真谁也弄不明白.

You claim it's true and as truth it is.
You declare it's faulty as falsehood is should be.
Is it true or false, go figure!

One not so elegant translation would be

if you say A, and I supposed to believe it as A and when you say about
the same thing but this time it is B, and I supposed to believe it is
B, so is it A or B???? what do I know???

The concept is quite similar to an old saying "to swear black is white." Or you can use the biblical reference on Mark 11:24 "Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you."  Or if you stretch this more, "Cogito ergo sum," which is the Latin philosophical proposition by René Descartes, as in English "I think, therefore I am."

It’s the true pseudo-profound bullshit! ref: Judgment and Decision Making, Vol. 10, No. 6, November 2015, pp. 549–563
http://journal.sjdm.org/15/15923a/jdm15923a.pdf


non-standard tone pronunciation After carefully listening to the tapes of Assimil "Chinese with ease", I noticed that the pronunciation by the native speakers of a few characters differs from the standard tones: 多 pronounced with a 2nd tone, 複雜 3-2， 回來 2-4, 因爲 1-4...

I did not found any information about it on Pleco, and would like to know whether some dictionaries would reference such change in tone.

There are three things going on here:

多 pronounced with a 2nd tone

If you observe carefully, you may notice that all examples of 多 with 2nd tone occur when the following character is 4th tone. I believe this is an erroneous extension of the same rule for the characters "一" (yī) and "不" (bù), which both become 2nd tone when the following character is 4th tone, such as the words "一定", "不够" etc. Standard Mandarin does not apply this rule for 多, but some dialects may.

複雜 as 3-2

Not sure about this one; may be a dialect thing.

Last character of word turned into 4th tone, e.g. 回來, 因爲

Actually the tone disappears instead of being 4th tone - it only sounds like 4th tone. It occurs when the last character is unstressed, it loses its tone and sometimes may have its vowel reduced too. Consider the following examples: 东西 dōngxi, 父亲 fùqin, 耳朵 ěrduo.

There are a few more rules covered in the Wikipedia article on Standard Chinese phonology.


Is this a typical Chinese way of saying 'lack of strength'? Just checking: the following is not at all bad Chinese, or is it?

自主研发力量的薄弱，在某种程度上制约着民族游戏产业的发展。

I suppose I could also write:

薄弱的自主研发力量，

Either way I seem to have 'weak strength' or 'strength's weakness', which I suppose would need to be 'lack of strength' or some such.

Both expressions (the one you quoted and the one you wrote) are perfectly fine in Chinese.

薄弱 vs 'lack of' is a typical difference between language/culture mindsets. You can replace 薄弱 with 缺乏/缺失, which also sounds natural, but implies 'completely missing' to Chinese listeners. 薄弱 is the Chinese way to say 'somewhat/partially lack of'.


In Cantonese, what is a less "childish" way to call one's own parents? I know the standard ways of calling one's parents—"媽媽/母親" or "爸爸/父親", mother and father respectively, the former more familiar and the latter more formal; or the more familiar/childish way—"媽咪" or "爹哋", mommy and daddy respectively; and of course, the ways I've seen in dramas, the more archaic way, or I suppose the most respectful way—"娘" or "爹", often throwing an "啊" in front for more familiarity. (Please correct me if I'm mistaken in any way)

However, in everyday modern life, how does, for example, a maturing teen, or a thirty-something adult, refer to their parents, either directly and indirectly?

Directly as in calling their parents themselves—"[Mother/Father]早晨!", indirectly as in referring to parents with friends, or perhaps acquaintances, such as "我的 [Mother/Father] 現在不錯".

I've always avoided using any mother/father nouns in indirect speech since, to me, they sound either too rigid (using things such as "爸爸", usually reserved for writing, since this is Cantonese), or too immature (using things such as "媽咪", which to me seems too baby-like, especially for an adult).

So, how would you refer to your parents in a non-rigid and a "mature" way?

In Cantonese, 我爸爸 and 我媽媽 are perfectly fine to use to refer to your parents, no matter what your age is. They are neither rigid nor childish. Slightly more familiar terms are 我阿爸 and 我阿媽. In a very formal context, You can also say 我父母.

To address them directly, most people use 爸爸 and 媽媽, or 阿爸 and 阿媽, depending on which their family prefers.

父親 and 母親 are mainly for writing.


What's the relationship between "separate" and "eight" (old and modern meanings of 八)? Zhongwen.com says that 八 is an "ideograph representing division", what is easy to see. So the old meaning of "separate" is also clear. But how did it came to represent the number 8?
All I've found so far is its association with 发 (发财), thus with good luck in general.
I want to know if there's any relation between "separate" and "8".

Generally speaking, we cannot create pictures or ideograms for every morpheme in a language; we'll quickly run into practicality issues if we try to do so. 「八」 (Baxter-Sagart OC: /*pˤret/) should be treated as just a rebus or phonetic loan for eight.
As an ideogram representing to separate, 「八」 either [represented a morpheme cognate with] or [was the original representation of] 「分」 (/*pə[n]/, to separate), with the component 「八」 serving simultaneously as a meaning and sound hint in 「分」.
If 「八」 was the original form of 「分」, then in terms of character development, 「八」 complexified into 「分」 via the addition of 「刀」 (knife, indicating the meaning to separate an object into two with a knife) after 「八」 was overused for the meaning eight, causing a need to disambiguate the two morphemes eight and separate.
In any case, it is quite likely that the original morpheme that 「八」 represented is now [also] written as 「別」 (/*pret/, to divide). The financial numeral for eight, 「捌」, still uses 「別」 as a phonetic component, showing the conservative nature of the sound of 「八」 for an ancient morpheme meaning to divide, differentiate, separate.

The good luck and fortune meaning (發財) is an unrelated wordplay, although it touches on the same kind of rebus principle. 「發」 (Middle Chinese: /pʉɐt̚/) sounds similar enough to 「八」 (/pˠɛt̚/) for this purpose, and in an alternate universe or a now-lost topolect, 「八」 might have been used as a phonetic loan for 「發」.


Is Goldblatt's talk about Waley available on-line? Is there any on-line source for Howard Goldblatt's article "Why I hate Arthur Waley."?  It is in Translation Quarterly (1999) No. 13 & 14,  pp.33 -- 48.
I have even found pictures of Goldblatt on the stage where he delivered the talk, in Hong Kong. But so far I find no written copy (or video) on-line, even through my university library.  I will say I hope he is being ironic about "hating" Waley.  But however that may be, I would like to know what he says.

Baidu Wenku has a copy.
It's free it doesn't require any points or coins or whatever their currency is. Just click 下载文档.

Google Books also seems to have a scanned copy here from the book China and Her Biographical Dimensions. Although, it appears that some pages may be missing?

Here's the individual images extracted from the PDF


What exactly is 动宾短语? What exactly is 动宾短语?

Is it structure with no subject like 学汉语对人有好处。
Or is it part of a pivotal sentence what I have seen on some books.

兼语句：用兼语短语充当谓语的主谓句。其主要特点有：它的谓语
由一个动宾短语和一个主谓短语套接而成；动宾短语中的动词通常是使
令性动词。如： “叫、让‘派、使、请、教、劝、命令、禁止、任命、号
召、选举”等等。有是还用“有”。如：
A 我请周恩来同志来解释。
B 你让他下午到我办公室来一下。
C 蔚蓝的天宇中正有一群大雁飞过。

If you have a link with explanation in English or Spanish I would be grateful.

兼语 is a structure where VO & SV combine to form V(O/S)V.

e.g.

让他（VO）+他吃饭（SV）=让他吃饭（兼语句式）

兼语 is inherited from Classical Chinese, ans is still common today.

e.g.

权即遣肃行。（《资治通鉴》）

Often we can omit (O/S) if the context permits:

权即遣行。

计未定，求人可使报秦者。（《史记•廉颇蔺相如列传》）

EDIT:

It's clear that 动宾短语 is Verb-Object Phrase~

（孙）权即遣（鲁）肃行

孙权 immediately send 鲁肃 to go (to build up alliance).


What does "yellow face wife" (黄脸婆) mean? I looked online and couldn't find an answer. I was told it means something similar to "poker face" here in Taiwan. Do you know what this might mean?

I guess the term you mentioned, yellow wife, is referred to "黃臉婆" (yellow-face wife).

"黃臉婆" describes a woman who has married for a long time.
The (face) color indicates that she has aged with the burden of housework.
(Someone says, in ancient China, to cover the aging face, women misuse the cosmetics with lead and make their face getting yellow. The elder, more yellow.)

It's a negative term. Husbands use this term to describe their wife as love is fading out.
Wives complain the houseworks and the relationship by calling themselves as "黃臉婆"

I think there's some differences between poker face and this term. : )


Spacing Guidelines for Modern Chinese Writing Given that Chinese characters don't need to have any spacing between them (from here), in that they don't need whitespace between words, or even between paragraphs or chapters, then you could just have basically a grid of Chinese characters extending hundreds of pages without any spacing.

The only issue with this is it makes it a bit more difficult to read the writing; you have to do some of the context analysis mentally in your head to basically tease apart the words and paragraphs. So these spacing structures like word spacing and paragraphs help with mentally understanding the logical flow and meaning of the text.

Not knowing much about Chinese writing, I'm wondering what best practices are currently for writing in Chinese, and if anyone uses whitespace between words in Chinese, or uses paragraphs, sections, chapters, etc.. Basically all of the things you'd find in a wiki.

Briefly looking for a Chinese News website, I find this, which has these characters in this format:

Don't know what it says, but I'm just looking at the syntax. That looks like a list of articles perhaps. So then clicking on one, it looks like this:

Looks like there are paragraphs, and spaces after punctuation (comma, period, question mark), but not spaces between words.

Wondering if anyone these days also writes with spaces between words (maybe there are examples of blogs that do this). Also wondering what is considered "best practice" for readability, related to the spacing.

That is, I would like to know if I were to write Chinese writing with spaces between words, how it would be perceived. Maybe it is only done in children's books, type of thing.

No space is needed between characters.

A paragraph would start on a new line, usually with an indentation of two characters.

Space after punctuation is not required. The space you see is because the font tries to make punctuation to have the same width as a Chinese character.

In your first picture, the texts are article titles. There, to separate two phrases without using a punctuation, space is used. This usage usually do not appear in main article content.


Is 請 also mean "to treat" in Mandarin? I answered a question about the character 請,  http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/phorum/read.php?14,137964,137965#msg-137965 on other site.

In Cantonese, 請 can mean: "to treat; to pay for someone" beside the listed meanings of " to invite" in the dictionary on that site.

I suddenly realized it may not be the case in Mandarin, I think I heard Mandarin say: 「這頓飯我作東」, 「這頓飯我來付」，but do Mandarin say 「這頓飯我來請」 or  「我今晚請吃晚飯」？

Yes.

These phrases 『这顿饭我来请』『今天我请客』『我请』 very common in Mandarin.


Is 我妈妈 or 我的妈妈 more natural? The possessive particle 的 is often dropped when I see an expression like this, especially when referring to a family member (such as in this case). Which is more natural in casual conversation and are both correct by grammatical standards?

In Chinese, when you are talking about family, close friends (我朋友) or a group that you are part of (for example 我班), you don't use 的. They are both grammatically correct, but it is more natural to skip it.


Difference between 整理 and 收拾? What would be some examples of things you would 整理 and things you would 收拾 ？
Are they completely interchangeable or is there some nuanced difference ?

No, they are not totally interchangeable, just have some meanings overlapped
you can 整理數據(sort out the data) but not 收拾數據 (tidy up the data)
you can 收拾殘局 (clean up after a messy situation) but not 整理殘局 (organize a messy situation)
Both 整理房間 and 收拾房間  mean 'put the room in order/ tidy up the room'
整理房間 might include some repair work but 收拾房間 doesn't


how do dialects deal with two seperate falling tones accents? I've asked a similar question before:

  Dialects/Topolects: Tone Marks?

but I want to make this more specific here.

I know not everyone agrees with tone accents in dialects/topolects - but just for the sake of argument - how should it be done?

I want to know how tone accents are dealt with in topolects/dialects when there are two falling tones.

Here's what I've found, so far:

Yale Cantonese seems to do it this way:

  siː˥˧ = sì

  siː˨˩ = sìh

So high falling tone = grave accent | low dropping tone grave accent + h on the end

while IPA does:

  sî

and

  sìː

respectively

Hokkien seems to do it this way:

  ˧˩ to ˨˩ (31~21) = à

  ˧˨ʔ (32) = ah

Bigger drop gets a grave accent, light drop gets an h without an accent.

A simple standard seems to be:

Most obvious tone gets a grave accent - light drop gets an 'h'.

Here's my main question:

Is this a standard? Should all dialects follow suite?

I don't like that circumflex in the IPA one bit - seems quite confusing rather than anything else.

I'm inclined to use grave and double grave to denote the differences, myself - but I'd rather go a more "standard" route if possible.

In essence, if I understand you correctly, you are asking for a standard for romanisation of tone diacritics. The straightforward answer of course is that each system has its own standard: Hanyu Pinyin for standard Mandarin is different to traditional Yale for Cantonese, which is different to Jyutping for Cantonese, which is the same as Sidney Lau for Cantonese.

With many learners whose first encounter with tone as a concept is with stnadard Mandarin Chinese through the orthography provided by Hanyu Pinyin, the diacritics are virtually featural; it is as if each diacritic was designed to represent the pitch of each tone as pronounced in the standard way. Neat, right?

This also works to an extent with Yale in Cantonese (including if you consider the high falling tone distinct from the high level tone, which is a minority in the 21st century). However, what to do with the low tones, which happen to be the same contours? Just add "h" after the vowel (or syllabic nasal consonant) and you're done! Not quite as featural as Hanyu Pinyin, but systematic enough.

However, Peh-oe-ji and its descendants are not very intuitive it comes to the representation of the tones in its orthography of Hokkien. If we look at the tones of Xiamen (Amoy) Hokkien, for which Peh-oe-ji was originally developed, through a strictly synchronic phonetic view, we get (in descending pitch order):
 - high level [including obstruent endings];
 - high falling;
 - (high) rising;
 - mid level;
 - low falling;
 - low with obstruent endings.

So we have two level and one kind-of level tones, one rising tone, and two falling tones. However, Peh-oe-ji was not developed with this view of the tone system; instead, it allocated the tones according to the historical four tone 平上去入 system of Middle Chinese, broken down by 阴阳 register, with 阴 going first then 阳. This is also technically the same view (let's call it the "historical" view) as the tone numbers for Cantonese in Yale and Jyutping.
The allocation of the diacritics seems fairly random, although an explanation from WH Medhurst's pioneering 1832 dicionary on (what would later be Malaysian) Hokkien can be found. Essentially, his tone marks are very subjective, introspective descriptions, and not directly related to pitch.


Should Chinese text be grid aligned in game dialogs? Title says it all, should I have my text using a variable width font, or fixed width. I didn't know if it is easier to read if its aligned on a grid?

So here is my dialog with fixed width, one issue is where the space is, since its half the width of the characters it unalignes the remaining characters on the row, same for numbers in the text, should I not worry about this?

By the way, the text is a google translation and may not be correct.

In general, we don't care if it is grid aligned or not. And even in fonts that are not fixed-width, the Chinese characters usually have the same width.

To make it to look better, it is better to make the right boundary a straight line, not zigzaged. If you find it hard to achieve, then just leave it as it is.

Some punctuation marks, such as commas (，), periods (。), question marks (？), etc. do not appear at the beginning of a sentence, and can stick out of the right boundary.

In Chinese, we use full-width punctuation, not the half-width counterpart. And we don't include spaces in sentences. If English is mixed in the text, half-width spaces are usually used to separate English words (not between English word and Chinese characters).

Edit:

In Microsoft Word, there is a list of punctuation that should not start line:

!%),.:;>?]}¢¨°·ˇˉ―‖’”…‰′″›℃∶、。〃〉》」』】〕〗〞︶︺︾﹀﹄﹚﹜﹞！＂％＇），．：；？］｀｜｝～￠

And there is also a list punctuations that should not end a line:

$([{£¥·‘“〈《「『【〔〖〝﹙﹛﹝＄（．［｛￡￥


What are some ways I can learn Chinese characters effectively? What are some great ways to learn Chinese characters effectively? I recently have learnt Pinyin however; I find it quite difficult to learn the characters because of poor learning techniques.

What are some great ways to learn characters and their meaning off by heart?

I'll assume that you want to learn vocabulary (written character form, pinyin pronunciation, and translated meaning).

I'll start off with a little about how I learned (just passed HSK 3 after 9 months of study from zero background). First I completed some smartphone apps (ChineseSkill, Hello Chinese, and Chinese InFlow), then I studied the review and flashcards provided with those apps. I then progressed to composing my own sentences usually using Google Translate along with Pleco dictionary. Then I started using Anki flashcards. I also made my own Excel spreadsheets for random quizzes and handwriting templates.

Here are some tips that have helped me:

1) In the initial stages go slow and try to learn a few characters and basic sentences like 我是男人。

2) Try to figure out tricks to help you remember the characters. For me 是 looks like the word "BE", so I instantly memorized it with no problems. I learned 我 by thinking of the saying "woe is me". I learned 写 by thinking it looks like the letter "E" for french "écrire" I always thought in my head "écrivez". I also invent my own little names for the characters/radicals 京 is "beijing man" because it looks like a little guy with a hat and mustache. 听 at first looked to me like a person hitting a hammer on an anvil or someone hitting a tuning fork, so it was natural for "hear/listen". 近 looked like a person trying to avoid a cat with it's tail raised (who like's seeing a cat's but, really?!?!!? ;) "too close for comfort", so it means "near". Of course, some of this is inconsistent and silly, but it was a fun way to remember things.

3) Also learning the decomposed radicals can be helpful. 要 is "western women" who are indoctrinated into materialistic culture and always "want" things. Some of this is meant to be funny, but it has worked for me. 好 is "woman and child is good" as in a woman who gives you a son is a good thing (yes, very sexist, but it is what it is and helps to remember). Sometimes I just remember the radicals like 照 is sun+knife+box+heat which I think of as taking a photo and cutting the film and developing it in a "hot" chemical solvent. I know the "box" is really mouth, but "box" is quicker for me to remember. Invent your own little mnemonics. Of course, ultimately it might be wise to learn the actual true radicals and their meanings, but initially I think anything that helps you remember is good.

4) Learn at least a few characters by handwriting with the correct stroke order. I think this is what really pushed me over the edge in terms of my understanding of the characters, what they mean, and why they are composed the way they are. I can write all 600 HSK 3 words by hand, and probably 100 other words. Make sure to get the stroke order correct!

5) Practice writing your own sentences, I use google translate and the standard android pinyin keyboard. It will help you recall the vocabulary better.

6) I have neglected tones and speaking, so I am bad at that. I can understand listening pretty well. But I am also a musician, so learning and remembering the tones is sort of easy if I try, but I have just neglected it. You would probably be advised well to concentrate on learning the tones as you go along and not do what I have done by neglecting them. I have perfect tone identification by hearing, probably due to my musical training.

7) I have also neglected grammar. However, I can quickly read HSK sentences and know what they mean just by seeing the vocabulary involved.

8) Use Pleco, Anki, or other flashcard systems.
      - show character and test your recall of the pinyin and meaning
      - show pinyin and meaning, test your writing the character
      - play sound and test your recall of pinyin, character, and meaning.
   Do at least 100 flashcards a day for a year. Don't cheat yourself,
   make sure you are honestly recalling things.

9) Practice speaking (I use Google Translate, Pleco, and ChineseSkill/HelloChinese). I speak a sentence or word into the app until it understands it. That helps to practices getting the tones correct.

10) Use MDGB for other flashcards/quizzes/dictionary. Look up character stroke/radical decompositions. You don't have to memorize these, but they are helpful with gaining an overall understanding of the language.

Once you build up a few hundred words of vocabulary it continually gets easier learning new words as they use many of the same characters, strokes, and radicals. It becomes easier to guess rough meanings and pronunciations. Grammar is more difficult as there are some many specific grammatical forms, but getting down the basics of grammar in terms of sentence/phrase order will enable you to compose sentences that a native speaker can understand even if not totally correct. Use AlleSetLearning website for awesome grammar lessons.

Sorry for such a long post, but these are some things that helped me starting from scratch. Hope you find it helpful.


Implications of pointedly avoiding 了 I have very limited access to Chinese books, but I have noticed some texts that seem to make a point of avoiding 了。Is there a discernible reason? Does it sound more educated?

This one is from the cover of a book the author doesn't seem to be trying to write short keywords.

in modern written vernacular chinese (白話文), several characters are used abusively.

"的", "麼", "了", "嗎", "性", "地", "們"

the more these characters are used, the worst the article are.

therefore the implications of pointedly avoiding 了, or any above mentioned characters is:

authors tried to write "elegantly, more beautiful" article, using less, or without these characters.

reading some good articles, you would feel the differences. the first recommendation is 董橋, learn from him, you won't be regret.

http://hk.apple.nextmedia.com/supplement/columnist/董橋

http://www.hornbill.cdc.net.my/hornbill2/collection01/dongqiao/dqsw.html


Is there a neutral way of saying "deliberately"? I wrote a sentence which involved 故意 (gùyì; deliberately) and my teacher explained that 故意 is a negative word: you can't deliberately do something good using 故意.  (I won't reproduce that sentence, since it contains other errors.)

But in English, "deliberately" ("intentionally"; "on purpose") is not necessarily a bad thing.

  To help the students understand her, our teacher deliberately speaks slowly.

I might translate this to

  为了让学生明白她说的，我们的老师故意地说得慢。

but then we have the problem of 故意 being negative.  I'm not sure if 有意 has the same issue, but it seems very similar to 故意.

Question: Is there a neutral way of saying "deliberately"?

'故意' implying someone intend to do some bad things. If you want to say someone intend to do things specially. You can use '特意'. This word do not imply any bad or good intention. It only emphasize 'specially'. But in most of case, Chinese love to use it in positive senarios, like me.

为了让学生听得明白，我们老师特意把语速放慢。
在下班的路上，他特意绕路去医院看望母亲。


How can one get away with saying a noun before a description? I very often come across the following problem. Somebody asks me about a thing/ person/ noun and I start responding by: It's a thing/ person that... Wait, in Chinese you must say the description first and then put a noun. Blimey.

For example, one asks a question: 警察是谁？I want to say that a policeman is a person who chase criminals. So I start: 警察是一个人。。。but it's a wrong start. Can one continue this sentence and get away with starting it wrong, without saying "Oh, sorry, my bad" and restarting?

Beating around the bush and saying the noun at the end is soooooooo unnatural for me. So the way I often say things is: 警察是一个人。。。一个追逐犯人的人。

Is there a more natural or more sophisticated way of getting away with such a mistake? Does my way of correcting myself sound OK?

警察是一个人。。。一个追逐犯人的人。 is also ok, but as you know, they are not very Chinese style.

The bad news is you can not put an attribute clause after your noun.

The good news is there are many other ways.

警察是一种专门抓犯人的人.

警察的工作是专门抓罪犯

You can use 是 to start your description, the description can be started over and over, the subject part would stay there.


What usage does 有 have in ~的有 (e.g. 偏向于data reseacher的有) In the following sentence over 知乎:

从我的观察来看，不同企业对于data scientist这个title的定义其实是有分歧的，偏向于data reseacher的有，多见于大型IT企业，百度大脑的data scientist们多属于这一类型，他们搞的是比较前沿的深度学习，平常会读大量paper可能自己也会发；偏向于data creative的有，各种企业都会储备，会ETL，懂模型、懂行业，会展示沟通，比较能够创造直接的价值。偏向于data developer的也有但是很少，他们不懂模型，只要给他们算法公式，他们就能用编程语言帮你实现，实现算法是重要的技能，但是这种不懂模型不懂行业的，现在大多企业都不太会给这样的人data scientist的title了。

The grammar book does not seem to have this usage of 有.
I feel that the meaning is similar to 关于 or 至于 (at least in this context), so the relevant sentence above can be rewritten as follows:

关于偏向于data researcher (or suffix "的话" here?)，
关于data developer，虽然他们比减少，

However, grammatically how does 有 work here? I just check out the Chinese grammar wiki but didn't find any relevant pages.

I am a native speaker and consider myself a "data" person.

From my perspective, he didn't end the sentence properly and his array of sentences could be changed a bit like below so it's easier to understand.

  从我的观察来看，不同企业对于data scientist这个title的定义其实是有分歧的。
      有偏向于data reseacher的，多见于大型IT企业。百度大脑的data scientist们多属于这一类型，他们搞的是比较前沿的深度学习，平常会读大量paper可能自己也会发文章。

The purpose of 有...的 is to illustrate his/her point using example(s).


How are Chinese words created (both spelling and sound)? I am trying to translate new words in English into Chinese.

Say we have some new words in English that have never been translated.

Ga (gah) = To walk upside down
Ba (bah) = Half unicorn half flamingo
Ti (tee) = To fly underneath a bridge

How would we go about translating these into Chinese? I can, of course, find the corresponding terms in Chinese and string them together. Like [WALK][DOWN] or [UNICORN][FLAMINGO], etc. But can I instead do a direct translation so the sound is the same in both languages? That is, "Ga" in Chinese (pinyin) directly? How, then, do I create a character or word corresponding to the Pinyin sound?

But can I instead do a direct translation so the sound is the same in both languages? That is, "Ga" in Chinese (pinyin) directly? How, then, do I create a character or word corresponding to the Pinyin sound?

No, you cannot. Words and characters can be invented, but it will take time for people to broadly use them and include them into their vocabulary. And only then are they absorbed into the language. If no one accept your invention, then it's meaningless.
Now consider:

Say we have some new words in Germany that have never been translated.
Ga = To walk upside down
Ba = Half unicorn half flamingo
Ti = To fly underneath a bridge
How would we go about translating these into English? I can, of course, find the corresponding terms in English and string them together. Like [WALK][DOWN] or [UNICORN][FLAMINGO], etc. But can I instead do a direct translation so the sound is the same in both languages? That is, "Gah" in English directly? How, then, do I create a word?

I think it's quite obvious now. You didn't translate it, you just invented a new thing somehow following the rules in that language. But it means nothing, no one, except those who have read your works, will understand it. Of course, if you just intend to get it across merely to your target readers (Even in this case you should explain its meaning for once), you are fine to go. Or if your masterpiece is so popular and famous that everyone feels shame if he hasn't read it, for example, 鲁迅 just coined a character 猹 (it is non-exiatent before) referring to a kind of animals local to his hometown, and it's nothing other than pronounced as what the villagers call that animal. But today everyone knows it and accepts it as part of our language, so it's included in unicode encoding. That is a great example to your question.


How to say “similarly" as a transition? I've tried to use the transition "similarly" multiple times in Chinese, but I've gotten mixed feedback on how I should say it.

I've been told I should say "同样的“ and not 同样  like "John 这几天因为党军的原因不会来上课“ 同样的， Clarence 因为 Navy 的原因也不会来上课”.

Recently, however  I wrote "同样的，《丈夫》的婚姻 也有一些性别歧视的因素。", which got changed to "同样".

Could anyone comment on which is preferred?

Actually, there is no different meaning between 同样的 and 同样 when we use them to connect two sentences.

However, in my experience, 同样的 is used to connect two short sentences, like your first example. Tom swims well, 同样的, John can swim with three styles.

同样 is used start a new sentence. Tom is not rich, but he is really a nice guy. 同样, even John is disabled, but he try his best to take care of himself and help more people.

In speaking Chinese, you can ignore this. Because the pronunciation of 的 in 同样的 can speak like the “d” in yard.


difference between 什么也 and 什么都 What is the difference between 什么也 and 什么都 ?
They are very similar. 1, for anything, 2, for all of the things。 1，什么也不喜欢 什么也没意思，2， 什么都要考虑 什么都有意思
BUT! But how do you use them? For example if I want to say “I don’t want anything” should I say 我什么也不要 or 我什么都不要？ I really don’t see any difference between 也 or 都.

As far as I understand, The difference is "habit" not semantic.  They mean exactly the same.  But 什么也 are usually used in negative while 什么都 can be in both positive and negative.
You can't say 他什么菜也吃 is wrong, just not generally used.
My advice is simple: stick to 什么都 because it can be used both positive and negative, but understand that some people may prefer 什么也 in negative.
Actually, this is generally the principle when facing many options in expressions, for example, the 7 fundamental ways of continuous forms be + ~ing, (在+..., 正+..., ......呢) choose one of them that you feel most comfortably and most practical in using (in this case, my recommendation is 正在 because you can include place terms easily), and understand there are other 6 ways.


Unclear expression in Pimsleur 3 "here is a small gift" In the audio course Pimsleur Mandarin III an expression is taught which you can say when giving someone a gift. The expression itself is unclear to me, which one of these is it?

yī diǎnr shǎo yì sī
yī diǎnr xiǎo yì sī
or something else?

Searching online I couldn't find any reference/usage of this expression. Is it a common expression to use?

The character before 意思 should be 小. Notice that 小 has a connotation of size that 少 lacks; 少 is an indication of quantity. Moreover, 小意思 readily appears in dictionaries; 少意思 does not.

Otherwise, the overall construction (一点儿小意思) makes sense to me, and does appear in some online results. For example, Zdic.net gives:

  这是俺们家乡特产,你一定要收下,只是一点小意思

There is no 儿 affixed to the 点, but to the best of my knowledge, this discrepancy is not important.


How to translate "For all you know"? What are the best ways to translate For all you know?
For example:

For all you know, she could be lying to you.
In response to a friend getting upset that her friend isn't picking up her phone, I respond, "For all you know, something could have happened."
A neighbor sends us some vegetables and I tell my wife, "We better wash them first, for all we know, they could be covered in pesticide"

Agree with StumpyJoePete.

As we all know = Everybody knows.

For all you know = You don't really know for sure.

I think Damian Siniakowicz's suggestion will work.

We better wash the vegetables first, for all we know, they could be covered in pesticide

我们还是先把蔬菜洗一下，说不定有農藥呢。

A couple more suggestions:

我们还是先把蔬菜洗一下，誰知道有沒有農藥呢？

我们还是先把蔬菜洗一下，可能有農藥呢。


Examples of "bad" simplified characters/简体字? In particular, there should be many examples of 形声字 ("phono-semantic compound characters") which were "damaged" by simplification. I am interested especially in characters where a 声旁 ("phonetic") or 形旁 ("signific") was partially removed in such a way as to provide misinformation.

To illustrate,

盤 was simplified to 盘, leaving a pointless 舟 at the top instead of a 声旁/phonetic.
More obscurely 勝 (etymologically 朕+力) was simplified to 胜, leaving a pointless 月 instead of the semantically helpful 力.

Does anyone know of more examples like these?

(Note: this is not intended as an anti-简体字 post!)

for 形聲字, the simplification made severe, unrepairable damages to the chinese culture.

for example, the character 難(u+96e3); it's composed by the 172th radical 隹(u+96b9); and the component (u+26c29), that's a phonetic component, which was shared by numerous characters.

the 說文解字 stated: 難　鳥也﹒從鳥﹒堇聲

while 堇(u+5807) is a character since oracle script, ; later, it's derived to 堇(u+5807)

& (u+26c29)

back to the phonetic component 堇. in cantonese, 堇 is pronounced as gan2　sound file, which has the 韻母 (final) "an".

so, characters share this phonetic component 堇, guess how they pronounce?

難(u+96e3)　naan4　sound file

嘆(u+5606)　taan3　sound file

艱(u+8271)　gaan1　sound file

after thousands of years, the 韻母 (final) of these characters are changed slightly from "an" to "aan", isn't marvellous?

therefore, the simplified script of 难, 叹 & 艰 lose the phonetic component 堇; that no-one in modern time, or generations in the future would associate the correct pronunciation from the component of the simplified character.

c'est patrimoine culturel perdu ☠

lastly, i think that this question is excellent; i worried about the temporary "hold on" status of it. may i ask the rationale of this decision?


How to imply someone is terminally ill? In English, you can say "My cousin is sick." And that sort of conveys a lot. Your cousin could have cancer and be terminally sick, but could also be crazy ("sick" as in slang for cool), or sick as in disgusting, but also could just have the common cold.

By saying something like "Before my cousin got sick, blahblah," and I think that heavily implies your cousin has been sick long enough for there to be a "before" and an "after." Does this make any sense?

But in Chinese, how would you indicate that someone is terminally ill? Like, you don't want to be specific and say they have cancer/other illness, you just want to say that they're sick and IMPLY it's terminal, without explicitly saying so.

TL;DR: I know when someone is sick you can differentiate by saying  她感冒了， 她发烧了，她生病了, etc, but how do you imply someone is terminally ill?

他身患绝症. 绝症 implies terminal, such as cancel, which is incurable most of time.

Or 他身患恶疾 means he got a very serious desease.


meaning and function of 使 as in "不如小决使道，不如吾闻而药之也" What is the meaning and function of 使 in the following?

  大决所犯，伤人必多，吾不克救也；不如小决使道，不如吾闻而药之也。

道 means 導, meaning "to lead" or "to guide," but how does it combine with 使, meaning "to cause"?

the origin is 左傳　襄公三十一年:

  鄭人游于鄉校，以論執政，然明謂子產曰，毀鄉校何如，子產曰，何為，夫人朝夕退而游焉，以議執政之善否，其所善者，吾則行之，其所惡者，吾則改之，是吾師也，若之何毀之，我聞忠善以損怨，不聞作威以防怨，豈不遽止，然猶防川，大決所犯，傷人必多，吾不克救也，不如小決，使道不如，吾聞而藥之也，然明曰，蔑也今而後知吾子之信可事也，小人實不才，若果行此，其鄭國實賴之，豈唯二三臣，仲尼聞是語也，曰，以是觀之，人謂子產不仁，吾不信也。

the punctuation of the above text is, imo, doubtful :(

anyway, the metaphor is:

people's animosity (民怨) is like water flow

a ruler can built a dam to store water, and stop the flow. but, over times, water would overflow, destroy the dam.

so, 子產's method to handle people's animosity is: don't stop it, let small amount of water flow daily; in which no water would collected large enough to destroy the dam.

  大決所犯．傷人必多．吾不克救也．不如小決使道．不如吾聞而藥之也

dam burst (大決) . . .

it would be better to (不如) [let] small amount of (小) [water] flow (決) [pass the dam], as (使) dredge (道 --> 疏導).

it would be better to (不如) [let] me (吾) hear (聞) [people's critic (以論執政) at the school (于鄉校)], and (而) [using such critics] as medicine (藥) to cure the governing (之).

depends on the style of writing, one might interpret "使" differently.

have fun :)


How to translate equal weight and sector weight? RYE (Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight Energy ETF) equally weighs each stock.
My attempt with Google Translate: RYE平均權衡每隻股票
SPY (SPDR S&P 500 ETF) sector weighs each stock.
My attempt: SPU按部門稱量每隻股票。
Context
Market Weight vs. Equal Weight S&P 500 ETFs

Think of the S&P 500 like a pie chart: with a market weight ETF, the pie is broken up into slices based on market cap. With an equal-weight ETF, all the slices are the same size, regardless of the size of the company or sector.

There is specific words used for financial terms in both English and Chinese.

equal weight: 等权(重)

e.g.:
equal weight index: 等权(重)指数

equal weight ETF: 等权(重)交易所交易基金 or 等权(重)交易型开放式指数基金 or 等权(重)ETF (ETF is very commonly known term in finance, so you can leave it as is)

weighted: 加权(重)

e.g.: Price weighted index: 价格加权(重)指数

SPDR S&P 500 generally known as 标普500

sector is not 部门. It is generally referring to 行业 in Finance


Why “外籍球员” is written as "外援" instead of "外员"？ "外援" literally means "foreign assistance". Why are "外籍球员" called "外援" then?

外援 Is short for 外來援軍 (reinforcement from outside). It refers to players who came from outside of your organization

Although in practice, all the 外援 are 外籍球员, but in theory, a team can borrow a player from another local term for a period, and that player from other term can also be called 外援 (outside reinforcement)

My point is, 外 in 外援 doesn't refer to 外籍(foreign), it refers to 外來 (from outside); and 援 is not a short form of 援助 (assistance), but a short form of 援軍 (reinforcement)

As I stated before, since all the 外援 are 外籍球员, people can safely presume 外援 = 外籍球员

outside of team sport lingo, 外援 mostly refers to "Foreign aid", short for 對外援助 or 外來援助


Is 个 acceptable for all nouns? My Chinese teacher says she doesn't care. But for future reference, is 个 acceptable as a measure word for all nouns?

No, of course. Here's a summary about the kinds of cases where 个 is inappropriate.

sth slender. e.g. 一根绳子, 一条蛇, 一条路; 一线光明, 一绺头发, 一丝细雨.

sth thin. e.g. 一张纸, 一面红旗, 一幅画.

sth solid in certain kinds of shapes. e.g. 一块砖, 一团面, 一坨泥.

sth amorphous. e.g. 一杯水, 一壶油, 一斤米, 一碗沙子.

sth forming part of a greater whole. e.g. 一层楼, 一重山, 一级台阶, 一节甘蔗, 一段木头, 一截电线.

sth where the measure words come from verbs or nouns and can't be replaced by 个 without risk of changing their meaning. e.g. 一捆柴, 一把米, 一撮毛, 一抱草, 一包糖, 一任县长, 一束花,
一串糖葫芦, 一堵墙, 一服药, 一堆土, 一封信, 一滴水, 一朵花, 一本书, 一篇文章, 一瓣花瓣.

And note that even if 个 could be used instead, the meaning might be different. e.g. 一位老先生 (respectful) vs 一个老先生 (not necessarily rude, but not respectful).

At last, this might be an opinion issue; I agree that they're understandable in daily conversion; the listener will try to supply the appropriate measure word. But IMO the abuse of 个 as measure word is not acceptable for Chinese learner, especially who want to master natural Chinese.


Can 挟带 be pronunced as jiādài? In the song 千山萬水 at 1:13, the subtitles for the lyrics show 挟带, however, the word was pronunced as  jiādài instead of xiédài.

MDBG lists 夹带's pronunciation as jiādài, and 挟带's pronunciation as xiédài.

Can 挟带 be pronunced as jiādài? Or is the lyrics/pronunciation wrong?

In ancient Chinese, 挟 can be used as 夹.

  挟（挾）jiā ㄐㄧㄚˉ ◎ 古同“夹”，从物体两边钳住。

And in Taiwan, 挾 has a pronunciation jiá (note that it's not jiā). So, the lyrics/pronunciation cannot be considered wrong.

PS Thanks for NS.X.'s pointing out that you cannot freely choose the pronunciation of a polyphonic character, it should depend on the context. That is correct, and I am sorry if I had misled anyone for my unclear statement.

That I said such pronunciation jiádài (Taiwanese) cannot be considered wrong, is because the persons who use jiádài may argue like this

  (Possible Argument for jiádài) The 挾 is an interchangeable character of 夾, though it's in ancient Chinese, I can use 挾帶 as 夾帶 without being wrong because modern dictionaries still list 挾jiá(note that again in mainland China it is 挟jiā) as one entry. And, 夾帶 has meaning 夾雜(be mixed up with), so

    the lyric 夢想夾帶眼淚 can be interpreted as a metaphor "dreams are mixed up with tears".

  And

    in the news, 颱風夾帶暴雨前進 can be interpreted as "the typhoon mixed up with rainstorms is moving forward".

  They both make sense.

Thus, it would be a little indiscreet to say it's wrong.

EDIT

Thanks for QuestionOverflow's brilliant question! I study the pronunciation of 挟带(挾帶) for a while, and here's my conclusion:

  In Taiwan, the pronunciations of 挾 are xié, xiá, or jiá. The formal pronunciation of 挾帶 should be xiédài, or xiádài (preferred). However, the not-so-formal pronunciation jiádài can be commonly heard in TV weather reports.
  In mainland China, the pronunciations of 挟 are xié or jiā. The formal pronunciation of 挟带 should be only xiédài.

Literature Evidence

For Case 2, the answer can be easily found in the authoritative dictionaries 《现代汉语词典》 or 《新华字典》.

However, Case 1 is much more complex, because there are many dictionaries in Taiwan and it's difficult to tell which one is the most authoritative. Here, I would consider the 中華民國教育部 重編國語辭典修訂本 (online) as the most authoritative one. In that dictionary, the entries for 挾 and 挾帶 are

Pronunciation xié.

  挾 部首　手　部首外筆畫　7　總筆畫　10

    注音一式① ㄒ｜ㄝˊ

    漢語拼音① xié

  【動】

  夾在腋下、懷夾。國語˙齊語：「時雨既至，挾其槍、刈、耨、鎛，以旦暮從事於田野。」孟子˙梁惠王上：「挾太山以超北海。」
  從旁箝夾。文選˙王粲˙登樓賦：「挾清漳之通浦兮，倚曲沮之長洲。」
  脅持。如：「要挾」。三國志˙卷三十五˙蜀書˙諸葛亮傳：「挾天子而令諸侯。」水滸傳˙第三十六回：「若是如此來挾我，只是逼宋江性命，我自不如死了。」
  持握、持有。戰國策˙趙策四：「位尊而無功，奉厚而無勞，而挾重器多也。」楚辭˙屈原˙九歌˙國殤：「帶長劍兮挾秦弓，首身離兮心不懲。」
  倚仗、倚持。如：「挾恃」。孟子˙萬章下：「不挾長，不挾貴。」清˙洪昇˙長生殿˙第三十齣：「況且弟兄姊妹挾勢弄權，罪惡滔天。」
  夾帶、夾雜。宋˙辛棄疾˙浣溪沙˙梅子熟時到幾回詞：「晚雲挾雨喚歸來。」
  懷藏、隱藏。如：「挾怨」。漢書˙卷五十六˙董仲舒傳：「秦繼其後，獨不能改，又益甚之，重禁文學，不得挾書。」元˙關漢卿˙望江亭˙第二折：「挾這讎氣，朦朧奏過聖人，要標取我的首級。」

Pronunciation xiá. ①之又音 means it is another acceptable formal pronunciation under the usage of case ①.

  挾 部首　手　部首外筆畫　7　總筆畫　10

    注音一式② （又音）ㄒ｜ㄚˊ

    漢語拼音② （又音）xiá

  ①之又音。

Pronunciation jiá.

  挾 部首　手　部首外筆畫　7　總筆畫　10

    注音一式③ ㄐ｜ㄚˊ

    漢語拼音③ jiá

  【動】

  通達。詩經˙大雅˙大明：「天位殷適，使不挾四方。」
  夾取。通「夾」。莊子˙駢拇：「問臧奚事，則挾策讀書。」舊五代史˙卷一二七˙周書˙盧文紀傳：「旭旦以箸挾之，首得文紀之名。」

  【形】 周匝、周遍。荀子˙禮論：「於是其中焉方皇周挾，曲得其次序，是聖人也。」楊倞˙注：「浹，匝也。」

挾帶 xié dài with the meaning "carry".

  夾持攜帶。如：「歹徒挾帶毒品闖關，被海關緝查人員當場查獲。」

攜挾帶 xī jiá dài with the meaning "cheating in an examination".

  考試作弊。

Thus, consider the meaning of 挾帶 in the context of weather report, formally, it should be pronounced as xiédài or xiádài(preferred) in Taiwan.

Why xiádài is preferred in Taiwan

I find an article written by Prof. Pei-Jung Huang (Dept. of Chinese language and literature, National Taiwan University) on this website. It mentions:

  根據臺灣《國語一字多音審定表》（教育部出版）及大陸《普通話四讀詞審音表釋例》，兩岸的字音差異頗多，茲舉十例如下：[...]

    二、聲母、韻母或聲調不同的：（前面是臺灣讀音，後面是大陸讀音）[...]

    21．挾持、挾制、挾帶（ㄒㄧㄚˊ／ㄒㄧㄝˊ）

That is to say, xiádài is preferred in Taiwan, according to the official document 臺灣《國語一字多音審定表》. And in the 國語小字典, 挾 is only given the pronunciation xiá.

  【挾】手-7-10

  注音    ㄒ｜ㄚˊ

  (1)   用手臂夾在腋下。如：「挾帶」。
  (2) 以威勢壓迫。如：「挾持」、「挾制」、「要挾」、「挾天子以令諸侯」。
  (3) 暗藏於心。如：「挾怨」、「挾嫌」、「挾恨」、「挾隙」。

Distinction between 挟带(挾帶) and 携带(攜帶)

挟带

  携带；混杂在他物中秘密携带。 宋 梅尧臣 《和王仲仪咏瘿二十韵》：“挟带岁月深，冒犯风霜冷；厌恶虽自知，剖割且谁肯。” 清 富察敦崇 《燕京岁时记·黄花鱼》：“京师三月有黄花鱼，即石首鱼。初次到京时，由 崇文门 监督照例呈进，否则为私货。虽有挟带而来者，不敢卖也。”
  谓以强力带着。 王愿坚 《普通劳动者》：“一阵疾风挟带着沙土扑过，大白点子雨急骤地撒落下来，打在沙土上。”
  犹夹杂，带有。 鲁迅 《坟·从胡须说到牙齿》：“其中大半是因为他们耽误了我的父亲的病的缘故罢，但怕也很挟带些切肤之痛的自己的私怨。”

携带

  [carry;bring;take along]
  随身带着

    携带行李

  经受或容许以特定方式带

    易于携带的负载

  [pack]∶作为部分经常装备佩带
  [wear]∶手里拿着

    携带一根手杖

Thus, though they have similar meanings, 携带 can be only used to describe such an action or a status of humans, or, of something that is compared to humans in a metaphor. 挟带 emphasizes more about the action than the status, and can be used for anything/anybody. The phrase 挟带暴雨 is Case 2 of 挟带 in the explanations above, meaning "carrying (the rainstorm) with strong force".

Video Material Evidence for the Formal Pronunciation xiádài in Taiwan

One official introductory video about typhoon made by the Central Weather Bureau of Taiwan. 挾帶 is pronounced as xiádài at 0:05-0:06.

  颱風是源自於熱帶海洋上的劇烈天氣系統，會挾帶(xiádài)著狂風及豪雨前進 ...

A piece of weather news made by New Tang Dynasty Asia Pacific TV. 挾帶 is pronounced as xiádài at around 0:05.
A piece of Apple Daily news in Taiwan. 挾(帶) is pronounced as xiá at 0:00.

  挾1500毫米暴雨 ...

The Not-So-Formal Examples of jiádài

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONcmt4TIalc

  Around 0:05. 明天起將挾帶暴雨侵台

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iREbExawzeQ

  0:08-0:12 其中，西半部依然挾帶豐沛水汽進入台灣

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03_2kam1MrY

  0:24-0:28 天秤颱風從東部登陸台灣，挾帶著強風豪雨


Should I use 写的是"..." vs 写得是"..."? For example, if I want to say

  他写de是"..."

which "de" should I use?

是 isn't a noun, so that suggests using 得
but on the other hand, I've seen usages of "写的是什么" (on Google search at least)

There are many similar questions on this site.

I think we use 的 in this case.

Because
他写的是...
is a simplified form of
他写的内容是...

内容 is a noun, therefore we can use 的 here.


How to say job offer in Mandarin/Cantonese? Google Translate says job offer is 工作機會.

This doesn't feel right.

How do you say job offer in Cantonese and Mandarin?

'Job offer' is a noun.  It means 工作提案 in literal sense
聘用提案 (hiring offer) world be a better Chinese counterpart
you can also use a more literary term '邀聘' [invite to a job(v); job invitation (n)]
Example:

大飯店開張要大量招聘各部門員工
The opening of a grand hotel requires hiring of a large number of employees in various departments.

(招聘 means calling for people to apply for the positions)

而行政總廚一職我想邀請XX酒店的大廚擔任
And I want to invite the head chef of XX Hotel to serve as the executive chef.

(邀請 means 'to invite')

但XX酒店的大廚對這個邀聘看法又如何？
But how the head chef of XX Hotel thinks of this  job invitation?

邀聘 as a verb means 'invite to a job' (邀請受聘)
邀聘 as a noun means 'hiring invitation' (聘用邀請)
(This job is only offered to you, we are not opening this position to the public)

最後XX酒店的大廚接受了我們的邀聘
Finally, the head chef of XX Hotel accepted our job invitation
最後XX酒店的大廚接受了我們的聘用提案
Finally, the head chef of XX Hotel accepted our job offer

side note:
In Cantonese, 'hotel' is '酒店' , 'head chef' is 大廚 or 頭廚
In Mandarin, 'hotel' is '飯店' , head chef' is 總廚


How do I decide whether to use 還是/还是 or 或者 還是/还是 (háishì) and 或者 (huòzhě) seem to have very similar meanings:

還是/还是: or; still; nevertheless
或者: or; possibly; maybe

When I want to say 'or', how to I choose which to use, and are there any hard and fast rules about this? Furthermore, are there yet more ways to say 'or'?

Very good question.
还是 is usually used in asking questions. For example:

你想去北京还是上海呢? = Did you want to go to Beijing or Shanghai?
这是橙子还是橘子? = Is this orange or mandarin?

或者 is usually used in declarative sentence. For example:

我想去北京或者上海. = I wanted to go to Beijing or Shanghai.
你可以叫我小王或者老王. = You can call me Xiao Wang or Lao Wang.


Is verb+点儿 an adverb? My friend asked me about the following sentence that appears in NPCR 1, Lesson 12:

你要多穿点儿衣服.

I understand that it means "You should wear some more clothes." However, she is confused about the word order adverb (多)+verb (穿)+点儿 here, I couldn't quite explain why. Are we supposed to treat 点儿 like an adverb, and if so, why does it make sense to have both in one sentence?

点儿 actually is not attached to the verb in this case and thus is not an adverb. Instead, 点 is being used as a measure word for the noun 衣服. The 儿 is the result of erhua (儿化) on 点, which is common in northern China.

一点 or 一点儿 is used as a measure to indicate "some" or "a little". When the count for a measure is one (一), it is often optional and can be dropped. Also note that when the noun is understood from context, it can also be dropped, so your sentence could also simply end up becoming 你要多穿点儿. This may end up making it look like 点儿 is modifying the verb, even though that's not the case; it's modifying an implicit noun that had been dropped.

It's true that this phenomenon of word dropping can often make sentences harder to analyze for Chinese learners, but learning when certain parts of sentences can be optional will help your understanding of the language.


Translation Gaps On Comic Conversation : 1 As always: I appreciate any help provided. Thanks again.

Background

I am reading Doraemon (or at least I am trying to read it) and sometimes I can't quite see the character while other times I have an issue with context. In this case, I am just not familiar enough to discern the missing characters (?).

Here is what I see so far,

  真年過 (?) 開

  是定一年今好事(?)(?) (EDIT: I think this is 連)

Can anyone share the character(s) I am missing based on the image below?

Have I missed any other characters in this frame?

BTW - This is from a Doraemon comic book collection that a friend shared with me. Some one explained to me that this character has at times been depicted speaking in Japanese, Taiwanese, Mandarin, and Cantonese. As a result there are nuances throughout the series which are regional. If there are any regional variations in meaning that stand out please share.

UPDATES

1) Changed the title to better reflect the related questions that I have on this topic.

2) Accepted Answers

  繁体:過年真清閒
  简体:过年真清闲

  繁体:今年一定是好事連連
  简体:今年一定是好事连连

3) I also learned from these answers/comments how the comic should be read (right to left) top-bottom.

Well this is written in traditional so...

FT:過年真清閒
JT:过年真清闲
ENG: New year's is very idle/leisurely/quiet

FT:今年一定是好事連連
JT:今年一定是好事连连
ENG: This year will definitely be filled with one good thing after another

Nothing too regional...

You didn't miss anything else.


I'm getting a package and I'm trying to find out what this phrase mean 到达北京市国际邮件交换站Yanwen
北京市 in English ,north american thankyou

到达北京市国际邮件交换站: Arrive at Beijing international mail processing center.


Learning/remembering Chinese I lived in China for a few months and picked up quite a bit of Mandarin. Now that I've moved back to the US, I have forgotten the Chinese I knew and spoke while there. Other than actually living where they speak Chinese, what is one of the most effective/efficient ways to learn Chinese (semi-quickly) and retain it? Software? Community classes? Watching/listening to Chinese media? Any suggestions of places to go to learn?

In my experience, taking a class, and watching/listening to Chinese media truly helps.
I have taken classes on Chinese, and Chinese media can test if you understand Chinese. Using media also helps you "exercise" your brain; much like taking a jog once in awhile.

In order to retain knowledge on the Chinese, you should practice saying the word, or at least use them once in awhile. It's easier to remember the words with constant/common usage.

I would not recommend software; one problem I see is that if you have a question, you can't ask your computer. With a teacher, on the other hand, you can ask them questions and they can explain. It's a great time saver.

I'm not sure about any places you should go to learn, unfortunately. It greatly depends on what your age is, where you live, and your schedule.


Why is there no 的 in the question 你是第一次去北京吗 (is this your first time going to Beijing)? This is from our Chinese book (entitled 会通汉语 读写1, and available from 京东):

莉莉：这是我在北京拍的照片。
何大华：你是第一次去北京吗？
Lìlì: zhè shì wǒ zài Běijīng pāi de zhàopiàn.
Hé Dàhuá: nǐ shì dìyīcì qù Běijīng ma?

(As I understand, Lili (莉莉) says these are the photos she took in Beijing, and He Dahua (何大华) asks if this was her first time in Beijing.)
I'm confused about He Dahua's grammar: he seems to be using a 你是[something]的 construction, but in this case the 的 is omitted.  It reads like Are you "the first time going to Beijing"? which doesn't make sense to me (she's a human, not a trip to Beijing).
I feel 你是第一次去北京的吗？ is better, but maybe I'm wrong.
Question: Why is there no 的 in the question 你是第一次去北京吗?

The question What's the grammatical structure of 这是你第一次来中国吗？ is similar, and asks about:

这是你第一次来中国吗？

This is slightly (but importantly) different since the order in the linked question is 是你第一次..., while in this question the order is 你是第一次...:

你是第一次去北京吗？

I wouldn't be confused if the question instead were 是你第一次去北京吗？

The structures are different

[1. 你] [2. 是第一次去北京] [3. 吗]?
[1. you (subject)] [2. are going to Beijing for the first time (verb clause)] [3. final particle indicates question form]

The verb clause "是第一次去北京" describes what you 'do'- you go to Beijing for the first time
~

[1.你] [2. 是第一次去北京的] [3.吗]?
[1.You (subject)] [2. 是第一次去北京的 (adjectival clause)] [3. final particle indicates question form]

The adjectival clause '是第一次去北京的' describes what 'you' are - 'you are the person who goes to Beijing for the first time'
Other example:
我不会屈服 I will not yield (describe what I do)
我是不会屈服的 I am a person who will not yield (describe who I am)


Is it common for zh/j, ch/q, and sh/x to be merged? I learned formally that in the standard Beijing accent, zh, ch, and sh are pronounced more in the back in the mouth than j, q, and x. However, I got lazy and speak all six of these consonants in the front of my mouth. I'm curious, is this common for other speakers? Is there any region that speaks like this?

As you probably know it is very common to mix up zh、ch、sh and z、c、s.

Here they say that in many dialects zh、ch、sh can't be distinguished from j、q、x.
But they don't mention which dialects.

On this page somebody says that Cantonese people can't distinguish the 3 groups of consonants in j,q,x,zh,ch,sh,z,c,s

On the same page they also write that the consonants jqx are pronounced as /zi/,/ci/,/si/ in Nanijng.

In the Chaoyang dialect there also seem to be such mix-ups. But not for all words. For example x、sh are read as j、q、zh、ch, for example in 喜(～鹊)、跹(翩～起舞)、械(机～化)、摔(～跟头)、尚(和～)、殊(特～)、匙(钥～)、始(开～)

j、q、x and z、c、s are often mixed-up. For example in: 俗(风～)、宿(～舍、住～)、狙(～击)、沮(～丧)、咀(～嚼)、俊(长得～)、峻(险～)、竣(～工)、骏(～马)、(～包)等。


Is this an awkward ordering of words? (Cantonese) In the following sentence: 你要重新開過一次機。
The official translation is: you will have to restart the machine again.

I feel this Has a very awkward word order since the object (機) is at the last after a string of modifiers and other words.

Is this normal? Is there another way to say this from a beginner’s point of view?

機 is not the object, It is part of the verb phrase "開機" - "turn (machine/ device) on"

Just like "吃飯" is a single verb phrase, where 飯 is not an object.

The sentence is grammatical. Just too wordy.

[(重新) + verb + (過)] is a set structure meaning [(from the start) + verb + (again)] e.g "重新做過" (from the start do it again)

The awkward part is 一次 is kind of redundant, "Do it again" already indicated "do it one more time" , you really don't need  to add "一次" (once) in this sentence.

Either 你要重新開過機 or 你要重新開一次機 (you have to start from the beginning and turn the device on again) would flow much more smoothly


A joke involving 忆苦思甜 I ran into the following wordplay:

That's your dad! [...] I heard he has two wives, one back in the countryside,
and a new one. Why do you think one's called Sitian and the other is called Yiku?

I did some research on Google and found this idiom: 忆苦思甜。I thought this was somewhat relevant here, but I'm still having a hard time understanding the joke. How would you render it in English?

Why this joke is not funny? Because it doesn't have any twist and turn. And the so call wordplay is too straight forward to be called wordplay

The man's wife in the countryside is named Yiku (忆苦 - remembering hardship) and the man's other wife in the city is named Sitian (思甜 - think of the sweet (life))

Most people would deduct that a couple named their daughter 忆苦 to remind her the hard life they endured as a family when she was young. And can't help but sympathize with her.

In short, the joke is stating 'country life is tough, city life is sweet'


How correct and how widespread is the usage of writing pinyin "ü" as "yu"? I've come across a problem. I rendered the character 闾 into English as:

  lü

in an article, but I'm being told that the proper writing should be:

  lyu

Now, to me this looks like gobbledygook -or- some Wade–Giles-type / Postal-type romanization. But, the article I was referenced was:

护照名字里的“ü”要写成“yu” 这一新规已施行6年

In which one paragraph reads:

  根据国家质量监督检验检疫总局、国家标准化管理委员会2011年10月31日发布、2012年2月1日起实施的《中国人名汉语拼音字母拼写规则》（国家标准编号：GB/T 28039-2011），并商教育部语言文字信息管理司，在公安机关出入境管理机构签发的出入境证件中，人名汉语拼音L（“吕”等字）、N（“女”等字）中的大写字母用YU代替，分别打印为LYU、NYU；LE（“略”等字）、NE（“虐”等字）两个音节中的大写字母用U代替，分别打印为LUE、NUE。

As far as I understand this though, this is a technical issue and not a linguistic one. For characters like 闾: lü should be absolutely correct where as lyu or lv would just be a technical workaround for passports and airline tickets, etc.

Any as to why lyu would be the correct spelling for an article, is beyond all reason to me.

How correct and how widespread is the usage of writing pinyin "ü" as "yu"?

It's a workaround, and I would recommend that it be treated as such.

The official romanisation of Chinese has an international standard, currently (as of mid-2019) ISO 7098:2015. This does mandate the use of pinyin ü where required.

However, the article refers to a PRC national standard, GB/T 28039-2011, for "acceptable" (not correct) romanisation in international fields (it gives international sports tournaments as an example). Toneless pinyin, how to do double-barrelled surnames, and how to deal with a lack of ü are all covered. For the latter, it specifically states under section 6:

  根据技术处理的特殊需要，必要的场合 (如公民护照、对外文件和书刊等)

This was extended by the website above, but with a rule to transliterate 略 lüè and 虐 nüè not to lyue and nyue respectively, but to as lue and nue (as doing so does not introduce any ambiguity anyway).

Why ü as yu? That's the most sensible option for the sound represented in IPA by /y/, if you exclude all other diacritics:

The "ü" sound in Hanyu Pinyin is the same sound as "yu". 女, with "ü", rhymes with 语, with "yu".
Tongyong Pinyin, official in Taiwan between 2002 and 2008, uses "yu" consistently instead of "ü".
The Jyutping romanisation for Cantonese (which also has the /y/ vowel frequently) uses "yu" consistently too.

In what circumstances would one see this then? Passports and other "inherently international" official ones seem to the main target, where known technical issues exist. I personally would consider this workaround to be less correct than the use of ü (as per international standards), but if you are writing an article with a specific company, they may be using that online source as a sort of "house style".

In the wild, of course, the most common is in practice "v".


What does 旧币 refer to exactly? Entry for 叫当 from 《成都大辞典》

It mentions a pair of pants might be hawked for:

  一千六百元 （旧币）

and a 衫子 might be hawked for

  二千元

The definition does mention 铜钱, but I'm not entirely sure what 旧币 is exactly, especially because 一千 and 二千 is a lot.

I guess it could be money from the 清朝 period, but it could just as easily be money from the 三国 period (they have 当千钱 after all).

What exactly is this 旧币 referring too?

旧币 literally means "old currency"; it is not referring to any currency in particular, and without context it's hard to be sure. I believe the usage of "旧币" is only to tell the reader that, despite using "元", it is not referring to the modern renminbi, which has never had a value so low that old, off-season hawked clothes would cost thousands of it.

The most likely answer IMO is the old, first series RMB. This had a brief history between 1948 and 1955, after which it was revaluated at a rate of 10000 old RMB = 1 new RMB.

Of course there are numerous historical Chinese currencies called "元", and if you keep their value in mind, it could have been during the late civil war's hyperinflation, but since currency valuations were so much in flux during this period, this answer is less likely.

Even less likely are the various pre-Republic yuans, since they were pegged against stable, high-value foreign currencies like the Japanese Yen and Mexican Peso (no sarcasm, these were both stable and high-value in the early 20th century).

By the way, I would pay more attention to the usage of "元" in the prices than the phrase "铜钱". The latter used to be real currency but is probably being used as a synonym of "money", just as "钱" used to be a unit of currency but is now used as the word for "money" today.


The use of "、" in more than three items In the following sentence:

  沙溢、胡可与安吉、小鱼儿一家四口集体亮相，同时《捉妖记2》视效制片人Ellen Poon也透露了电影幕后制作的花絮。

I think the use of "、" should be A、B、C与D. In other words, it should be put between each word except the last one, in which case 与 or 和 (etc...) should be used instead.

However in this sentence, it is in the form of A、B与C、D, so now I wonder what is the correct form, and whether there is any difference on the meaning regarding how you put the "、" to concatenate words.

I guess the reason why it is put in this way, as through a search, you will find that 沙溢、胡可 are the parents and 安吉、小鱼儿 are the children in the family.

As far as I know, the "correct" form is A、B、C与D. But it may not the only acceptable way, especially when you can divide the words into groups. Like in this one, parents and children. The four words are not equivalent now, and "与" is used between groups but not between the words.


Can one use 过 in conjunction with 知道? I am investigating the use of 知道 in the past tense. As "知道了“ does not clearly mean "knew" but could be more closely translated as "now I know!", a change of state from not knowing to knowing.
How would one translate "I knew"? (As in, I did know before, but now no longer do)

Thanks in Advance!

Do take note that some sentence meaning otherwise under special context.

"知道了"  is a good example.

Even 知道 carry out the meaning of "know", but "知道了"  in some conversions mean "okay"(noded).

For example：

Q：“如果经过超市，顺带买瓶酱油”  If you happens to pass the store, buy me a bottle of soyasauce.

A：“知道了！” Okay （or you can reply "好的!"）

In different dialect such as Cantonese, sometimes it uses as "understood" rather than 清楚了， 了解了, 明白了

我知道了, 你是说如果把醋倒进去它就会溶掉。 Now I understood, you mean if you pour in vinegar, it will melt.

Because 过 in Mandarin carry the meaning "over/pass"(instead of before) in certain conditions, so you can't use it. As mentioned by @Alex, you can't "un-learn", "de-notify" something.

In case of "know", to say "I already know that", you can't say, "知道过” ， but "我【已经】知道了”， “我【早】知道了”。

However, you can say "I learn it before but I forget".

这把戏， 我从前【学过】， 不过我忘了。


Understanding/Translating: 空无 What is the best understanding and (English) translation of 空无?
汉语大词典:

佛教语。谓一切事物从因缘生，唯心所造，了无自性
《维摩经菩萨行品》: "观於空无而不舍大悲。"

There are a lot of religious, if you will, concepts in here that I just can't seem to wrap my mind around.
ABC dictionary defines it as unreality in English, but I'm not finding anything to do with unreality + Buddhaism. Which leads me to believe that ABC's definition is more akin to 汉语大词典's second definition:

指虚无之境。

Which we don't need to discuss, here, at all.

Emptiness and Nothingness.

Now lets dissect the definition:

  谓一切事物从因缘生，唯心所造，了无自性

从因缘生 -- 因 is the inner reason, 缘 is the outer reason, the two combined together, meaning the Ultimate Reason, is the cause of everything. Hence 一切事物从因缘生. You might want to think of it as dialectic reasoning, and you can do that.
唯心所造 says that everything is created by the Heart, the thinking device. It's idealism stripped to the bone.
自性 is the quality or essence of existence itself, since everything is caused by Reason and created by Heart, their Essence is null. Simply put, they don't Exist, hence 了无自性.

Even with a worldview like this, Buddhists still hold the Great Compassion, hence 观於空无而不舍大悲。

Then you ask what is Reason, what is Heart, and what is the Essence of Existence. The Buddha picks up a flower and smiles, and suddenly you reach Enlightenment.

Or you don't, in fact it's one of Buddha's disciples that does. I have friends struggling with these for decades, but still haven't reached anything remarkable, and I daresay, it's a complete waste of time.

As for translation, it depends on what you are translating. If you translate Buddhism classic texts, it's better to use Sanskrit words. If you translate a novel, or some random article with Buddhism references, use the capital like I did, or like Roger Zelazny did in his novel Lord of Light. It's a great book by the way.


How do you say "I quickly forgot..." (As in an emotion you were feeling) I'm trying to figure out how I could express that I had a feeling/emotion. and then, after a certain event happend/began I "Quickly forgot" that I had that emotion.
In english we could say "At the beginning of the date I was really hungry, but after talking with her for a couple of minutes I quickly forgot my hunger"
Could I say
"我就快忘了我以前饿的样子。 "

If you forgot your hunger because of work or study, you can say 废寝忘食, which means you work/study too hard to eat/sleep.
PS: You can not say 废寝忘食 for a girl.

for this sentence "At the beginning of the date I was really hungry, but after talking with her for a couple of minutes I quickly forgot my hunger", you can say:
我刚见到她的时候还饿得很，但和她聊了几分钟之后很快就被我抛到脑后了。


Is it possible to write "I'm hungry and tired" (我饿了，我也累了) with a single change-of-state 了? 我饿了，我也累了。

As I understand, both 了s are the change-of-state 了.

I cannot think of a way to write this using only one change-of-state 了, which makes me think it's not possible.  I'm fairly sure "我饿也累了" and "我饿和累了" are both ungrammatical (perhaps a kind of "Englese").

Question: Is it possible to write "I'm hungry and tired" with a single change-of-state 了?

The only thing wrong with "我饿了，我也累了。" is the second 我 is redundant.

"我饿了，也累了。" is perfectly grammatical

You can also use  the [又 X 又 Y + 了] structure

Example: 我已經又累又饿了 (I am hungry and tired already)


Adopting an appropriate Chinese name I'm starting to learn Mandarin and I'd like to adopt a Chinese name. I wonder if 滿熊汗 (Mǎn Xiónghán) would be an appropriate one.

I've read that 滿 is a surname with Manchu ethnic origin, and I know that 熊 is a common surname and I don't know if it would be possible to use it as a part of the given name. Other than that, I don't know if this name sounds weird, strange, childish, eccentric or whatever to a native Chinese speaker.

谢谢!

Good to know you starting learning Mandarin!

However, I do not think the name is good... Actually a lot of foreigner get their name weird.

A common structure of a Chinese name is Family name + Given name.

So, I think "满" is a good one for a family name because it is a existing family name (满文军, for example, a famous singer). Also, it kind of part of your own family name, according to your profile.

Although 熊 is a surname in Chinese, but it means bear the animal more often. It is okay to put animal in name in China, but often 虎 for guys and 燕 for girls. 熊 is definitely out of the range. Also, 熊 as a adjective, means crude, impetuous and naive.  So, don't use it. If you want the pronunciation, I would recommend use "雄" instead of "熊".  "雄" means hero or brave or strong. It is used by 扬雄, an ancient writer.

You do not need put all parts of your family name in your Chinese name.
Basically, it is not possible, considering common Chinese family names are less than 2 characters, most of them are just one character. I think if you think OK, 满 is very good.

汗 is not good, neither. It often means sweat. Although the pronunciation you want to use means king or leader.  The Good character is "汉", which is used by 田汉, the author of the lyric of national anthem of China.

However, it still kind of weird...


Other than ChinaSMACK, do any other glossaries of acronyms used in Chinese, like PK, ZF, GCD, TMD, JC, etc exist? This is the ChinaSMACK glossary. Wondering how outdated it is. Would something more up to date and/or more comprehensive exist, or this is pretty much it?

Edit: Found This from Baidu. Very useful, but not much in the way of explanations.

As someone involved in chinaSMACK, I wouldn't say the glossary is "outdated" since the terms on there were notable enough in our translations of trending Chinese internet content that we decided they should be added.

It is, however, far from comprehensive, precisely because we only tend to add to it as a consequence of the terms we see often while translating. We don't go out of our way to add to it, since it is meant to serve as a reference to supplement our translated content. For example, if a Chinese netizen comment includes the acronym LZ, we can just leave it as "LZ" in our translation and instead link that "LZ" to its entry in the glossary. We feel this allows to keep some of the form and flavor of the original in our translations, rather than just translating it directly to "original poster" (which is what LZ simply means).

I suppose we don't delete stuff that is no longer as commonly seen ("My dad is Li Gang") and thus they might seem "outdated" but because we have content that links to those entries, we leave them in and figure they are still notable for having been popular at a point in time.

If you want another resource that is also in English, check out the Grass Mud Horse Lexicon by China Digital Times:

http://chinadigitaltimes.net/space/Grass-Mud_Horse_Lexicon
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/space/Introduction_to_the_Grass-Mud_Horse_Lexicon

Note: CDT is blocked by the GFW in mainland China.

CDT built this quite awhile after chinaSMACK had its Glossary. It used to use Wiki software (doesn't seem to anymore) and, to be honest, I remember it feeling more comprehensive than it looks now that I'm revisiting it. I can't post more than two links so look for the search by alphabetical order page as well.

If you look through their categorical organization and list of terms, you'll notice a strong emphasis on cataloging terms involving stuff that appears more in circles discussing politics, censorship, and dissidence. This is because of CDT's editorial focus, whereas chinaSMACK tends to focus more on mainstream Chinese internet culture. For example, there doesn't seem to be an entry for 熊孩子 (naughty/unruly kids) though it is currently a common internet slang term both in terms of humor as well as referencing certain social issues involving children.

Hope this helps!

P.S. Sorry if it doesn't help if you're looking specifically for acronyms. Acronyms are often just of the Chinese word in pinyin, and weren't created or used specifically to be acronyms or shorthand but to avoid censorship of certain characters/terms. For example, the use of GCD (共产党) is different in nature than YOLO (You Only Live Once). The latter could be said to be a way of shortening a catchphrase, but the former was designed to avoid filters or searches for the actual Chinese characters.


What's the difference between ...的 and 所...的 I believe that both of these constructions create what is called a "subordinate clause". I know that 的 can be used to specify something like:

我喜欢的东西 (those things which I like),
很远的地方 (the place which is far), and
跟他谈恋爱的人 (the person who he is dating)

Is it true that all these examples also work with 所...的?

Does 所...的 carry a connotation that is not present in ...的?

Are there circumstances where one is preferred to the other?

所...的 and ...的 are different.
Function of ...的
As you have already known, ...的 can construct adjective clause.

(我喜欢)+的+东西
(subject + verb) + 的 + noun = noun + which + subject + verb

And in Chinese, the noun can be omitted in a clear context. In this case, ……的 constructs a noun clause.

我喜欢的（人）是你。 Who I like is you.
(subject + verb) + 的 = what/who + subject + verb

Function of 所...的
Though it's not so obvious, the function of 所 in 所...的 is

5.　用在动词前，与前面的“为”或“被”字相应，表示被动的意思
所 is put before a verb, corresponding to the previous 为 or 被, indicating passive voice. (And 为/被 is often omitted.)

Unfortunately, many chinese verbs are either transitive or intransitive, so the sentences containing ...的 or 所...的 often look alike.

我爱的人 the person who I love
(被)我所爱的人 [literal translation] the person who is loved by me
我讨厌的是你。 Who I hate is you.
我所讨厌的是你。 [literal translation] (The person) who is hated by me is you.

Difference between them
Thus, the difference between the two structures is whether it is passive voice or not. In most cases, one can be reconstructed to another.

Q: So, which one should I use in the xxx case?
A: It depends on personal choice. Just as you didn't said which one should be used (by me) in the xxx case?

EDIT: Some irreplaceable examples
There is preference in some situations. Some idioms can only be expressed in a unique voice (active or passive). Though this meaning of 所 4. 用在动词前，代表接受动作的事物 is listed as a single entry, in the grammar structure, it's actually the passive voice. So I include it in the passive-only case.
Active-Only Examples

(Right) 天杀 的 政府 the goddamn government = [literal translation] the government which god should kill
(Wrong) 天 所 杀 的 政府
(Right) 狗日 的 政府 the fxxking government = [literal translation] the government which dogs should fxxk
(Wrong) 狗 所 日 的 政府

Passive-Only Example

(Right) 你 所 谓 的 正义 your so-called justice = [literal translation] the justice which is called (only) by you
(Wrong) 你谓 的 正义

谓 is a special verb, so in the example above (well, I don't mean everywhere), it can only be in the passive voice. However, a character with the same meaning, 说, can be in either active or passive voice.

Both 你说的正义 and 你所说的正义 are OK.

Anyway, idioms always need to be memorized mechanically. It's difficult to find an easy rule for them.


How do 营业, 经商, 贸易, and 业务 fit into the context of other 业-related words? So, I am reviewing the following words, which are either 业-related or business related. Some I have got sorted, while the ones at the bottom (see ***) are a bit confusing.

So,
产业 means industry (n.), industrial (adj.) / 产业化 (industrialisation), 产业工人 (industrial workers) / property (n.) (那些工厂都是我的产业)

Within this, there are different types of industry:

行业 service industry (catering, hotel, tourist)

工业 manufacturing industry

商业 commercial industry

农业 agricultural industry

And these industries all contain 企业, i.e. (private) companies.

All the workers have a 职业 (profession) and some of them have 专业 (a specialisation), until they are made 失业 (unemployed)

Other 业 words include:
作业 homework,
业余 in one’s spare time, outside working hours, amateur (只有业余运动员能参加奥运会)

***So this is where I get confused. The following words all seem to mean 'to do business': 营业， 经商， 贸易， 业务. How do these words fit into the context of the vocabulary listed above?

營業 means your business unit do provide service to others. There is time you need to stop provide service. For example, you pause your service for a while strategically, your employee need holiday, you need time to prepare things before start the service. On the time you provide your service, I can say 營業中. 這家餐廳有在營業(This restaurant provide service), 這家餐廳打烊了(This restaurant have closed). The examples provided above show this different meaning.  So you can know 營業 is totally different from 打烊.

經商 means do trading. If I use tradition Chinese to explain it, I will say 從事商業.

貿易 means trading across different country.

業務 means things you need to do in work. Don't confused with 業務員. It means someone who try to sale things to other.


Proper way to address a waiter or waitress From what I have learned, one should address a waiter or waitress as 先生 or 小姐. However, I have also seen the case (I believe it was in a drama) of addressing them as the general term 服務生 or 服務員. As far as I know, calling a waiter or waitress literally by waiter or waitress in the States is not so common and not preferred by some people. Is this the same for Chinese?

Also, what is the proper way to get the attention of a waiter or waitress when, say, the restaurant is too noisy or the waiter/waitress is too far away?

Thank you!

From what I have learned, the most proper and respectful is to use 服务员. There are many people that find 小姐 not appropriate or too traditional, I met several people who feel that 小姐 has some sexist note. The same goes for 美女 that many people use but not everyone feels comfortable to hear. 帅哥 for male 服务员 is less a problem as long as they are at the same age or younger and people definitely get served more quickly if they use this expression. After all you wouldn't use 美女 on somebody that is obviously older than you. Not to forget about the term 阿姨 that is a term of respect for a woman that is older than you, though not common in a restaurant, but you sure can use it in a small street noodle store (along with 叔叔 for male) where it can get more personal. I myself also often just use 你好 to address a service person.


What is the difference between 楼 and 塔？ My question is as the title. To make my question clear, the 楼 in the context is not referring to the floors of a building, such as 我住6楼。It is referring to those such as 岳阳楼, 黄鹤楼.

After searching online, I think 塔 is a kind of 楼 when it is built inside a Buddhist temple. But I don't know whether my understanding is correct or not.

In many Chinese people's minds, 塔 are buildings with triangle shape, and 楼 are more flat, which is usually true.

While, if you are into the formal differences in terms of architecture. The difference between 塔 and 楼 is that 塔 has Sōrin (which is the vertical shaft which tops a Japanese pagoda, whether made of stone or wood) while 楼 does not. Certain 楼 may have a triangle shape but does not have Sōrin is called 楼, such as 黄鹤楼. And any architecture with Sōrin is called 塔，even it has only one floor, such as 山东历城神通寺四门塔。

Please note that this definition may only suit traditional Chinese architectures, and may not necessary fit our naming for modern architecture such as (Eiffel Tower).


How does a foreigner's handwriting look to a native? How do Chinese characters foreigners or beginner Chinese learners write appear to natives?  Is there a difference?  Does it depend on how long they have been learning, or are they all different from a native Chinese's handwriting?  Would the handwriting even strike a native as a foreigner's penning at all?  And how about a beginner's handwriting?
Alright, those are all my questions.

It does require a lot of effort. Some Chinese/Taiwanese natives might write worse than non-natives. It all depends on how much time and effort you'd like to put in. First, find the writing you like, and just copy it as many times as it takes for you to write the same thing. It's the same as practice calligraphy really.
As Taiwanese native, we write traditional characters. And I seriously cannot remember how many times I wrote the characters while learning... A LOT for sure XD
Good luck!


What's the state of Chinese classical texts in the mainland after Simplified Chinese (and the Cultural Revolution)? In the past I've came across a few websites that distribute Buddhist texts in simplified Chinese, which is somewhat unsurprising since there's active interest in Buddhism to propagate once again in China. I'm not aware of a full canon in simplified Chinese, but I know there are many texts already converted so simplified.

But what about other formative texts in Chinese culture, such as Daoist and Confucianist? Or even Buddhist canons, since I'm not aware of one that was completely converted to simplified Chinese.

What kind of projects are there to preserve these texts in the modern script? Published books, websites..? Either by the government or private companies.

Are classic texts still teached in schools the same way they were before the introduction of today's simplified characters and the cultural revolution? Do they use traditional characters at all? How does one go about studying the classics nowadays?

Thanks!

I would like to answer your questions one by one at first, but I decide to give you a comprehensive answer here. I'll take Buddhism for example. Daoism and Confucianism (NOT a religion) are similar.
Buddhism are still publishing books in Traditional Chinese (TC). In fact, you can find both Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese (SC) versions of books existing in China. It is a widespread opinion that reading books in TC will be more beneficial than Simplified Chinese (SC), since TC is the script used back to the foundation of the two religions. Similarly, if someone believes Tibetan Buddhism, many lamas will require him to chant in Tibetan language. Such phenomenon is still common.
However, most experienced and renowned religious leaders (such as Master Jingkong and Dzongsar Rinpoche) are against such unnecessary restriction. Their opinions are: Since most Chinese now are taught SC, and religions should benefit as many people as possible, it's best to publish books and scriptures in SC, the most popular script in China. It should also be allowed to chant in Chinese language instead of Tibetan or Sanskrit, as it will make no difference except that Chinese people will find chanting much easier.
Traditional Chinese script is not taught in today's schools and universities in China, except for Chinese language major. However, it's not a big problem for the majority of Chinese to read TC due to the influence of Taiwan and Hong Kong(but most of them can't write it). For classical Chinese texts, they are still taught from primary school through high school, but they are all written in SC.
For Buddhism classics in Simplified Chinese, please visit:
http://www.fodian.net/index1.htm
This website cooperates with CBETA in Taiwan, which publishes corrected version of Buddhism classics.
You can leave a comment below if you have any remaining questions. Don't forget to give me an upvote or accept this answer if you find it useful.


What's the correct classifier for `房子`? In my little bit of Mandarin experience, I have got that the classifier for 房子 is 座, and also felt that 座 is usually used to refer to a building. However, I have just read that someone here over Chinese Language Stack Exchange says the classifier is 栋, and so I wonder which should be used to refer to 房子.

Later I found that the classifier for 房子 may include more; in this online dictionary, it shows 栋, 座, 套, and 幢. So I wonder how I can decide which to use and also like to know why.

Also, even if the proper classifier for 房子 is 栋, could I still use 座 in that context? Or do they give two totally different meanings?

All of them are OK to use to classify 房子, it depends on the type of house itself, which one is considered the more adequate.

幢 is preferred when speaking of large and tall buildings
栋 tends to be used to refer to buildings that are wide
座 is used for buildings that are “stable and steady", e.g. palace, temple, large mansions (mostly with public purpose)

Source: Chinese University of Hong Kong

As for 套 I have no reference, I suppose it has its own specific set of buildings it can classify.


What is the appropriate translation for 'energy'? There are many times when I want to tell someone that I don't have enough energy to do something. These are close but not exactly what I want:

我太累。 I'm not too tired, I just don't have as much energy as I used to do what I want to do (like play basketball for 8 hours straight).

我的能力不够。Here, it's not that I don't have the ability to… I can do that, I just don't have the energy to do that (like play basketball for 8 hours straight).

Other contexts where I would like to use this phrase:

"I have other responsibilities, so I don't have the time or energy
to sit beside you and manage you."
"The players aren't lazy, they
just don't have enough energy to keep up with the other team."

The translation of energy to Chinese is really a tricky one, or very "context sensitive". I will try to give example one by one.

体力 Body(Physical) Power

  我太累。 I'm not too tired, I just don't have as much energy as I used to do what I want to do (like play basketball for 8 hours straight).

[繁] 我太累, 體力不夠了,不復當年啊。
[简] 我太累, 体力不够了,不复当年啊。

Enerygy ->  体力   body(physical) strength / body energy
            不够了 no enough / run out

            不復   not as (good as)
            當年   years ago / in the past

So 我的能力不够 should be 我的体力不够.

The following example fall in the same usage

  The players aren't lazy, they just don't have enough energy to keep up with the other team.

精神 Will Power / Brain Power

  I have other responsibilities, so I don't have the time or energy to sit beside you and manage you.

  [繁] 我有其他事情要處理, 沒有那麼多時間精神跟在你後面管著你。

  [简] 我有其他事情要处理, 没有那麼多时间精神跟在你后面管着你。

事情要处理  things that have to be taken care of / responsibilities (责任)
精神       energy / will power (mental state related)

PS

体力 is always referring to physical/body strength/state. As 体 mean body.

精神 can be referring to mental state only or both.

[繁] 他今天精神很好
He look good today.
He is in good shape today.

精力 can refer to both physical or mental state, or both at the same time. Mostly interchangeable with the above two.

  [简] 我太累, 体力 不够了,不复当年啊。

  [简] 我太累, 精力 不够了,不复当年啊。

  [简] 没有那麼多时间 精神 跟在你后面管着你

  [简] 没有那麼多时间 精力 跟在你后面管着你


What are these characters? (Characters identified: 牧者所愛) I'm very rusty, and can't figure out the last character. Am I correct that the first 3 are 牧者所? Thank you so, so much!

The first three characters are indeed 「牧者所」, with 「牧」 written with a corrupted 「攵」 which appears as 「文」. The last character is a reshuffled 「」, which in the current script is written as 「愛」.

戰國・晉金壺集成9734戰國・楚簡六德・17郭店楚簡隸定
「愛」 (Baxter-Sagart OC: /*[q]ˤə[p]-s/, [benevolent] love) was originally written as 「㤅」, comprised of semantic 「心」 (heart) and phonetic 「旡」 (/*[k]ə[t]-s/).
秦簡54.51睡虎地秦簡篆夊部說文解字隸定
「夊」 was added later for no particular functionality. This was perhaps stylistic, and happened in several characters right below a component with the shape of a person. For reference, 「旡」 depicts a kneeling person with an open mouth.
西漢隸老子甲115馬王堆帛書東漢隸郙閣頌　西晉隸徐美人墓志　楷
「旡」 was later corrupted into 「⿱爫冖」, forming 「愛」. Sometimes, 「心」 and 「夊」 were also shuffled around; if 「心」 is moved to the bottom left, it is written as 「忄」.

The character in question,

retains the non-corrupted 「旡」

and shuffles 「心」 to the bottom left.

References:

小學堂

字形演變
異體字表

漢語多功能字庫
中國社會科學院考古研究所《殷周金文集成》