News video/audio with transcripts (or consistent subtitles) I sometimes watch the news on the CCTV LIVE youtube channel to improve my listening comprehension. Sometimes they provide subtitles in Chinese, and sometimes they don't. This is fine if I'm just trying to get the gist of the stories, but I know from experience that I improve a lot faster when I can go back over difficult parts in detail (e.g., with a dictionary). This is hard to do if there aren't subtitles or transcripts available.

Is there any place to watch or listen to the news in Chinese that either provides transcripts or always subtitles everything (in Chinese)? If not the news, something analytical and non-fictional?

I recommend you watch CCTV-4 (Chinese international). Many of its programs are subtitled in BOTH Chinese and English. Plus, its translation is professional and accurate.
However, these programs are mostly documentaries and shows. I've not found any news program with English subtitle in China.
EDIT: There is a Simplified Chinese subtitled news program on J5, a Hong Kong TV channel, called Putonghua Xinwen Baodao (Standard Mandarin News).


What is the difference between「唐人」and「漢人」in Cantonese? I have noticed that people speaking Cantonese use the term「唐人」. I am unsure about the definition of「唐人」in Cantonese. Does「唐人」in Cantonese mean exactly the same thing as「漢人」, or are there subtle differences?

From my knowledge,「漢人」refers to people of the Han ethnic group. Do Cantonese people use this term too?

漢人 only refers to people of the Han ethnic group

It is correct、漢民族 is the major ethnic group in China, but 漢人 do not equal 中國人

唐 and  漢 are both great dynasty in Chinese history

Cantonese speakers prefer 唐 over 漢 as the representative word for "Chinese" . We have terms like 唐人，唐餐，唐裝，唐話，唐字 in Cantonese
Mandarin speakers prefer 漢 over 唐 as the representative word for "Chinese" . We have terms like 漢文，漢字，漢語，漢化 in Mandarin

  Does「唐人」in Cantonese mean exactly the same thing as「漢人」

No, 「唐人」in Cantonese mean exactly 「華人」 or 「中國人」

Both Cantonese and Mandarin speakers use「華人」 or 「中國人」for "Chinese people"

It is believed that 華夏 period culture was the beginning of Chinese culture

華夏最初是指史前黃河流域中下游一带分佈的若干部落或政治共同體，这些部落被后世视为漢文化及中华文明的起源之一

《左傳》“裔不謀夏，夷不亂華”一語，華、夏同義反復，華即是夏 (夏即是華)


What is the difference between 一只狗 and 一条狗? I've been told by native speakers that the former refers to little dogs while the latter is for bigger dogs. I also have been told that the latter has a negative connotation. I'm wondering:

how negative is the meaning of 一条狗?
is one used by speakers of a certain age or from a certain region?

There's no negative connotation, at all.

条 and 只 are used interchangeably in today's Chinese, not just specific to a region. Long ago, 头（頭）were used as a quantifier for dogs or other farm animals. I suspect "head" was dropped because dogs do not have stocky builds as other animals(pigs, donkeys, bulls etc). Also "头" tends to associate "dumb animals" and dogs are perceived as intelligent.

条 in most cases is used to quantify something that's slender, e.g. 一条路(road)， 一条河(river)，一条虫(worm).

I say 一只狗 because it seems to make more sense considering others animals of simliar size and stature also use 只. e.g. 一只猫，一只狐狸 etc. But this is just a personal preference.


Translation: Human Penis (Traditional Chinese Medicine) According to Wikipedia's List Of Traditional Chinese Medicines:

Human penis
According to Li Shizhen:

the human penis is not a drug
—[8]

Human penis is believed under TCM to stop bleeding, and as with other TCM medicines, the basis for belief in its therapeutic effects is anecdotal and not based on the scientific method; Li Shizhen, author of the greatest pharmacological work in pre-modern China, the Bencao Gangmu materia medica, objected to use of human penis, but cited the anecdotal evidence and included it in the Bencao Gangmu, which is still a standard reference today.[8][26]

Apparently human penis is listed in the Bencao Gangmu, what is the original text?

人势
From an online excerpt:

（《纲目》）
【释名】阴茎。时珍曰︰人阴茎，非药物也。陶九成《辍耕录》载︰杭州沈生犯奸事露，引刀自割其势，流血经月不合。或令寻所割势，捣粉酒服，不数日而愈。观此则下蚕室者，不可不知此法也。故附于此云。
【主治】下蚕室，创口不合（时珍）。


In 毕业之后最开始在一家房地产公司做销售员，底薪一千八, why does 最开始 translate to "went to work"? In this sentence:

  毕业之后最开始在一家房地产公司做销售员，底薪一千八。

The translator apparently translated "最开始" as went to work.  Here is the translation:

  after I graduated I first went to work as sales staff at a real estate agency with a salary of 1,800

Why does 最开始 translate to "went to work"?

I am confused because I can't find any thing that relates 最开始 with finding a job.  I think "最开始" means initially or at first. But then, where is the character for "to work" in 在一家房地产公司做销售员?

毕业之后最开始在一家房地产公司做销售员,底薪一千八
after I graduated I first went to work as sales staff at a real estate agency with a salary of 1,800

[在一家房地产公司] {做销售员} -> (went to) {work as sales staff} [at a real estate agency].


What does 與 mean in 對我來說她的存在是與現實之間的邊界綫? I was curious about this sentence:

  對我來說她的存在是與現實之間的邊界綫

I don't quite understand the meaning of 與

The dictionary I use gives the following definitions:

  與  yú variant of 歟|欤
  與  yǔ and; to give; together with
  與  yù to take part in

I think it is using the fourth tone, meaning "to take part in"

My interpretation of the sentence is:

  As for me, her existence 'takes part' between the borderline of
  reality (and non reality)

Unfortunately this sounds a bit weird and I'm worrying that it's completely wrong.

If anyone could shed some light on the issue I would be very grateful

對我來說 - to me,
她的存在 - her existence
是 - is
???? (object A - missing )
與 - and
現實 reality (object B)
之間的 - that between
邊界綫 - the borderline

[1. 對我來說] [2. 她的存在] [3. 是] [4. X] [5. 與] [6.現實][7. 之間的] [8. 邊界綫]
[1. to me] [2. her existence] [3. is] [4. X][5.and] [6. reality][7. between] [8. the borderline] (Chinese grammar)
[1. to me] [2. her existence] [3. is] [8.the borderline] [7. between] [4. X] [5. and] [6. reality]  (English grammar)

X could be something opposite of reality , e.g. "dream", "fantasy"
"Her existence is the borderline between dream and reality"
X could also be 'I' meaning if she didn't exist, I would have to face reality


Is it permissible to use 个 in any nouns as a measure word? In the book titled "Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar: A Practical Guide", the author writes the following:

In mainland China, in informal speech, 个 can be used as the classifier for almost any noun, even those with an established classifier. This phenomenon is sometimes referred to as 个化 "ge-ization.".

It also shows some examples:

一个车 (not 一辆车)
一个房子 (not 一所房子)

Now I wonder if it is permissible to use 个 in any nouns. What kind of impressions do you get if people use 个 in any nouns? Is it considered rude or looks childish? In what kind of "informal" situations is it OK to use 个 in any nouns?

I would say somehow it's true in informal circumstances.

But I don't quite agree with the definition of 个化 above in which 个 as a classifier is going with nouns. When you say 一个车 or 一个房子 alone, it definitely sounds odd and ignorant.

My take to this, instead, is 个 goes with a verb, being the form of "verb+个". Then it becomes the casual way to express the action of verbs.
For example, 我去提个车， 我去打个水， 我去玩个电脑, 我去乘个车，我打个游戏， 我推个车， 我骑个马 ....... Those sentences sound definitely natural to a native ear. If you say 我去提一辆车，我去打一盆水......, it sounds more formal than the sentences above.

Almost everything can express like that. Again, the point is that it has to go with a verb, instead standing alone. 一个车，一个水，一个电脑，一个马，those terms alone sounds ignorant. 一个游戏 sounds ok because 个/款 are right classifiers for it.

I suggest you carefully use this rule in informal situations before you get the hang of it.


That mystical 就 again Here is a sentence:

  厨房壁炉架上的那面镜子就把哈利吓了一跳

Below are my translation variants. Bold letters should be a 'jiu' english analog here.

The mirror on top of the kitchen's fireplace scared Harry the most.
Even a (simple) mirror on top of the kitchen's fireplace was enought to scare Harry.
The mirror on top of the kitchen's fireplace scared the hell otta Harry.

What does it mean with 就 and what about without it? I know it should emphasis something, but my russian brain just can't get hold of it.

One more example of the same construction:

Context (paragraph before target):

  他父母留给他的一点可怜的财产，存在古灵阁的地下金库里。当然，他的钱只能在魔法世界里使用，你不能在麻瓜的商店里用加隆、西可和纳特买东西。哈利从没向德思礼一家提起他在古灵阁的存款，他认为他们虽然惧怕与魔法有关的一切，但这种恐惧大概不会扩展到一大堆金币上面。

THE GAP HERE!!! I mean J.K. started the target sentence from a NEW LINE!!!

  到了下星期三，韦斯莱夫人一大早就把他们叫醒了。他们每人匆匆吃了五六块咸肉三明治，然后穿好外套。韦斯莱夫人从厨房壁炉架上端起一只花盆，朝里面看着

so you see... it's given (in the book) WITHOUT any context as far as I understand the word context :)!!!

Relating to your first sentence: 韦斯莱家却充满了神奇和意外。厨房壁炉架上的那面镜子就把哈利吓了一跳。

This 就 is the 12th meaning of 就 as an adverb in 《现代汉语词典》:

  表示事实正是如此：那就是他的家 ㄧ这人就是他哥哥ㄧ幼儿园就在这个胡同里。

It's meaning  12e in 《现代汉语规范词典》

  表示事实如此。 这儿就是我的家 | 车站就前面。

It expresses that the facts or the situation are really like this.
It can be seen as an illustration of or a proof for the previous sentence.

Relating to your second sentence: 到了下星期三，韦斯莱夫人一大早就把他们叫醒了

This pattern of 就 is explained here: https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/1906/540
I'm not going to copy the answer I gave there :-)


poems/phrases/quotes/stories/allegories about “good news” Looking for any poems/phrases/quotes/stories/allegories about “good news.”

The only things I can think of at the moment are: 报喜不报忧 and maybe 好事不出门，坏事传千里.


Is it allowable in Mainland China to use Traditional Characters? I study Mandarin as I enjoy the language and especially characters themselves and I've considered pursuing a future in China but I'm really a steadfast supporter of Traditional Characters. While I don't mind reading in Simplified and having to deal with them as it's fun to see how the PRC commission handled simplifying characters, I much prefer to write in Traditional and use them. I have heard stories of people using Traditional characters in Mainland China just because they prefer it an no one cared. Is this true? I know most Mainland Chinese can read them fine and haven't much difficulty with them. But would I get weird looks or come off as odd/eccentric for using them in daily life such as to text a friend, colleague, etc. or write a document for someone?

some tidbits as i known, or heard:

calligraphy must be in traditional chinese, no matter in which scripts (cursive, regular, or seal)

so, signboards, billboards could be in traditional chinese, such as:

it used “報”, instead of “报”; anyway, it’s mr mao’s handwriting  no one dares to change it

classical / literary text should not be changed into simplified chinese, any reprint of “old books” (古籍) must be in traditional chinese.

there was an incident, quoted in the book “毛澤東晚年過眼詩文錄”: that in 1973, during cultural revolution, books complied for mr mao’s reading were printed in traditional chinese

another “incident” is, from 2003 to 2018, the book “全宋筆記”, 102 volumes, are also printed in traditional chinese.
back to your question:

people using Traditional characters in Mainland China just because they prefer it an no one cared. Is this true?

yes, most of the time, no one cares.

would I get weird looks or come off as odd/eccentric for using them in daily life such as to text a friend, colleague, etc. or write a document for someone

most likely, just tell them that you were/are learning chinese language in traditional script
edited.

niche, or revelation

the logo of the some universities in mainland china:

these are in traditional chinese, so, the interpretation of such phenomenon would be . . .
replying to a “disinformation” comment:

The company seal or personal name seal must go with simplified Chinese in mainland cn

even the national seal (國璽) of mainland china is in traditional chinese:

it’s “華”, not “华”; “國”, not “国”
it’s mentioned in another thread: Why are traditional and simplified different in such small manner?
the “Law of the People's Republic of China on the Standard Spoken and Written Chinese Language” (中华人民共和国国家通用语言文字法)

第十七条　本章有关规定中，有下列情形的，可以保留或使用繁体字、异体字：

　　(一)文物古迹；

　　(二)姓氏中的异体字；

　　(三)书法、篆刻等艺术作品； (art works, such as calligraphy and seal carving)

　　(四)题词和招牌的手书字；

　　(五)出版、教学、研究中需要使用的；

　　(六)经国务院有关部门批准的特殊情况。

seal must be in traditional chinese


Are there any dictionaries that show the relative frequency of 多音字? Some characters have multiple pronunciations (多音字), but often some pronunciations are much more common. For example, 吗 is almost always used as a question particle pronounced ma, but occasionally it is pronounced mǎ (as in 吗啡 [morphine]) or má (in the phrase 干吗).

Most dictionaries will show the different pronunciations and their corresponding definitions, but there is no way to tell which ones are the most frequent. Are there any sources that show the relative frequency of 多音字?

As far as I know, there is one dictionary for this: 《现代汉语频率词典》，1986，北京语言学院出版社.

However, this dictionary is a little old and difficult to find. What's more, some of the readings are outdated, because 《普通话异读词审音表》 was published after the dictionary gathered the data.

The Unihan database contains the kHanyuPinlu field which is from 《现代汉语频率词典》. For example:

和:

kHanyuPinlu     hé(9513) huo(38) he(24) hè(9)

乐

kHanyuPinlu     lè(283) yuè(54)


Is it ok to say “发达的教育”或者“先进的教育”？ 可以说“发达的教育”或者“先进的教育吗？

比如：......的教育是民族兴旺的标记。

What word would be appropriate to use in the above sentence?


Is "一些队员一样太好" correct? 一些队员一样太好。

Is this above sentence correct? My question is related to the existence of 太, which seems odd.
If it's wrong, how would I say "Some players are equally very good"?

一些队员同样很好.

Some players are equally very good.

If you want to use  一样, then 一些队员也是一样很好的.

太 can not be used in comparing context, it is like the superlative, no others are good like them.

So you can say 一些队员太好了,  without a comparing adverb, like 一样, 同样, etc...


Interpretation of Embedded Questions as Relative Clauses When an embedded question is used as a relative clause, does the embedded question still have an interrogative function, or does it become purely descriptive?

E.g.,

你看了大卫给谁的书。

Is this:

You read the book that David gave someone.

OR

You read the book that David gave someone, and who did he give it to?

If it's the former, is this phenomenon completely general, wherein embedding a question makes the WH word interpretable as an indefinite pronoun?

Actually, the sentence itself is stilted and ambiguous in meaning.

你看了大卫给谁的书。

The way to express your first idea(You read the book that David gave someone):

你看了David给别人的书。

And the second one (You read the book that David gave someone, and who did he give it to?):

你看的那本书David给谁了？or 你看过的那本书David给谁了？

Both implies that you have read the book; you are questioning who David have given that book to.


Temperature around 0°C How to say that the lowest temperature will be around 0°C (e.g. -1°C ~ 1°C)?

My attempt is:

  最低气温会成0°C左右。

As fefe has mentioned, you could use “在”…左右 /上下/ 附近 to describe a range near some position, somewhat like describing locations.

  最低氣溫在 0 度左右；
  蛋白質凝固的溫度在 65 度上下。

It is not needed for exact values.

  現在室溫 7 度；
  冷凍室的溫度是 -20 度。

For estimated values, you may also use 約 (about) to indicate uncertainty.

  最低溫約為零度。

It is worth noting that Celsius is omitted in all examples above, since Celsius is usually the only tempreture scale employed. Other scales, such as Fahrenheit and Kelvin, only exist in special contexts like academic research. You may use …°C (pronounced “度 C”) or 攝氏…度 if explicitness is needed.

Here is an example video for daily usages. In this weather forecast (YouTube video) of Next TV, Taiwan, the reporter uses

  白天最高溫降到只有 24 度左右。

to express the tempreture lowers to tempretures near 24°C.

Sidenote:
Please note that she also uses

  最低溫下探 17 度。

to indicate the lowest temperature would touch a lower bound of 17°C. This is mainly used in Taiwan for weather and stock reports. It is not used in China and usually would be interpreted as lower by 17 degrees rather than lower to 17°C.


好久不见＋了＝OK or wrong? What does the "le" add? "Long time no see" is 好久不见 in Mandarin. I would be inclined towards adding a 了 at the end. Would that be all right? And in that case, what does the 了 add?

Technically speaking, 好久不见 and 好久不见了 are both acceptable; 了 completes the implicit meaning of "no see" as "have not seen" but can be omitted.

IMHO, the two are more or less interchangeable and it is merely a personal preference of which to use (I prefer the later as well). Nevertheless, from my experience, people usually use the former in relatively formal context. As to myself, I use 了 as a modal particle in this context, as in "Sigh/Wow/Damn, it's been long". I feel that it somehow extends or emphasizes the feeling at the moment.

On a side note, "long time no see" is commonly believed as originated from Chinese-speaking communities in the States, i.e. it is seen as Chinglish (Please forgive my language).


Structure and Interpretation of 走得到吗？ In a dialogue of a certain Chinese text, after being told the location of the nearest post office, a lost international student asks,

"走得到吗？”

While I've found the meaning online to be something along the lines of "Is it within walking distance?", I'm struggling to parse how the sentence corresponds to that meaning.

Observing,

1) 到 doesn't take the complement particle 得，as far as I'm aware.

2) 得到 most directly means "to obtain", and it doesn't seem like one could "go to obtain (a post office).

I'm not quite sure how to parse the words of this utterance onto their meanings in context.

This is A New China, an Intermediate Reader of Modern Chinese, chapter 4, for reference.

Thanks!

'走'(to walk) is the verb

'到'(arrive/ to) in '走到'(to walk to) is the resultative verb particle

Resultative verb particle completes the verb action. in this case- you walk to/ you walk and arrive.

'得'(able to) in '走得到' is the potential particle

There are only two potential particles. They are 得(can) and 不(cannot). You are either potentially can or cannot walk there.

'吗' in '走得到吗？' is the final interrogative particle (indicates the phrase is a question)

  "走得到吗？" means "can (I) walk to (that place)?"


Did 劵 and 券 become variants in PRC/simplified in 1995? The topic of 劵 vs 券 came up a couple of months ago and I did some Internet research at the time.

I turned up a document about an orthographic reform in China in 1995 which included, among many other tweaks, that these two are now considered variants of the same character in simplified Chinese.

More specifically, both characters were already in use with different meanings but 券 was to acquire the meanings of 劵 since 劵 was going to be simplified by merging into 券, thus leaving 劵 as obsolete in simplified writing though they obviously must remain separate in traditional writing and also in simplified writing up to 1995.

But now the topic has arisen again and I can't seem to find the discussions that lead me to the official document last time.

So I would like to ask the experts here how much of this I have right, if I have anything wrong, and can we find the official document detailing this change?

No. It became a variant way earlier than that. There may well have been a document to that effect in 1995, but it would not have been anything new.

It is well established that 劵 and 券 were two different seal scripts characters, as @HenryHO points out. However, according to Qing Dynasty linguist Tuan Yu-tsai's annotated version of Shuo-wen Chieh-Tzu:

  【清·段玉裁·說文解字注】鄭云：『劵今倦字也。』據此則 漢時已倦行劵廢 矣。今皆作倦，蓋由與契券從刀相似而避之也。

So 劵 was the initial clerical script adoption of the original seal script character. According to Tuan, the visual similarity to 券 caused the character to be rewritten as 倦 as early as by the Han Dynasty.

It seems then the original 劵 character was then subsumed into the character 券 as a variant clerical script form, either intentionally or by mistake due to their visual similarity. This is supported by the Song Dynasty dictionary Collected Rimes, edited by Ding Du:

  【宋·集韻·去聲·願韻】契也。劵別書之 書以刀判契其旁，故曰契劵。

Which explicitly named them as variants in an official government dictionary, almost 980 years ago.

Therefore, 劵 has been a variant of 券 for over a thousand years.

Addendum:

A possible earlier reference might be in the Southern Liang Dynasty dictionary Jade Chapters (玉篇) (Note: NOT the Song Dynasty 大廣益會玉篇) by the scholar Ku Yeh-wang.

  【梁·顧野王·玉篇】契書。

This has been cited by the Taiwanese Ministry of Education as the first attested use of 劵 as a variant for 券. If true, the use of them as variants would have been as early as a couple of centuries after the Han Dynasty.


What does this painting's signature say? (Characters identified: 姜旗) See picture below.  It also has the letters J . Q

I tend to think it is 姜琪（JIANG QI）. Though 王 is odd, 其 is quite obvious.

Edit:

@Sylvia is right: It's 姜旗, though the stroke order of 方 is incorrect.


What is the meaning of 串串儿？ The only translation I can find has to do with strings...?

I heard this phrase when someone was speaking about 四川菜, is this related to 火锅？ Is this phrase a joke of sorts about the Sichuan dialect ?

Haha, Thank you for your answer(s) : )

Read 串 then 串儿, a bit like 麻辣烫 on sticks!


Female Equivalent: 膀爷 It's summer time guys the 膀爷s are out on full parade! Although I haven't seen that many females as exhibitionist as the males - there's still a fair share of ladies showing off their midriffs.

What's the female equivalent of a 膀爷?

膀娘?

膀婆?

Not sure there is one.

膀爷 itself is more common used in the north. A quick search from google, neither 膀娘 nor 膀婆 reach more than a few thousand results, so that may be considered as an evidence that both terms are not widely used. After all, we can find 膀爷 (topless man) in many cities, but I don't think we can find many topless women in any civilized place.


How to translate "If everything goes as planned..." For example

If everything goes as planned, we should have a successful journey.
I hope everything goes as planned tonight.

Specifically, I'm wondering if there's an idiom for this. If not, what's a more eloquent way of saying this?

What's usually used colloquially?

If everything goes as planned.
 如果一切按计划进行.

In daily conversation, we use "如果一切顺利" more often.

(假若 is more often used in written language and is quite formal.)


What are the characters in this seal? (Characters identified: 白云長滿目) Does this phrase comes from a poetic or philosophical text?

Many thanks for your translation and your comments on this deal.
Actually I had not too much problems with the 云 yún character because I have 2 others seals with this kind of symbolic script.
My problem was with the 滿 mǎn character I was unable to recognize.

The characters are 白云長滿目, which roughly translates to

The vast expanse of white clouds, filling one's sight,

coming from the poem 《送廬山人歸林慮山》 by the Táng Dynasty poet Huángfǔ Rǎn.
「云」 is particularly difficult to identify, and is worthy of some additional explanation.

商甲乙12合集21021商甲前6.43.4合集17072春秋金姑發劍集成11718戰國・楚簡緇衣・35郭店楚簡說文古文雲部說文解字楷
「云」 (Baxter-Sagart OC: /*[ɢ]ʷə[r]/, clouds) is comprised of semantic 「」 (up/above, now written 「上」) and phonetic
商甲京津4726合集21324
(/*[ɢ](r)ə[r]ʔ/). This character is 「旬」 before the addition of a 「日」 component.
Occasionally, the 「」 part of 「云」 may be partially or fully omitted, and the remainder may be rotated or distorted in some way. This forms the inspiration behind
說文古文雲部說文解字
which is the shape in the seal.

References:

季旭昇《說文新證》
小學堂字形演變
國學大師

郭沫若《甲骨文合集》
中國社會科學院考古研究所《殷周金文集成》

宋・徐鉉等奉敕校定　漢・許慎《說文解字》


How to say "unsurprisingly" as in "Someone unsurprisingly did something" I'm trying to figure out how to say unsurprisingly; I know that  果然 generally implies that you expect that something is going to happen, but in some contexts I'm not entirely sure if it is most appropriate. For example, if  I asked a friend if I could go with him and his family to dinner, I would like to say

"John, unsurprisingly, said "of course""

Would this be

John 果然 说 “当然可以”。  or is there a better way to imply this?

果然 if we want to get all pedantic about this means, like you wrote, 'as expected'.
Oxford defines unsurprisingly as:

不足为奇地
unsurprisingly, she didn't show up
不出所料，她没有出现

Here we have two choices: (1)不足为奇, (2)不出所料...
and again defines unsurprising as:

不足为奇地
it is unsurprising that...
。。。不出预料

adding a third: (3) 不出预料
Like you mentioned at the beginning though 果然 would work just fine here...along with the three mentioned above (不足为奇, 不出所料, 不出预料) and a host of others:
果真
一如所料
果如所料
意料之中
take your pick...


Difference between 察覺 and 覺察 I often use the word 察覺, which, I believe, corresponds to 發現 in colloquial context, meaning "to realize".
But I recently encountered the word 覺察 in a similar context as the following:

小偷覺察屋子裡有人，就從後門逃走了。
The thief realized there was someone in the house, then slipped away from the back door.

If my translation above is correct, are the two words interchangeable? Or do they have different meaning/usage?

Although both mean "to become aware of", I feel there is still subtle difference in terms of which action happens first.

觉察 is from 觉 to 察: you suspect something first, then observe some facts that supports the suspicion. For example, 突然教室里很安静，我觉察到原来大家都走了。
察觉 is from 察 to 觉: you observe first, then draw a conclusion about something. For example, 我抬头左右看了一圈，察觉到大家都走了。

Which one happens first, 察 or 觉, can indicate some difference. Usually we use 察觉 because people often draw conclusions after observing the facts. But when 觉察 is used, the emphasis is on the suspicion or cautiousness.

Note that it is also possible to say

觉而不察: to suspect but not to examine
察而不觉: to observe the facts but not to realize/understand


Why in China do they use k instead of m for the slope of a line? In china they write y = kx + b

Just wondering if there was a reason.

I suspect that it originated from one of the Germanic languages, where the "hard c" sound in English is represented with "k" and thus "coefficient" or "constant" would begin with a "k". I tested the hypothesis with a translator and, indeed, the terms in modern German are "Koeffizient" and "Konstante".
So why would the Chinese mathematicians borrow from German/Swedish/Danish mathematicians? It might have to do with the fact that many of the leading mathematicians in the 18th-20th century were German-speaking, e.g. Euler who lived in Germany and who in fact was the first to use "a,b,c" to denote constants and "x,y,z" to denote unknowns; Leibniz, who invented much of modern calculus; Gauss, who contributed significantly to almost every field in mathematics; and other big names such as Riemann and Cantor.
Since the Chinese academics were just opening up to the advances in mathematics at the time, it made sense that they would borrow the notation from the leading scholars of the time.
What makes me more curious is why the Americans use m for slope, which don't seem to have any linguistic explanation. I did some brief reading and this page seems to have the best (non-)answer:

"J. Miller has undertaken a detailed study of the origin of the symbol m to denote slope. The consensus seems to be that it is not known why the letter m was chosen. One high school algebra textbook says the reason for m is unknown, but remarks that it is interesting that the French word for "to climb" is "monter." However, there is no evidence to make any such connection. In fact, Descartes, who was French, did not use m (Miller). Eves (1972) suggests "it just happened." "

Edit: Actually, that might be wrong. I found this page which listed the common notation for slopes in many countries (based on letters from his readers). Excerpt:

In the US, Australia, Canada, Egypt, Mexico, Portugal and Philippines the notation is:     y = mx + b
In the UK, Germany, and former British colonies    y = mx + c
In Azerbaijan, China, Finland, Russia and Ukraine:     y = kx + b
In Sweden:     y = kx + m
In Slovenia:   y = kx + n

So the Germans today in fact use "m" like the Americans and the British. It's certainly possible that they used "k" in the 19th century and shifted to the more prevalent English usage later on. But based on the data above, it seems more likely that the Chinese usage came from Russia. There could be a historical explanation for this - the Chinese Communist Party adopted Soviet science education as the basis of their curriculum after the "liberation".
To test this "Soviet origin" hypothesis, I looked at the usage in the Nationalist-ruled province of Taiwan. And voila! The Kuomintang curriculum uses m (see here, page 8). This is evidence that the use of k was probably not prevalent in China before 1949.
So, the conclusion: The use of "k" was probably adopted from the Russians. There is in fact an analogue of k in the Cyrillic alphabet, which looks extremely similar to the Latin k. And if you put "Constant" or "Coefficient" in a Russian translator, you'll see that they do in fact use this letter. So I stand by my theory that linguistically it comes from "Constant" or "Coefficient", but I'd say the historical origin was Russian, not German.


What are written name conventions in labels? I’m making a door sign for a baby’s nursery; should I stack the characters vertically? Should I include the family name? Are there any faux pas’s to be aware of when making a gift like this?

It would hang on the door to celebrate the name of the new baby. It could also hang on the wall; it's more of a decoration than an indicator

The key word is 'decoration'. You can consider it a hand crafted art. The shape of the sign should be fun and artistic (e.g. you can make it shaped like panda, star, duckling, bunny or anything you consider meaningful ). It can also be colorful. The same goes to the font you use.

Horizontal or vertical are both fine, the characters don't even have to be the same size or line up straight, but the label itself should has little thickness to make it feel substantial

Use just the baby's first name would make it more casual and relax. Using full name would make it more formal.


Is this sentence correct? "中国发送给我们国家很多帮助" 大家好!
Hi, can you please tell me is this sentence correct?
请问，这个句子对吗 ?:

在疫情其间中国发送给我们国家很多帮助。

谢谢 !

在疫情其(期)间中国发送给我们国家很多帮助。

The sentence is wrong.  The collocation 发送帮助 isn't appropriate.  We can say 给予帮助.  So, 在疫情其(期)间中国给予我们国家很多帮助 or  is correct.


When should I use "了" in “把”字句 and where should it be placed? A completed action with 把 sentence - I saw some sentences with 了 and some without 了. Is there a rule?

我把课本放在桌子上。
他把病人送到医院。

but

姐姐把照片存在电脑里了。
我把我的新书丢在公共汽车上了

and is there a difference where the 了 is placed?

小明把礼物送给了妈妈。

Compare these sentences:

  我把课本放在桌子上。
  他把病人送到医院。
  我把课本放在桌子上了。
  他把病人送到了医院。

Sentence 1 and 2 don't indicate the tense and tell whether those events happen in the present, past or future. Sentence 3 and 4 clearly indicate those events happened in the past because they have 了.

Practically, you could put 了 after verb. If you see a prepositional phrase in the end, you can attach 了 at the end of the prepositional phrase or sentence.

For example,

  我把课本放在桌子上了。 在桌子上 is a prep phrase, so you attach 了 at the end. The same thing for 姐姐把照片存在电脑里了。 我把我的新书丢在公共汽车上了.
  他把病人送到了医院。in this case, it doesn't have any prep phrase in the end, so you can put 了 after the verb 送到. In 小明把礼物送给了妈妈。送给 is the verb, so
  you can put 了 after it.


What does "明微推远，憭若蓍蔡" mean? I got an answer from the internet but cannot make too much out of it.

My biggest issue is 蓍蔡. A search reveals this to mean "a person of high moral standing" or some sort of big turtle. So I am not quite sure what to do.

My interpretation:

  明微推遠，憭若蓍蔡

  [his words are] clear (明), precise (微), incredibly profound (推遠), as wise (憭) as that of (若) the most renowned and famous (蓍蔡)

As for the reference definition for「蓍蔡」:

  漢語大詞典

  比喻德高望重的人。

  明　張居正　《少師存齋徐相公七十壽序》：＂天下方以公為蓍蔡，何可一日無也。＂
  明　陸深　《溪山餘話》：＂公和易，不事邊幅，喜為後生輩談論講說，終日不倦……所謂國家之蓍蔡，若人是已。＂
  清　褚人穫　《堅瓠秘集・守龜》：＂古人目老成人，則曰國之蓍蔡。＂


What is the morphology or etymology of the word 列车? This question is inspired from a recent question here about 列车.

The question: How is this word formed, and/or where does it come from?

(When I am asking this question, I have my own guess: this word is formed by the nominal element 车 referring to 火车, preceded by a noun classifier 列, as in 兩列火车. But I wonder why the noun classifier should precede the noun. In many other phrases the classifier should follow the noun, as in 犬只, 鸡塊, 纸张, 木条. Is 车列 also an acceptable word?)

It's not a classifier here. From dictionary:

列车 lièchē
(1) [train]∶众多连续的车辆。一般指火车,尤指由牵引机车和运货或载客的车厢组成的连挂成列的火车

So you can see, 列 is short for 成列的 (lined up in a row), therefore it's put before 车 as an adj.


What is the colloquial Cantonese translation for "还真是"? A says: 他自从遇到车祸以后就不开车了。
B says: 还真是，我以为他不喜欢开车呢。

'还真是' here is similar to  "It is actually true" in English (agree/affirm to A's statement)
In Cantonese, we would say "噉又係喎"
噉(this) | 又(also) | 係(true) | 喎(final particle: indicate 'agree/affirm')
Mandarin:

A: 他自从遇到车祸以后就不开车了。
B: 还真是，我以为他不喜欢开车呢。

Cantonese:

A: 佢自从遇到车祸之后就冇再楂車嘞。
B: 噉又係喎，我仲以为佢唔鐘意楂車㖭。


How are Latin botanical names handled in Chinese? How are Latin botanical names (e.g. Rattus rattus or Eucalyptus marginata) handled in Chinese? Does a Chinese botanist simply use Latin? Are there specific characters allocated for these words?

It seems they use both. On this site, alternativehealing.com, there is a long list of botanical names, the characters and the pinyin as well. For completeness, I must say that in the Chinese wikipedia for "botanical names", 學名 (植物), it's stated that Latin must be used for classes, see the part titled "學名來源".

On the same site, in this page, there is even a dictionary; you can look up by the Latin name, the pinyin or the number of strokes of the characters (if you don't know the pinyin but you know the character).


Where does the middle name go in a name that has been translated into Chinese? Many westerners (like I) possess a three-part name in full.

  given + middle + family [名·中间名·姓]

It's understood that―in China―middle names typically don't exist.

Usually, westerners only translate their legal "first" and “last” names as per the traditional Chinese format below. (phonetically or otherwise)

  family + given [姓·名]

However, if one would like to retain their middle name in the translation, where would they place it? What would be the conventional or culturally appropriate arrangement in this case?

Note: Most transliterations do tend to be exceedingly long compared to native Chinese names, but for now let's not worry about the total character count too much.

Very easy, just use Wikipedia to find examples, such as:

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is listed as 沃尔夫冈·阿马德乌斯·莫扎特 on Chinese Wikipedia
Johann Sebastian Bach is 约翰·塞巴斯蒂安·巴赫 in Chinese.
Thomas Alva Edison is transliterated as 托马斯·阿尔瓦·爱迪生 by full name in Chinese.

We could continute, but you see the pattern: [first]·[middle]·[last]

Two more observations:

(1) Sometimes the name to which the middle initial(s) of a person resolve(s) to is/are not known, in other cases, they are just a middle initial, e.g. Harry S. Truman (or Harry S Truman), which in Chinese is written as 哈里·S·杜鲁门, with the Latin letter between the Chinese characters. A bit odd, but remember that Chinese will use just the last name to refer to a foreign person, e.g. 杜鲁门, so the awkward "mixed" form will probably be used only once in a text (when the person's full name is introduced.)

(2) In other cases, when a person's middle name is not known, Chinese might use a character to replace the middle initial, this is commonly seen with Russian (Ukrainian, etc.) personages. Technically, the Russian middle name is a patronymic name, i.e. not the same as the Anglo-Saxon/Western middle name and middle initial, but from the Chinese point of view the issue is similar. Even if a Russian person's full name (given name + patronymic name + family name) is known, it's still rather long, especially when you need to fit that onto a television screen, e.g. Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is 米哈伊尔·谢尔盖耶维奇·戈尔巴乔夫, which is quite intimidating, especially in Chinese characters. Because most Chinese won't know how to type the (Cyrillic) first letter С [not the same as Latin capital letter C] of Sergeyevich (Сергеевич), they will adopt a different, easier solution: 米哈伊尔·谢·戈尔巴乔夫, i.e. shorten the patronymic name to the first character of the Chinese transliteration.


For video games terminology, what is the proper translation for "range" I'm playing around with my mother tongue so I tried to translate sentences that I might write into Chinese. One of them was this sentence, in English.

"The great strength of Annie comes from the long range of her fire ball."

I put in:

安妮的主力是她的很长的(???)火球.

What should be in the missing slot?

In gaming field, (of) long range is commonly translated into 远程 or 远距离, and ranged attacked is 远程攻击. You can use 射程 when you want to express the notion of range.
By the way, 主力 is not the right word for strength. If you use 主力 here, it means primary (attack method). To say strength you may want to use 强项 or 优势.
So I would translate this way:

"The great strength of Annie comes from the long range of her fire ball."
安妮最大的优势是她远距离的火球。


How does the hook in 甩 negative 用's meaning? I read 甩 - Wiktionary, and screenshot Yellowbridge. 甩 appears the antonym of 用, and the hook (that I marked with the green arrow) appears the only difference between their logograms.

What's the correct term for this "hook"?
Please see the title.

  The Cantonese reading is probably unrelated, though it may reflect a descendant of the archaic pronunciation *rut and hence be cognate with Mandarin. Either way, it is evidently from the same source as Min Nan 甪 (lut, “to come off, to slip loose”), Zhuang lot (“to come loose and drop off (due to loose tying)”), and Vietnamese lột (“to peel, to strip off”).

https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/38716 spurred this question.

What's the correct term for this "hook"?

“乚” is named “cjk stroke swag” (u+31df), as used in “己”, the third stroke.

https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U31C0.pdf

in chinese, it’s described as “豎曲鉤”, by the 教育部 異體字字典.

< https://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/variants/rbt/word_attribute.rbt?quote_code=QTAyNjI4>

  The Cantonese reading is probably unrelated

such claiming is wrong. it’s a cantonese character (粵字)

in 廣東通志 卷五十一, page 30 mentioned:

  物之脫者曰甩・倫粒切・此粤字之隨俗撰出者也

https://archive.org/details/06041865.cn/page/n29/mode/1up

have fun :)


Difference between 以前 and 前 to indicate past time? I wanted to express in Mandarin:

Three months ago I started yoga classes.

I thought about whether to use 前 or 以前 to express "ago":

三个月以前我开始了上瑜伽课。
Sān gè yuè yǐqián wǒ kāishǐ le shàng yújiā kè.

三个月前我开始了上瑜伽课。
Sān gè yuè qián wǒ kāishǐ le shàng yújiā kè.

Is there a difference between both sentences? Is there a preference between 前 or 以前? If that is the case, what are the general rules behind?

I would say the more important difference is the one between 以前 and 之前。The difference between 以前 and 前 follows from it.
(Bonus 1: to do yoga is better rendered with 练瑜伽)
(Bonus 2: to me, the sentence sounds better with a modal 了, as 开始 semantics inherently convey a change. native speakers might expand on this)
之前 expresses anteriority in time relative to something else. It can be used when describing event sequences in a time different than the present. It can be translated in English with "earlier, prior to".

三个月之前我开始练瑜伽（了）
Three months earlier, I (had) started doing yoga (relative to another given time)

以前 expresses anteriority relative to the present. It can be translated with "ago".

三个月以前我开始练瑜伽（了）
Three months ago, I started doing yoga (relative to the current time)

Though this distinction is quite faint. It's possible to find 之前 used just like 以前, and vice versa.

Now 前 alone could be an abbreviation of either of those, so its actual meaning is dependant on the context. Generally speaking, I would say there is no appreciable difference between 前 and 以前, except maybe that the former appears more frequently in writing.
A quick Google search:

site: xinhua.net "一个月前" yields ~7000 results
site: xinhua.net "一个月以前" yields ~3000 results

This is empirically true also for other combinations. Another example:

site: xinhua.net "一年前" yields ~65k results
site: xinhua.net "一年以前" yields ~3300 results


What do 開眉粥 and 愁眉飯 mean? I understand translations below on "寧吃開眉粥，不吃愁眉飯". I know 粥 means congee and 飯 rice or meal. I tried look up 愁眉 - Wiktionary but meaning doesn't sense.

knitted brows

宁食开眉粥 不食愁眉饭什么意思_百度知道

liumengdie17   2011-11-12

就是说。宁可物质上一般，但是生活心态开心，而不要为了更高的物质。把自己搞的很累。最后就是人在天堂，钱在银行

「寧吃開眉粥，不吃愁買飯」的大意 | Yahoo Answers

旺來Lv 5
1 decade ago

~比喻寧願心情開朗的過窮日子，不願過充滿煩惱的富裕生活。強調精神生活的重要性。例如：王先生說對我說：「現在的工作雖然薪水少了點，但是我做得心安理得，人家說『寧吃開眉粥，不吃愁眉飯』，以前那種事，我再也不做了。

What is "宁喝开眉粥 莫吃秋眉饭” Is it idiom and what is its meaning? | HiNative

“宁喝开眉粥，不吃愁眉饭”是一句谚语，意为宁可开心愉快地喝稀饭，也不要伤心愤怒地吃大餐。这句谚语告诉人们，快乐是人生的必需品，人要学会经营快乐。the most important thing is happy

開眉 implies 眉開眼笑 (happy expression)

愁眉 implies 愁眉苦臉 (sad expression)

One cup of raw rice can only make two bowls of cooked rice (飯)
One cup of raw rice can make up to eight bowls of congee (粥)
粥 is watered-down 飯
Poor families often only have enough raw rice to make congee for every member to have a full bowl of staple food
"寧吃開眉粥，不吃愁眉飯" literally means "rather eat congee with a smiling face than eat cooked rice with a frowning face". It is a metaphor for "Better  live a poor but happy life than a rich but unhappy one"
(diminish the importance of material wealth)
You can use this expression to describe a situation like someone rather take a low paying job than earning money with immoral acts
Side note:
Cantonese expression: 有粥食粥，有飯食飯 = through thick and thin


What is a "sound loan"? I am going through Outlier dictionary for character 求:

求 depicts a centipede or millipede, indicating the original meaning “myriapod (a type of insect with a lot of legs).” It was borrowed for its sound (via sound loan) to represent the meaning “to seek, request.”

I do not understand what "sound loan" means. How is “to seek, request” the "sound loan" of 求 ?
Does it mean qiú was already in use for “to seek, request” without any character attached to pronunciation qiú?

In the Outlier entry there is a link to a gloss explaining the term:

Sound Loan is when a character gets borrowed to represent a word for its sound, rather than its form.
Ex. The form 我 wǒ which today means "I; me" was originally a picture of a type of weapon that consisted of a handle and a blade with saw-like teeth. The name of the weapon sounded similar to the word for "I; me," so it was borrowed to represent that word. Eventually, the meaning "I; me" took over completely and the form 我 was no longer used to represent the name of the weapon.
Ex. The form 其 that now represents the word qí "his/her/its" originally depicted a basket. That word meaning "basket" is now written 箕 jī.

In Outlier you will often see the ○ icon in the meaning trees to indicate a phonetic loan. Which are generally defined as a:

character that is "borrowed" to write another homophonous or near-homophonous morpheme

So, yes, your assumption was correct - “to seek, request” originally existed as qiú without a specific character associated with it. The character「求」was then later borrowed as the readings matched.


What is few English translations for 吃窩邊草? What is few English translations for 吃窩邊草?

I cannot think of one formal or casual translation...

Do you mean like 兔子不吃窝边草?

If so, you could try something like "Don't bite the hand that feeds you" or "Don't foul your own nest."

Colloquially (and if you want a phrase with more profanity) "Don't shit where you eat" is common and could be used instead.

Also, a proverb like "People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones" is pretty intuitive as well.


What is the real meaning of 爸爸去哪儿? The popular Chinese reality show gives its official translation for the above as "Where are we going, dad?"

But it should be "Where has dad gone?" or "Where is dad?" in my opinion.

爸爸去哪儿? sounds more like 爸爸(我们)(要)去哪儿? or 爸爸(你)(要)去哪儿?, while 爸爸去哪儿了 sounds like 'where has dad gone'.


Translation into English of “交通银行”, “交通大学” and “交通职业技术学院” Obviously, "交通" means transport or transportation in English. But in reality, there are various versions of the translation.

"交通银行" = Bank of Communications (One of the key five State-owned commercial banks of China).

"上海交通大学" = Shanghai Jiaotong University (One of the best colleges in China, offering a large number of degree majors besides those concerning transportation).

"广西交通职业技术学院" = Guangxi Vocational and Technical College of Communications (One of the many such colleges co-sponsored by local education authorities and local transportation authorities in China, with three-year diploma programs offered but no degree).

Why are they so different? Is there any principle for translation or nomenclature?

By the way, China's national transportation authorities 交通部 now changed into 交通运输部. Its name in English was "Ministry of Communications", but now it is "Ministry of Transport".

For the universities, only

上海交通大学 (Shanghai Jiaotong Univ)

西安交通大学 (Xi'an Jiaotong Univ)

北京交通大学 (Beijing Jiaotong Univ)

西南交通大学 (Southwest Jiaotong Univ, in Sichuan)

国立交通大学 (National Chiao Tung University, in Taiwan)

use pinyin for 交通 because of historical reasons. They all originated from one university, the old 交通大学, where 交通 here comes from an old literature and doesn't simply mean transportation.

Other "交通" universities will use the English translation, either transportation or communication.


How do I say "She's changed a lot" Is there a colloquial way to say "A person has changed a lot"?
For example, I'd like to say "I know she has changed over the past couple of years because of doing stand-up comedy"

Would it be
"我知道他因为开始Stand－up就变了很多” or is it “有很多变化？”

Any time in doubt about how to put some expression into Chinese, check something like jukuu.com

她变了很多 in this case would fit. But 她变化很大 would also be OK.


When to use the single character vs double character form of a verb? I know of many verbs that can be expressed as a single character or two characters (i.e. 说 & 说话). The issue is that I don't know when it is appropriate to use one of over the other. Is it dependent on the subsequent word? For example, "我吃米" and "我吃饭面包"? Or is it the other way around? Neither? Personal preference perhaps!? I've read that there is a natural tendency in Chinese to minimize the number of characters in compound words. That being the case, should I avoid using the two characters versions entirely?

I'll try answering this (but be aware I'm just a learner).

The given examples are transitive vs. intransitive verbs:

说 vs. 说话.  Here, 说 is a transitive verb (i.e., it takes an object) whereas 说话 is an intransitive verb (i.e., it doesn't take an object):

  他说“你好”
  He says hello

  你为什么那样说话？
  Why do you speak that way?

We can alternatively think of 话 (noun) as what is being said (说).
吃 vs. 吃饭.  Again, 吃 is a transitive verb whereas 吃饭 is an intransitive verb, so 我吃饭面包 is incorrect, but 我吃面包 is correct.

Again, we can alternatively think of 饭 as the object being eating (吃).

(I also note that both 说 and 吃 can be used as intransitive verbs, e.g., 你别说了 and 他什么都没吃.)

学 vs. 学习

Another example is 学 and 学习 which are both transitive verbs.  So both of these are grammatical:

  我学汉语。
  我学习汉语。

In this case, which do we choose?  See this question: What's the difference between 学 and 学习?  It's somewhat a matter of preference, circumstance, etc.


也 in classical Chinese as copula I've been doing my research on 者 and in one of the articles I read I came across a sentence from "Analects":

  安见方六七十如五六十而非邦也者。

Glosses for this example are as follows:

  where see size six-or-seventy or five-or-sixty and NEG country COP ZHE

I don't really understand why is 也 glossed as copula, is anyone able to explain why would it be treated as such instead of being a final particle? Is it because 者 is there too, probably also as a sentence final particle？

Because it is a coupla.

  Confucius rhetorically asks: "Among territories (方) which are 60 to
  70, or (如) 50 to 60 li, where can you see (安見) one (者) that isn't a
  state (非邦也)?"

方六七十如五六十而非邦也 specifies a territory (方) which is about 60 to 70, or 50 to 60 li that hypothetically may not be a state (非邦也; not be is the function of the coupla). The idea is that such territories do not exist, because you cannot pick out any one (者) among the set of territories of these measurements which isn't a state.


What is 好高骛远 in English? Google translate translates "好高骛远" into ambitious. I was wondering if you agree with that? I don't think ambitious carries the meaning of lacking capability.

From Bai Du Zhi Dao:

好高骛远 (Hào gāo wù yuǎn) means:

  比喻不切实际地追求过高过远的目标 (Bǐyù bù qiè shíjì dì zhuī qiú guò gāo guò yuǎn de
  mùbiāo.) : you unrealistically pursue goals that are too high and far.

To break down the phrase: 好高骛远

好 (Hào- 4th tone = likes/wants), so... 好高 (Hào gāo): likes/wants (things that are) high

骛 (wù): Greedy

远 (yuǎn): Far, Distant (So, 骛远 = over ambitious/over greedy)

To break that guy's response down:

不切实际 (bù qiè shíjì): Phrase to indicate impracticality of something

地 (dì): usually means "ground"... but here it follows an adverb. For example, 他慢慢地走过去 (he slowly walked over there). So, 慢慢 would be modifying the verb 追求 (zhuī qiú), so you use 地 (dì) between the adverb and the verb。 Like he "impractically pursued x": 他不切实际*地*追求x

追求 (zhuī qiú): to pursue something stubbornly.

过高过远 (guò gāo guò yuǎn): 过 just means "pass over, too much, pass": so 过高 and 过远 just means too high and too far.

目标 (mùbiāo): Goal


What does 则 mean in ...而今年的9月20日则是安室奈美惠40岁的生日? (Let me first write in Mandarin)

关于这个句子：

  据悉，9月16日是安室奈美惠的出道纪念日，而今年的9月20日则是安室奈美惠40岁的生日。

关于“则”的用法，我的词典有这些说明：

rule, standard (noun)
follow an example (verb)
item (measure word)

这些都看来不合适。所这个句子上“则”是什么意思？此外“则”的词性是什么？

(The original sentence in English, in case my Mandarin doesn't make sense)

In the following sentence:

  据悉，9月16日是安室奈美惠的出道纪念日，而今年的9月20日则是安室奈美惠40岁的生日。

In my dictionary, 则 means:

rule, standard (noun)
follow an example (verb)
item (measure word)

All of them seem to be not the case here. So what does 则 mean here and what does it function as (e.g. adverb, noun, verb, etc...)?

Please write an answer in English since I'm not sure if I understand it yet...

则 here, as an adverb, means 'yet'. The structure of 而...则... could be interpreted as 'while'.

So, "而今年的9月20日则是安室奈美惠40岁的生日。" is "while Sep. 20th this year will be the 40th birthday of Anshinaimeihui's."


Help me catch a word He spoke so fast, I can't make out the word he said at 2:05:8.

在既不能证实,也不能证伪的时候, ???(sounds like li3) ...

周孝正：中国社会问题分析

……在既不能证实，也不能证伪的时候，存疑。这就是科学精神。……


How to say "One day we will meet"? Could you help me to translate the phrase "One day we will meet" or "Some day we will meet". My guess is "一旦我们相遇". Pls correct me if I'm wrong. Thanks!

i think 后会有期 is better.
分别时说的，意思是，以后我们会见面的。


How should I understand the absence of conjunctions in 流行音乐歌唱的大都是男女爱情、歌词贴近生活、通俗易懂、易于传唱、受到欢迎、不足为怪? In the Coursera HSK6 course, week 5 lesson 22, part of the spoken 短文 is:

流行音乐歌唱的大都是男女爱情、歌词贴近生活、通俗易懂、易于传唱、受到欢迎、不足为怪。
[My translation]: The majority of pop music songs are male-female romance, lyrics close to life, everyday and easy to understand, catchy, well-received, unsurprising.

It's almost like they've thought "I can't be bothered with grammar", and just said a bunch of clauses, leaving the listener to mentally add in the grammar.
I'm wondering how I should understand the absence of conjunctions (的, 很, 以及, etc.), and if this is acceptable for spoken Chinese but not written Chinese.
Question: How should I understand the absence of conjunctions in this sentence?

流行音乐歌唱的大都是男女爱情、歌词贴近生活、通俗易懂、易于传唱、受到欢迎、不足为怪。

There are punctuation issues in this sentence. A way to modify it is:

流行音乐歌唱的大都是男女爱情、歌词贴近生活、通俗易懂、易于传唱、受到欢迎不足为怪。

We can also replace 顿号（、） with 逗号（，）：

流行音乐歌唱的大都是男女爱情，歌词贴近生活，通俗易懂，易于传唱，受到欢迎不足为怪。

The sentence should be read as:

[流行音乐] /歌唱的/大都是/男女爱情，歌词贴近生活，通俗易懂，易于传唱，受到欢迎不足为怪。

It's topic + comment structure. The topic is [流行音乐]. The comments: [歌唱的大都是男女爱情], [歌词贴近生活], [通俗易懂], [易于传唱], [受到欢迎不足为怪].
There is no need for conjunctions here. The comments are paralleled by commas. I guess your issue is not conjunction per se, but parsing.(Correct me if I'm wrong.)
For translation, you can separate into a few sentences. @fefe already presented one. You might come out with a better one considering you are an English speaker.
Edit:
This might help you further:

[流行音乐]歌唱的大都是男女爱情;

[流行音乐]歌词贴近生活;

[流行音乐]通俗易懂;

[流行音乐]易于传唱;

[流行音乐]受到欢迎不足为怪。

P. S.  There is a trick in the first part, [流行音乐]歌唱的大都是男女爱情.  It's very easy to parse it as 流行音乐歌/唱的/大都是/男女爱情. So, you would take [流行音乐歌] as the topic.  But actually, the topic should be 流行音乐 and 歌唱 as a whole is a single word to mean sing. It would be more obvious to write [流行音乐][歌唱的内容]大都是男女爱情.  I saw other answers took [流行音乐歌] as the topic as well, so I think it deserves to point it out.


Making sense of 去华山怎么走比较好？ The following dialogue is in NPCR 2, Lesson 23, listening exercise 7 in the exercise book, and my attempt in translating it.

I'm unsure about the sentence marked in red. I have not learned the pattern 比较+adjective until now but my Chinese friend told me that it's the comparative form of the adjective, so in this case "good"->"better".

But I can't make sense of this question. It's better compared to what? I also see a 走 (to walk), but in the next sentence they talk about trains and climbing. So how should I translate it?

比较 here doesn't so much accentuate the comparison between two or more objects/methods. It more gives you an idea of something that has a quality to a somewhat significant degree or above the average. (So in some way, it is a comparison, but a comparison to an unreferenced standard/average).

It can be loosely translated into 'relatively', 'fairly', 'rather' or 'somewhat'.

Another example would be:

  玛丽长得比较胖

  Mary is rather obese/overweight.


Why is 面熟 used after 人 in 常常看着一个人面熟却叫不出名字来? In my textbook I found this sentence:

  常常看着一个人面熟却叫不出名字来。

If 面熟 is an adjective, why is it used after 人 (to indicate a "familiar-looking person")?
Can 一个人面熟 be rewritten to 一个面熟人 without modifying the sentence's original meaning?

This is a classic example of a topic-comment construction that is prevalent in Chinese.  In this case, 面熟 is not serving as an adjective to the noun, but rather as a comment on the topic.

常常看着一个人 ("often seeing a person") is the topic
面熟却叫不出名字来 ("[he's] familiar, yet [I] can't come up with [his] name") is the comment.

All adjectives in Chinese can function as verbs (Chinese adjectives are sometimes called stative verbs for this reason); as such, they can function as a predicate by themselves.  Because Chinese is a pro-drop language, predicates can serve as their own clauses in a comment.

To answer your second question, you can't put 面熟 before the noun in this case without restructuring the sentence.  却 is used to connect two clauses together.  If you make 面熟 into an adjective, it's no longer a clause, so the usage of 却 will no longer make sense.


What's the meaning of "氪金"? How to translate it? I know the meaning of 氪 is krypton. But I find there are many people say: 这个游戏真好玩，我要氪金.
Now they have got the game and played it, so they needn't buy the game now, even sometime they say so when play a free game. So how to understand the meaning of it?

氪金 means pay, charge.

  氪金，原为“课金”，指支付费用，特指在网络游戏中的充值行为。

Even the players are playing a free game, they still could pay money for items in games (to become more powerful, etc).

Also see here.


What is the difference between 讯息 and 消息 and 信息? I'd like to know what is the most common word for a "message", like a SMS or just a message you receive on internet

China
Taiwan

text message
短信
簡訊

multimedia message
彩信
多媒體訊息

WeChat, common in China
微信（消息 xiāoxi）
微信（消息 xùnxí）

Line, common in Taiwan
Line（消息 xiāoxi）
Line（訊息 xùnxí）

iMessage
e.g., 我收到一条 iMessage（消息）和一条 WhatsApp（消息）。
e.g., 我收到一條 iMessage （訊息）和一條 WhatsApp （訊息）。

The content in brackets can be omitted.


How to ask "anybody/anyone/somebody/someone" questions in Chinese? For example, how do you translate, "Does anybody/anyone in the dorm have a vacuum I could use?" Or, "Can I borrow somebody's/someone's shoes?"

I don't know how to say these types of questions that ask "anybody" "anyone" "somebody" or "someone."

Would appreciate help!! :))) Thanks!

Basically you want '有人‘ or ’谁‘。

Does anybody know the answer?
有人知道答案吗？
谁知道答案吗？

Someone must know the answer！
肯定有人知道答案！

Does anybody/anyone in the dorm have a vacuum I could use?
我们宿舍有人可以借给我一台吸尘机吗？

"Can I borrow somebody's/someone's shoes?"
我能借一下别人的鞋子吗？
我能不能借一下谁的鞋子？

May I borrow someone's jacket?
我可以借别人的夹克吗？
我可否向别人借一下夹克？

Who can lend me a jacket?
谁能借我一件夹克衫？

Who can lend me a vacuum cleaner?
谁能借我一台吸尘器？有人可以借我一台吸尘器吗？

（Don't borrow other people's shoes, you might get a foot infection!)


Differences between 凉 and 冷，冻 and 冰 I was wondering whether anyone could tell me if these words are completely interchangable all situations. If not, how am I to discern which to use?

凉 (liáng) s.v. cool, chilly. 不想吃凉米饭. (liàng) v. make cool. 天气凉了. Opposite: 温

冷 (lěng) s.v. cold; 天气很冷. Opposite: 热

冻 (dòng) v. freeze; feel frosen. 湖泊冻成冰. Opposite: 融

冰 (bīng) n. ice. v. put on ice; feel cold. 湖泊冻成冰. Opposite: 汽


也 When expressing a series does 也 need to be before each object or just the last object When expressing a series of object does 也 occur prior to each object or only prior to the last object to express the list

Example:

我没有房子没有工作没有车也没有朋友。
我没有房子也没有工作也没有车也没有朋友。

I) "也" means "too"：

"也" means "too" in English, this is an adverb put at the back of the last statement to enhance that the same situation……ect.

你没有车，我*也*没有。(You don't have a car, I don't have a car either).

你喜欢巧克力，我*也*是 (You like chocolates, I do, too).

II) "也" means "the end of a list things shown to others"：

When explaining a list of things, you can use commas or 顿号（slight-pause mark used to set off items in a series; punctuation mark (、) used between parallel words or short phrases; the caesura sign “、”placed between several proper names），but add "也" at the end. Here "也" doesn't mean "too" but just an end to tell others that the list of things I've listed comes to an end only.

我没有车、没有房、没有工作、也**没有老婆。(I have no cars,no houses,no jobs **and no wives).


How to ask Chinese tourists keep their voice down? Background:

In Silom, Thailand, I was eating in a small restaurant, 5x10 square meters. It is not a quiet place since it is located nearby the road. However, customers in here, for example white people and Thai locals, normally speak very low and leave after they finish. But 10 Chinese tourists came in and started ordering food, talking loud, like shouting. Their loud voices made me very nervous. No idea if they will talk to local people with the same sound level or not since they use hand method to order.

Question:

Direct translatation from English of Lower your voice please to Chinese is 请降低你的声音. Is it ok?

What is the best sentence to let them know that they are making very loud noise?

Before I give out example sentences for asking people to lower their voice, I have to warn you-- Telling strangers that their behavior is unacceptable in public might lead to verbal confrontation or worse.

Some people might think talking loud is their personal right, telling them otherwise is an intrusion.  No words of yours can change their behavior.
Some people might not notice they are being loud. They can be reasoned with, but you have to be extremely polite. You are pointing out something they do wrong after all. No one like to be criticized.

Now there are some example sentences you could use.

Start with "對不起" /duìbùqǐ/ (excuse me/ sorry).
Then beg them "能請你們" /Néng qǐng nǐmen/(would you please).
Tell them what you want, "降低聲量嗎?"/Jiàngdī shēngliàng ma/ (lower your voice?).
(optional) Make them think you are with them "外国人爱挑剔别人大声说话" /Wàiguó rén ài Tiāotì biérén dàshēng shuōhuà/ (Foreigners love to pick on people who use loud voice).
Thank them for cooperating "谢谢合作" /Xièxiè hézuò/. After being thanked, most reasonable people would not be able to get too angry with you.


The meaning of 东瞧西瞅? In Mandarin translation of Little Red Riding Hood that can be found around (Grimm Stories, BaiDuBaiKe), mother warns Little Red Riding Hood: "外婆家的时候，别忘了说‘早上好’，也不要一进屋就东瞧西瞅。" How would you translate 东瞧西瞅 in this sentence? I have seen translations like "look around" but it does not seem to make much sense in the context.

The original English text for the excerpt you’ve given above is:

  And when you go into her room, don't forget to say, good-morning, and don't peep into every corner before you do it."

So here “peep into every corner” was translated 东瞧西䐐. It’s a fairly true translation.


What does 一番 mean in 与5年前相比翻了一番? In the following sentence:

  调查显示，32%的海外民众认为中国是对世界经济影响最大的国家。与5年前相比翻了一番。

一番 might mean "one time" (at least my dictionary on macOS says "一倍" while Pleco only lists "one kind"). However, 翻 I believe means "double" as a verb here.

So I feel that the sentence is contradictionary... At least from the context, the influence of China would be "doubled". But then what is the meaning of 一番 here?

翻（了）n番 is common phrase, meaning 2^n. For example, 翻一番 = 2, 翻两番 = 4， ....

But the interesting phrase is 翻n倍. Some would take 翻n倍 = 翻n番, and some would take 翻n倍 = 1*n, and some take 翻n倍 = 1*(n+1). For example, 50翻3倍 could be 150, 400 or 200. This is really a moot point. Personally, I would take 翻n倍 = 1*(n+1) and 50翻3倍 would be 200.


Is 了 optional when a time word is present? In sentences that already have a point in time word that indicates that the event happened in the past, is 了 optional? Or could there be some additional meaning with it present? For instance:

  我昨天去商店。

or

  我昨天去了商店。

Since "yesterday" is included in the sentence, does 了 really add anything?

Edit:

I am not concerned with the end-of-sentence 了 in this question, only the aspect marker. Follow up question: Is it grammatically incorrect to say ”我昨天去商店“？ That is, it obviously happened in the past but i don't use 了。

I think Chinese textbooks should start their 了 sections with this:

了 is not about time.
了 is not about tense.
Goto 1.

You are only concerned with 了 as an the aspect marker, aka completed action 了, or perfect aspect 了, so:

"昨天去商店" and "昨天去了商店" are both valid verb phrases. The second one explicitly states that the action was completed, whereas the first one does not.

As other posters have mentioned, "我昨天去商店" isn't wrong, but it is incomplete as a sentence because it leaves that verb phrase hanging. It feels like "Yesterday I went to the shop and..." in English. It needs to carry on with more information, e.g. "我昨天去商店的时候发现鸡蛋都卖完了".

"我昨天去了商店" is a complete sentence.

It might be easiest to look at examples to get a better sense of this:

我们昨天卖了十个。 -> "We sold ten yesterday."

到了红绿灯，往左拐。 -> "When you get to the traffic lights, turn left."

你买了东西以后可以去银行取点现金吗？ -> "After you've bought the things could you go to the bank and get some cash out?" (notice this in the future, the action hasn't happened yet, but still uses 了)

My point is that 了 is not about tense or time. It's about whether an action is complete in the time frame we're talking about.

I think that this is the sort of issue that can't be resolved by reading textbooks or explanations online. It's got to be done through long-term exposure and practice, in my view.


Learn to type in Pinyin for a Zhuyin user After years of frustration about not being able to distinguish ㄥ ㄣ, and nearly no improvements on iOS Zhuyin keyboard layout. I decided to switch to Pinyin for both mobile usage and daily desktop (I am a Mac user). What's your suggested ways of learning and your experience?

There is an (almost) one-to-one mapping from Zhuyin to Pinyin, replacing symbols with letters. In my humble opinion, Pinyin only save one from remembering symbols.
Neither Pinyin nor Zhuyin is perfect. Better learn both of them.

Pinyin is the result of an attempt of romanization, everything is going well except that, after all, Chinese language is quite different from Latin family languages in many aspects, spelling, pronunciation, logic, or the way of thinking, so a perfectly matched mapping can be really hard to realize, if not impossible. So it's not surprising when the Pinyin transliteration is found to be a little strange to English pronunciation rules, e.g. in qi vs. chee, or gu vs. koo. A more intuitive transliteration is Wade-Giles. As a citizen of China, one had better learn and use Pinyin as Pinyin simplifies and boosts the learning or the input in digital devices in many situations. Chinese romanization is still in progress, and we all might contribute to it. Personally speaking, it is quite controversial to put Pinyin into the position of official representation of Chinese language pronunciation, say, for the lacking of cultural heritage, abrupt as a centaur. When it comes to input method, I prefer the faster heuristic Pinyin (such as Google's, QQ's and Sogou's) than Zhuyin.

Zhuyin, based on a system invented by the late philosopher 章太炎 in 1910's. Zhuyin symbols presents a concise representation, which implies a simplification of pronunciation patterns, in other words, a standardized Mandarin would prevail and dialects or variations had to fend for themselves. Zhuyin is still officially in use among Taiwanese people, some of which feel it hard to move to Pinyin, for many reasons, such as personal habit or belief. Say it practically, Zhuyin has some advantage: some vowel Zhuyin symbols may give less keyboard hits than Pinyin, e.g. ㄠ (L) vs. ao (AO).


Does this scroll say 䤛食琴心? I was given the following scroll

and would like a translation before I keep it up on my wall. I believe it says “䤛膳琴心” but I’m not sure. Moreover, I’m not familiar with this idiom and don’t know what it means (assuming those are the characters).

剑膽琴心（膽:Traditional Chinese,=胆）          德峰书

  剑胆琴心/劍膽琴心：courage of a warrior and the soul of a musician; the gall-bladder of a sword and the heart of a lute.

This kind of work is used to describe and praise the people (especially the original owner or the author himself) who has both brave and lofty temperament/taste. It's something like 文武双全/文武雙全.


How does 上 work as a verb? From 标准教程HSK4上 page 111:

  The verb "上" means "to achieve or reach (a certain quantity or degree)", often followed by an object indicating quality.

I feel a lot of discomfort with using this 上.  (I'm not really sure it's a verb either; it seems like it's preceded by a verb with this usage.)

Question: How does 上 work as a verb?

Here's some of my attempts at using it:

  从这本书中我学上15页。 (From this book, I've read up to page 15.)
  我的头发自己剪上了。  (I cut my own hair.)
  我在北京一家宾馆住上三个月。  (I stay in a hotel in Beijing for 3 months.)
  我老婆拿上遥控器。  (My wife took the remote control.)

I'm not really sure if I'm doing this right.  It feels unnatural---the only reason I'm using 上 in this way, is to practice using 上 in this way.

I am a native speaker. For the example you made I feel some of them would be more authentic if you use other verbs instead of 上 for example:
这本书我读了15页。 (From this book, I've read up to page 15.)
我给自己剪头发了。 (I cut my own hair.)
(I stay in a hotel in Beijing for 3 months.) This one sounds a little bit weird in the tense itself. If you want to say "I am going to stay in a hotel in Beijing for 3 months" its a good time to use 上，it would be:我要在北京一家旅馆住上三个月。 However, if you want to say "I have lived in a hotel in Beijing for 3 months", it would be: 我在北京一家旅馆住了三个月。I know it is to consider tense in Mandarin since it doesn't have a very specific rule for tense.
我老婆拿了遥控器。 (My wife took the remote control.)
Here are some phrases that are commonly used with 上 as a verb:
我去上厕所 (I am going to the bathroom)
上床睡觉 (go to bed)
我上车了(I just got on the car)
我要上台了 （I am about to get on the stage)
上楼梯 （go upstairs) -> 下楼梯 （go downstairs)
I hope these could be somehow helpful.


Which "if" is appropriate for what situations As a follow up to "What is the difference between 假如 and 例如?" I've become unclear on the use of the if statement in Chinese.

For the most part I would use 如果 as an if statement when ever it's required but I have now stumbled across a few:

假如 Jiǎrú - if
要是 Yàoshi - if
若是 Ruòshì - if
如果 Rúguǒ - if / in case / in the event that
倘 Tǎng - if / supposing / in case
倘若 Tǎngruò - provided that / supposing that / if
假若 Jiǎruò - if / supposing / in case
假使 Jiǎshǐ - if / in case / suppose / given ...

Translations from MDBG

All these translate into "if" so how are they used differently or are they interchangeable?

假如 Jiǎrú - if
Generally used. In most case, it's for something that wouldn't happen.
要是 Yàoshi - if
Mostly used in 最近雾霾这么厉害，要是我离开北京就好了 - It'd be great if I had left Beijing! The air pollution is so heavy here.
若是 Ruòshì - if
Literally used, similar to 要是
如果 Rúguǒ - if / in case / in the event that
Generally used.
倘 Tǎng - if / supposing / in case
Almost only used in literature works.
倘若 Tǎngruò - provided that / supposing that / if
Mostly used in love letters or lyrics.
假若 Jiǎruò - if / supposing / in case
Seldom used. A bit like 假如
假使 Jiǎshǐ - if / in case / suppose / given ...
Seldom used.


Does tone sandhi apply to 成语 In my previous question I found the following about tone sandhi and yī 'one':

  yī on its own or not followed by other tones

  yī → yí when followed by a fourth tone

  yī → yì when followed by other tones

I would like to know if tone sandhi effects the way that set idioms such as 成语 are pronounced.

A prime example is 一年四季, is this pronounced "yī nián sìjì" or "yì nián sìjì"

Similar as for words, tone sandhi also apply for 成语. So 一年四季 is pronounced as "yì nián sìjì", 一波三折 is pronounced as “yì bō sān zhé” and 一马当先 is pronounced as “yì mǎ dāng xiān”. 一触即发 however is pronounced “yí chù jí fā”.


Is there any difference between 我给你不买 and 我不给你买? Is there any difference between these two sentences:

我给你不买

and

我不给你买?

Chinese grammar says we should put 不 in front of the preposition in these types of sentences...
But I saw a lot examples when 不 goes after the preposition construction and goes exactly in front of the verbs.
The same question regarding 没有, for example,

我在商店没有买很多东西

could we here say

我没有在商店买很多东西 or
我在日本没有住一个多月

etc.

First, 不 and 没有 are different, please read
What is the difference between 不 and 没?

The rule of 不 'in front of the preposition' doesn't always apply to 没有

As your examples indicated

Both "我在商店没有买很多东西" and "我没有在商店买很多东西" are valid sentences

As for 我给你不买 vs, 我不给你买: 我给你不买 doesn't follow the rule of '不 in front of the preposition' and therefore , is invalid

You can say 我不买电脑给你 or 我不给你买电脑 (both mean "I don't buy computer for you") , but not 我给你不买电脑.


What is the function of 先 in 我諗聽日先買飛嘅話一定買唔到 (cantonese) In the sentence: 我諗聽日先買飛嘅話一定買唔到。

What is the function of “先”?

The original translation from a reference is “I don’t think you’ll be able to buy a ticket tomorrow.”

I do not understand the role of “先”, and can it be discarded?

先 here is short for 先至

先(first)

至(then)

先至 (first then)= till... then

我諗等到聽日(先)買飛嘅話一定買唔到
I think if we wait (till) tomorrow (then) to buy ticket we will certainly fail to buy any
The word "等到" (wait) is implied

Example of difference between "先至/ 先" (till...then) and "先" (first/ for now)
做好功課(先至/先)准睇電視 - (Till) finish all the homework (then) allowed to watch TV.
你地坐吓等陣(先) - you guys sit for a while and wait (first/ for now)

When "...先" is followed by a verb phrase, it is a short form of 先至, meaning "till ... then"

When 先 is at the end of a words clause, it means "first" or "for now"


English translation for 来 in 你哪儿来的这么多书? compatible with a Chinese-to-English dictionary I am a Caucasian American with English as my native language.  I want to improve my knowledge of the Mandarin Chinese language.  I found the following question in Modern Chinese Beginner's Course 3, Second Edition (初级汉语课本, 第三版）by 原北京语言学院来华留学生三系:

  你哪儿来的这么多书？

I suppose that the more complete question might read as "你是从哪儿来的这么多书？", with the 是....的 meant to emphasize what would be between  是 and  的 and 从 meaning “from.”  For me now I think the most challenging part of the question is translating 来 into something in the English language and finding that translation of 来 in a simplified-Chinese-character-to-English-language dictionary.  For example my Chinese friend translated the above question as “Where” or “How did you get so many book?” which I changed to  “Where” or “How did you get so many books?”  So that Chinese friend's translation of 来 in this question is “get.”

Similarly on this Web page, I found the translation “Wherever did you get that idea?” for “你哪儿来的那个主意?” showing that someone else translated 来 as “get” in a question including the same structure of 哪儿来的.  But my Chinese dictionary does not include the meaning of “get” for 来.   The only possible definition there which might fit this situation is as a substitute for another verb.  For example, I have heard something like 我来, which according to the situation in which that pair of words is used seems to be intended to mean something like “I'll do it” or “Let me do it.”   So how do I reconcile dictionary definitions with 来 in the above question?

Have some more words or characters been omitted in the original sentence?  For example should the more complete question read as

  你是从哪儿带来的这么多书？

On this Web page I found “Where do you come up with that stuff, Ma?” for “你哪儿来的这种想法, 妈?”   If I follow that example to translate "你是从哪儿来的这么多书？", I arrive at “From where did you come up with so many books?”  But “come up with” seems vastly different than “come” with respect to both meaning and use.   Checking an English-to-Chinese dictionary I found 产生 and 找到 as translations for “come up with.”  Note that neither of these Chinese translations includes 来 within it.  So to translate 来 in 你哪儿来的....？as “come up with” looks like quite a “stretch” to me, but may indicate how hard someone may have been trying to find something in the English language that includes the word “come” as a translation for 来 in 你哪儿来的...?.  Perhaps trying to translate 来 in 你哪儿来的....？ might have been hard for someone else besides myself!

From a page on 百度知道, I found “你哪儿来这么大火？”there translated as “Where did your anger come from?”  This translation uses the standard translation of “come” for 来.   Following this example for 你是从哪儿来的这么多书？ I come up with “From where did your so many books come?, which is certainly not a very comfortable way we Americans would phrase such a question.

I also found 来源 meaning “source.”  But I have a hard time making any sense with 来源 in 你是从哪儿来源的这么多书？. I can make sense of 你是从哪个来源的带来了这么多书？as meaning “From what source did you bring so many books?”.  But to make that sense I had to add the verb 带来了 and some other things to the original question.

I think my basic question concerning 你哪儿来的这么多书? is: How may I reconcile 来 in 你哪儿来的这么多书? with some definition in a Chinese-to-English dictionary?  For example, should I take the meaning of a substitute for another verb and have 来 mean “get” in 你哪儿来的这么多书? ?  Or is that dictionary definition and use of 来 as a substitute for another verb only intended for things like 我来 in which 来 means “do” in some form? If so, do I conclude that some dictionaries just don't include an appropriate meaning like "get" in the English language for 来 in "你哪儿来的这么多书?"

This problem seem to stem from attempting to map a Chinese character directly to a single English word. Don't do that. Like many other characters, 来 carries multiple meanings, and not all of those meanings have a direct English equivalent. The differences between dictionary meanings and a particular translation don't need to be "reconciled". Instead, recognise that English may express a specific Chinese idea in multiple ways.

Specifically, for this question, some of the major meanings of 来 are:

verb "to come, to come from"
"since (a point in time)"
verb "to happen, to be imminent"
adjective "next"
adjective "approximately, thereabouts"
adverb (preceding the verb) "let  do (action described by verb)"

In most of the question's sentences, the character 来 is usage (1), meaning "to come from". Therefore, you can translate them literally as:

你哪儿来这么大火 - "where did that temper (of yours) come from"
你哪儿来的这么多书 - "where did so many books (that you have) come from"
你哪儿来的那个主意 - "where did that idea (of yours) come from"

However, obviously the latter two can be alternatively translated as:

"where did you get so many books from"
"where did you get that idea from"

This isn't because 来 could also mean "to get". It is simply another way of expressing the same idea, namely "where did those books of yours come from".

Lastly, in 我来, the 来 here is usage (6), meaning "let me do".

Your sentence of 你是从哪个来源的带来了这么多书 is very much an apparent case of translating an English sentence into Chinese word for word. I would argue that in general direct word for word dictionary translations are horrible.  When translating across such wildly disparate languages, you are much better off first grasping the meaning of the Chinese sentence, and then formulating an English sentence from scratch with the same meaning. And vice versa.


What are the differences between 香港繁體, 澳門繁體 and 台灣正體? Wikipedia, as far as I can tell, has three options for what we would probably just call traditional Chinese in English:

香港繁體
澳門繁體
台灣正體

Aside from proportions, shapes, sizes (and 台灣正體's placement of punctuation markers in the middle of the air) I can't really see much of a difference, at first glance.
What are the differences between 香港繁體, 澳門繁體 and 台灣正體?

Technically speaking, there are mainly two factors diversifying what you see between different versions of Chinese Wikipedia pages:

The HTML language tag: lang

<html lang="zh-CN" dir="ltr" class="client-js ve-not-available"> 大陆简体
<html lang="zh-HK" dir="ltr" class="client-js ve-not-available"> 香港繁體
<html lang="zh-MO" dir="ltr" class="client-js ve-not-available"> 澳門繁體
<html lang="zh-SG" dir="ltr" class="client-js ve-not-available"> 马新简体
<html lang="zh-TW" dir="ltr" class="client-js ve-not-available"> 台灣正體

The lang attribute tells the browser to choose proper display settings such as fonts and styles. Different "proportions, shapes, and sizes" are generally decided by the browser and the locale settings of the operating system.
Wikipedia literal conversion system "字词转换" (TECHNICAL DETAILS). The necessity of the conversion is that different regions sometimes use different Chinese terminologies, e.g.

  大陆：数字化、数码化
  台灣：數位化
  港澳：數碼化
  新馬：数字化、数码化

The conversion has four stages, which are sequentially executed by the MediaWiki LanguageConverter (a brief history can be found here):

  (1) MediaWiki internal conversion table (MediaWiki内置转换表);
  (2) Chinese Wikipedia local-global conversion table (中文维基百科本地全局转换表);
  (3) Public conversion group (公共转换组);
  (4) Manual conversion for specific entries (各条目内手工转换).

So even if the automatic conversion steps (1)–(3) fail, the final manual work can rectify all the errors.


What is the oldest known Chinese audio recording? I have tried search engines and Wikipedia articles on the history of audio recording, in English and Chinese, but couldn't come closer to this.

What is the oldest known recording of anyone speaking (Mandarin) Chinese? Is it available online?

Fred Gaisberg of EMI made the first Chinese audio recordings 1903-03-18/1903-03-27 in Shanghai.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJ0KBEz23j4

https://vimeo.com/100191126

http://www.recordingpioneers.com/docs/GAISBERG_DIARIES_2.pdf

http://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/resources/detail/378


Who knows the most number of characters in Chinese? I am mainly just curious as to the answer. And it would  be interesting to hear if it is different for simplified and traditional.
I know there are 80,000+ characters and most native speakers will know about 4000 to 6000.
So, I don't know if this has been specifically looked into. Is there a record holder as to knowing the most number of characters? Or are there figures for the experts in Chinese--how many do they know.
I tried to google the question but i kept getting the average number that people know.

I do not think a meaningful answer can be had for the following reasons:
First of all, one needs to define the word "know". What exactly do you mean by "knowing a Chinese character"? If I can recognize and sound out the character when I read, but I have never used it myself, do I know it? I suppose this would be a very passive kind of knowing. If another person knows how to write it from memory, can pronounce it and use it in a sentence, then s/he certainly knows the character better than I do. If a third person not only can do everything the second person does, but also knows the etymology, and what other characters it goes with to form words. Would all three be classified as "knowing" the character? If the answer is "yes", then it does not seem fair to the third person because clearly, s/he has a much deeper knowledge than I have. In short, there are different degrees of knowing. Before any such competition, a clear definition is needed.
Secondly, in this "competition", are you relying on people self-reporting on how many characters they know, (provided we can arrive at a clear definition of "know" in the first place)? Or is there a certain way to objectively judge and compare different people's knowledge? If it is self-reporting you rely on, then much more will come into play than just the number of characters a person knows. A person who is full of self confidence may genuinely believe and report on a greater number of characters than they actually know. In contrast, a knowledgeable yet self-doubting person may do just the opposite. And that's not even counting the people who exaggerate to impress.
Also, how often have you thought you knew something, only to discover that you don't really know it? In the area of Chinese characters, many people mispronounce, misunderstand, or misuse a character without even realizing it. In view of this, self- reporting as a basis of comparison is essentially useless.
If self-reporting does not work, then there needs to be some kind of judge or judging panel to decide how many characters a person knows. Who would qualify to be in this panel? Wouldn't this person need to know pretty much all the characters there are, since they need to decide if another person "knows" a certain character?
I think there is a reason why when you try to google, you keep getting the average number that people know.


How to express [Adjective + enough] or [Adverb + enough] I've looked online for this but I haven't really found what I'm looking for.

It may be that there is no one formula to express "X enough", but I also wouldn't be surprised if there is.

adjectives:

They weren't good enough to win.
He wasn't fast enough to escape.
I was strong enough to open the bottle.

adverbs:

She sang well enough to be hired.
We couldn't solve the problem quickly enough.
He talked loudly enough to be heard in the next room.

The basic structures:

[adjective + enough] = [夠 + adjective]

[adverb + enough] =  [夠+ adverb]

adjectives:

Good enough = 夠好; Not good enough = 不夠好
Fast enough = 夠快; Not fast enough = 不夠快
Strong enough = 夠力; Not strong enough = 不夠力

adverb:

Well enough = 夠好; Not well enough = 不夠好
Quickly enough =夠快; Not Quickly enough = 不夠快
Loudly enough = 夠大聲; Not loudly enough = 不夠大聲

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When the sentence included a verb:

She sang well enough. = 她唱得夠好
Couldn't solve quickly enough. = 解得不夠快
He talked loudly enough. = 他說得夠大聲

*compare to the basic structure, in a sentence that included a verb, a potential particle like 得  have to be placed after the verb to connect to the adjective or adverb. (得 - to the degree of)

*If the sentences included passive verb like  "sang...to  be hired /  talked...to be heard in the next room " , the structure would become more complicated, different type of particles could be used. That would be too broad to answer


Do characters like 司, 习, and 可 have different first strokes? I'm interested in the first stroke of characters like 司, 习, and 可.  This is how it looks on my computer (but I don't know if this is a matter of fonts):

可 starts off with a single horizontal stroke, whereas
司 and 习 do not (it starts off horizontal, then proceeds downwards, then hooks).

My handwriting of 可以, 学习, and 司机 (where I've deliberately used the two "styles"):

I'm not sure if it's simply wrong to write this, or if they're acceptable alternatives.

Question: Do characters like 司, 习, and 可 have different first strokes?

We can use zdic's 笔顺 for this:

司

  フ一丨フ一

习

  フ丶一

可

  一丨フ一丨

So technically 司 and 习 begin with a 折 stroke, while 可 begins with a 横 stroke.

笔顺 works like:

笔顺名称    一（横）    丨（竖）    丿（撇）    丶（点）    乛（折）

笔顺编号    1   2   3   4   5


how to say Relationship chemistry I know there is a word to describe "relationship chemistry" in Chinese. I think it's a 2-character word. Sort of like Extrasensory perception (ESP).

How would you say this?

靈犀?

http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&searchid=Z00000065618

心有靈犀一點通

or, in the past, 紅線 + 月下老人

http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&searchid=Z00000087005

http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&searchid=Z00000164586

info added.

one character? then it must be 緣, which could be translated to fate, destiny, or serendipity.

http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&searchid=W00000011822

the fourth explanation:

人與人或事物之間遇合的機會

"有緣" is the simplest usage


Accepting compliments (without rejecting them) I find it much more sincere to accept compliments and show how grateful I am rather than to belittle myself.
Therefore I would like to know some phrases in Chinese to accept compliments and show my gratitude rather than overhumbling myself. I do not want to know phrases like 哪裏哪裏.

How do you accept compliments in Chinese without coming off as really arrogant (taking into consideration that the Chinese culture in general highly values modesty and humility)? Although in the West it is certainly possible to accept compliments and be modest at the same time.

E.g. in English we might say:

I'm very happy to hear that!

I'm glad you liked it (for a performance or something like that)

It's very kind of you to say that.

Thank you :D

This question is a bit self-contradictory to me.

On the one hand, you asked for responses in keeping with Chinese culture's "highly [valued] modesty and humility". Yet on the other, you explicitly ruled out a customary phrases doing exactly that. Is there a specific issue you have with 哪裡哪裡 or are you rejecting all similar phrases?

Perhaps there's some misunderstanding here. Phrases like 過獎了 or 哪裡哪裡 and equivalent are hardly "overhumbling" or "belittling". They are in fact simply standard ways of accepting compliments with appropriate modesty and humility, as the question asks for. It would not be understood by most people as "rejecting" a compliment.

Having said that, you don't have to take "modesty and humility" into that much consideration. To levelly accept compliments without trying to show those virtues, simply use 謝謝, a plain "thank you".

Or you can straight up translate English into Chinese:

你喜欢让我很高兴 - I'm glad you liked it.
得到你的夸奖很高兴 - I'm very happy to hear your compliments.
你太仁慈了 - You're too kind.


What dialect could this be? (Southern China) I was yesterday in a bus in the HK neighbourhood called 上環/soeng6 waan4. A guy nearby was talking in a strange, almost alien-sounding, Chinese dialect. At some point he mentioned (what I suppose is answering a question) "tseng wan" -- with the "w" being weaker than a normal [w]. I didn't catch the tones but "zeng"/上 sounded much higher than in Canto. I'd guess it's his dialect's version of 上環. It's not Hakka, I think. (上環 in HK's Hakka is song van). According to this site, 上環 is something like sèng vãn in Toisanese. Close but not quite right.

The guy also spoke Standard Cantonese, which is why I suspect it's a Southern dialect.

Any ideas?

I guess it's Teochew (潮汕话 / 潮州话), a southern language in Guangdong and Taiwan. There're actually many Teochew people living in HK. HKers call them Chiuchow people (潮州人).

You can ask the local friends to know more about them and their language. :)


What part of speech does 至少 belong to? From briefly looking it up in a dictionary, it seems to me that 至少 is a direct equivalent of "at least" in English, and as far as I can tell its placement in a sentence follows the same set of rules. For instance:
至少我会做饭。
At least I know how to cook.
我看至少5个人。
I see at least 5 people.
But 至少 (and "at least" in English) doesn't seem to adhere to any rules pertaining to where in the sentence it's allowed to be? So what part of speech would you refer to this as? An adverb? A preposition?

In the book 汉语国际教育用词语声调组合及轻重音格式实用手册, p.241 (which is rumored to be the post-reform HSK replacement), 至少 is classified as a 副词 (adverb).  Furthermore, it's considered a 程度副词 (adverb of degree) in the book 现代华语概论.
In English, we might describe it as an adverbial since it can affect a whole phrase.


Help me identify this Chinese word? I was in Shanghai on a business trip several weeks ago. One evening, while my coworker and I were walking down Nanjing Road on the way back to our hotel, we were accosted my many ladies of the night offering their services.

Not having any interest in whatever devilry might await us should we accept their offer, we simply said "No" repeatedly in English, but that didn't seem to get the point across very well.

Later, my coworker asked our translator about the encounters, and how he could say "Go away!" or "Leave!" in Chinese. Our translator told him, with a slight smile, that he could use a word that phonetically sounds like "gwen". When asked what it meant, he said simply, "Fuck off!".

What would this Chinese word actually be (what is the hanzi in Simplified Chinese)? And is the meaning as strong as our translator suggests?

http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/266/

  滾 /gun3/

  [1] [v] roll; rotate; trundle

  [3] [v] piss off; get out; beat it

  滾 / 滚

Apparently, telling someone to "走开" (walk away) is not forceful enough. Your translator was suggesting you should tell them to "滚开 (roll away /piss off)" like an egg to express your displeasure.

In fact, there's actually a phrase "滚蛋" means exactly that.

滚 (roll) = 滚开(roll away)

I recommend against such a brunt language. To turn down the ladies of the night, you could simply say " 没兴趣"(not interested)/mei2 xing4 qu5/

  If you ask: "Why is 滚开 more forceful than 走开?" The answer is, it would be natural for people already on the ground or on their knees to roll away. Saying 滚开 implies you are in a dominating position.


What semantic notions underlie 遮 (obstruction) with 辶 (walking)? CUHK doesn't proffer an etymology. I quote Yellowbridge. How are my two guesses?

Was Ancient China so lawless and unruly that you needed to shield yourself, even when just sauntering?

Did Ancient China rain as China does now, so that you always needed a parasol? In Cantonese, 遮 means parasol. As of today,  Three Gorges Dam purportedly is overflowing.

One of the meanings of 遮 is "obstructing" - getting in the way of somebody else, thus preventing them from walking. That might be the reason why 辶 (walking) was chosen as the semantic component.
As for the usage of 遮 in Cantonese: It is easy to make a connection between "cover, shield" and "umbrella, parasol" because umbrellas/parasols are used too shield oneself from the rain or sun.  In fact, "para" in "parasol" or "parapluie" (French for umbrella) means "protecting against".


Is 再过［时间］ the most common way of expressing "in [amount of time], something will happen"? I ask after encountering the following sentence in Tatoeba:

  再过两、三个月，你就能说得一口流利的英语了。

Yes, your guess is right. However, I think you should focus on the character "再" here. There are several such patterns with "再".

The pattern "再 + verb + [], [] + 就 + []" is used to express a condition, a premise; remember that "过" here means "[time, etc] to pass, to elapse" and "再" means "to continue to do something" or "to do something again" here. This pattern is somewhat like the pattern "if sb/sth continues to do sth,sb/sth will..." in English.

  再向前走500米，你就会看见那栋建筑。 [if you ]continue to go forward for 500 meters, you will see that building.

"再" here implies "you" have covered a distance already, so now you continue to walk.

  再写一个小时我就去睡觉。 [I want to ]continue to write for 1 hour, then I will go to bed.

"再" here implies "I" have written for a while, so I want to continue to write.

  再骚扰我，我就报警。 Warning: I will call the police if [you] continue to harass me.

"再" here implies "you" have harassed me for some time, so now you continue to harass me or harass me again.

When a police officer is chasing a criminal, he would warn the criminal,

  再跑我就开枪了! I will shoot [if you continue to] run/escape.


What does “tm” mean? I think it is an Internet slang, but found a few times on the web.

Example:

  自大，在超市贵的东西都是写着纯国产 以前在语言学校的时候写作文 主题都是你认为日本哪里好 为什么喜欢日本 我tm是被逼来的 硬是编出来说日本人很有礼貌 日本的公共设施做得好 日本老师看着还一本满足 那副嘴脸真的很恶心。

What does “tm” mean? I searched on the web and found it means 他妈妈, but then it means 我他妈妈是 and does not make sense...

TM (also written TMD) is short for 他/她媽的, literally ('his/her mother's'), equivalent to English motherf*****g.

See the Wiktionary entry for more details.


What should I use to say "I love you": "wa ai lo" or "wo ai ni"? Some of my Chinese friends speak Chinese. I asked them how to say "I love you" in their language, but most of them said "wa ai lo" not "wo ai ni", how can this be?

I look for google translate, it says "wo ai ni" and not "wa ai lo".

Am I missing something here?

Here's a list of how to say "I love you" in several Chinese languages:

Mandarin, Beijing: Wo ai ni
Mandarin, Southwest: Ngo ngai ni
Minnan, Taiwan: Gua ai li
Wu, Shanghai:
(1) Ngu oi nong
(2) Ngu huoe-xi nong
Hakka, Meizhou:
(1) Ngai ai ngi
(2) Ngai jung yi ngi
Yue, Canton:
(1) Ngo oi nei
(2) Ngo jung yi nei

The word for "love" in the second variant in Wu is "歡喜"; in the second variant of Hakka and Yue it is "中意". They are considered somewhat less serious than "愛".


几点 position in sentence As I know words describing time are placed before and after Subject, e.g.:

  昨天晚上八点我去超市了。

  我昨天晚上八点去超市了。

So I expected the same to be in questions,

  昨天晚上几点你去超市了？ OR

  你昨天晚上几点去超市了？

but I saw something like breaking time before & after Subject:

  昨天晚上你几点去超市了？

Is it grammaticaly correct?

Yes, it is grammatically correct.

And it is very natural.

Breaking it apart (somehow) gives the "eight o'clock" part an emphasis. You can also say 昨天晚上我八点去超市了, if you want to emphasize on "八点".

Question words are sometimes automatically emphasized (as it is what the speaker cares about), so it is very natural to say: 昨天晚上你几点去超市了？


What motivates the use of 把 in Chinese? I find sentences with 把 intriguing. I wonder why the Chinese language developed this usage. I, wrongly, made the assumption all sentences that use 把 like this can be simply rearranged.

I have this sentence from my text book:

它把灵魂塑造看得和学问同等重要。

So if I rearrange:

它看灵魂塑造得和学问同等重要。 Not good I'm told.
它看灵魂塑造和学问得同等重要。 Also not good.
它看灵魂塑造和学问同等重要。 Also not good, not said this way.
在它看来，灵魂塑造和学问同等重要。 Acceptable.

What motivates the use of 把 in Chinese？

把 ([介] 1) means 将.

  (1) 表示处理、处置的意思。(treating) 如：“把门关上”、“把脸洗净”。

  (2) 表示致使、导致的意思。(leading) 如：“把他惹恼了”、“把你气哭了”、“把我急疯了”。

把 or 将 is used in front of the object when we move the object to the front of the verb.

它把“灵魂塑造”看得和“学问”同等重要。

把...看得 = 视

它视“灵魂塑造”和“学问”同等重要。(The verb is in front of the objects.)


Do native English speakers naturally speak in the 4th tone? I've been scratching my head for quite a while now because I've been trying way to hard to pronounce words in the 4th tone. I understand how it's supposed to work (with tone decreasing) but it felt unnatural in comparison to the preceding 3 tones. After listening to several different audio sources it finally occurred to me that every word I've ever uttered in English has seems to qualify as 4th tone. I was only having difficulty because I was wasting my time trying to drop my tone even further than I would have done otherwise. Is this a quirk unique to me or is this something all English speakers do and somehow isn't being mentioned to new learners?

I don't know how native English speakers feel, but my perception is that words like "hard" "luck" are close to the fourth tone when you read them alone.

An interesting fact is that even the tones are the same, the characters are pronounced significantly differently in a passage.

Here is a passage where all characters are of the fourth tone. You may try to read it aloud, or ask a native to read it (naturally, not robotic) for you and record it. Listen carefully to find out the truth.

少帅见利忘义，为庇护政治势力，竟犯上作乱介入内战，酿就事变，太过放肆！后计划泄露，被控告重罪并入狱。

梦碎后，教训历历在目，少帅大彻大悟下放下恶念，落泪叹道：“这就是宿命。现在落到这个地步，部下、后代亦被迫害，若未背信弃义算计大位，境况会是现在这样？太幼稚，太意气用事！”但少帅却未忘咒骂：“怪赵四那贱货，要是未泄密，刺客会被卫队看到？大业会败露？”

这个教训告诉各位，欲干大事，既要注意部队纪律、践诺信义，又要控制色欲、战胜诱惑。若欲占据宋氏幼妹，勿忘后院那位妒妇，是忿恨混入爱意，竟让赵四放弃父辈政治旧怨，暗地助力挫败叛乱。但，事变最后竟是促就抗日战线扩大，就事论事，亦算是个意外获利。

各位，故事就到这，在下快递要到，外面在叫，再会~

Credit to Zhihu user 树神彧