Do all schools in China teach in Standard Chinese (普通话)? When I went to China, it was apparent that many (sometimes most) people still spoke their local dialects instead of Standard Chinese/Putonghua (also known as "Mandarin" in English). I was told that because older people didn't know Putonghua, everyone also had to know the local dialect.

But it is China's official language. Are all schools in China required to teach only in Standard Chinese?

Are students who complete at least compulsory education in China expected to speak it fluently?

Based on my own experience, Not!

Although the schools are asked to use the Mandarin in classroom, there are still many schools that doesn't follow this rule. I was born in a little city in west China, and I had never spoken in Mandarin, before I went to the university.

In big cities, schools follow this rule, while in small cities, especially in the poor areas, many teachers are local and can't speak Mandarin very well, how could they teach the students in Mandarin? Of course, it'a trend that more and more teachers speak in Mandarin in classroom. At present, if you want to be teacher in China, you have to pass the Mandarin exam to get certified, so more and more young teachers can speak Mandarin, however, there are plenty of old teachers who can not as well.


According to the official rules of pinyin, should 道德经 be transcribed with or without spaces between the individual syllables? While reading the Wikipedia article about the 道德经 / 道德經, I noticed how inconsistent it is in its pinyin transcription of that book title. Here are the transliterations found in the article (the link in the previous sentence intentionally points to the current version, since the inconsistency may be edited out of the article at some point after the submission of this question):

Dàodé Jīng
Dao De Jing
Dàodéjīng
Daodejing (e.g. "The title "Daodejing", with its status as a classic, was only first applied from the reign of Emperor Jing of Han (157–141 BCE) onward.")

I am intentionally ignoring the Wade-Giles transcription. That the transcription sometimes includes tone diacritics (for those familiar with pinyin) and sometimes does not (for those who don't know what those dashes mean) is something I can also live with. My concern is the inconsistency in the use of spaces between individual syllables. Previously, I assumed that 道,德 and 经 were three different words, since disyllabic words were rare in Classical Chinese (they were typically loanwords); hence I expected a transcription that uses spaces between each syllable: dào dé jīng (ignoring capitalisation).
However, the Wikipedia article also uses a transliteration without a space between the first two syllables and adds: 'Compare the compound word 道德 (pinyin: dàodé; Wade–Giles: tao⁴-tê²), literally "ethics", "ethical principles", "morals" or "morality".'
Do the official rules of pinyin favour one transliteration (especially "dào dé jīng") over other ones (especially "dàodé jīng")? Do these rules also take into account whether a book title is in Classical Chinese or in modern putonghua? (I add the second question in case 道德 turns out to be a more recent concept than the 道德经 itself.)

Most of foreigners use emphasized text "Tao Te Ching". Of course, it's not in Mandarin Chinese Pinyin, but in old Chinese Pinyin. It is very common, such as Peking and Sun Yat-sen. And, how to write it in Mandarin Chinese Pinyin?
Rules:
There should be a space between two words what mean different.
《现代汉语词典》 Xiàndài Hànyǔ Cídiǎn
《毛主席语录》 Mao Zhuxi Yulu
《市民准则》 SHIMIN ZHUNZE
Here's the exact rule:

书报名、标题名可以全部大写，也可以每个词开头的字母大写，有时为了美观，可以省略声调符号。如：
儿童文学 ERTONG WENXUE
《现代汉语小词典》，复旦大学出版社，P1011

To solve this problem, we need to know is "道" and "德" in one word, or have different meaning. I searched for it, and got to know:
"道" is "天地万物的演化运行机制(The evolutionary operating mechanism of the universe)".
"德" is "人的素质或者事物品质(Quality of people or things)".
Also, there are two parts in "Tao Te Ching", 《道经》 and 《德经》. So, it should be "Dao De Jing".
Why not "Daode Jing"?
In modern Chinese, "道德" is one word, means "人们共同生活及其行为的准则和规范(The rules and norms of people living together and their behavior)". It's different to "道德" in《道德经》.
Actually, you can also translate it yourself. For example, you can translate it into "Theory of Everything and Code of Conduct in all the Time in Life"(my bad translation). But I still think "Tao Te Ching" is the best choice because it is common. When people see this title, they knows which book it is in a few seconds.


Difference between 儘量 and 盡量? Both 儘量 and 盡量 seem to mean, "try your best," according to these dictionary entries:

https://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/sentsearch.php?word=%E7%9B%A1%E9%87%8F
https://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/sentsearch.php?word=%E5%84%98%E9%87%8F

1) In Mandarin and Cantonese, is there a difference for when you use 儘量 vs 盡量? Or are they interchangeable?

'儘' in '儘量' has the 亻 Radical, denote 'human effort'

  儘量 :'to the best of one's ability' ; 'as far as possible' (in term of human effort)

  Do not confuse with 盡量 which is different in form, reading, and meaning.

~

  盡量 : reach the limit (drink or eat); to the full

  Do not confuse with 儘量 which is different in form, reading, and meaning.

Example:

When you say '我會儘量給他貸款' , you mean: 'I (personally) will do my best to give him a loan' (to the best of you ability to secure a loan for him)
When you say '我會盡量給他貸款', you mean: " I will give him the maximum amount in loan'. (if the bank only authorizes you to lent out loans no bigger than $5000, then $5000 loan is the limit)

Another example:

儘量投放物資 - do one's best to deliver supplies
盡量投放物資 - deliver maximum amount of supplies until it is exhausted

  尽 is the simplified form for both 盡 and 儘.

Which mean in Mainland China, 儘量 and 盡量 are both written as 尽量, but their pinyin are different depend on which meaning you are using.


How come 星 (star) is used in 星期 (week)? How come that the character 星 (star) is used in the word for week 星期?

期 means a period of time, but why is week "star"?

In ancient China, makers of calendars tried to relate rotation of stars or star constellations with mythological deities. In fact, Chinese calendar doesn't carry the concept of week.

European names for "week days" are represented by Greek/Roman mythological deities. European creating the "week" concept from there.

Chinese scholar use 星期 to represent week when China adapt the universal international calendar, which means the day/period of the constellation/star deity complete their "duty roster". Only Sunday 星期日/天 follow the Roman/Greek, which may be due to influence of European missionary.

  1905年，清朝学部的袁嘉谷筹建编译图书局，后任该局首任局长，编写官定各种教材，设立了一个新机构统一规范教科书中的术语，把七日一周制定为中国自己的“星期”。

  In 1905, Qing Dynasty education officer Yuan-Jia-Gu establish translation and library division for the education department to standardised technical jargon. This is when Chinese use 星期 to represent the week.

On the other hand, Japanese is using the Roman/Greek deity to represent days, as in Europe. Japan is using 曜 that carry similar meaning as constellation/star.

Note : Johann Adam Schall von Bell(May 1, 1592 – August 15, 1666) is helping Qing dynasty perfecting the Chinese calendar.  Chinese has stronger cultural interaction with Europe than many can imagine.

(update) for those curious about Japan week days

星期一：月曜日 Monday, Máni, avatar of moon
星期二：火曜日 Tuesday , The god Tiw, identified with Mars
星期三：水曜日 Wednesday, Germanic god Woden, avatar of Mercury
星期四：木曜日 Thursday, Thor's (Jupiter's) day
星期五：金曜日 Friday, goddess Frigg, Roman goddess Venus
星期六：土曜日 Saturday, Roman god Saturn
星期日：日曜日 Sunday,   Sól, avatar of Sun


How to determine if a word occurs more in written or spoken language? I recently encountered the word 随着, which was translated by my text as a figurative "following", as in "Following X, Y". At first glance, this "following" translation sounds very formal, almost too formal for conversational English, but it was unclear to me if my text author had intended to convey this connotation.

When learning a new word, how can I tell if it's used more in written or spoken speech? When a word is used predominantly in one register, how can I find what words substitute for it in other registers?

I've considered using corpora for this, but publicly accessible corpora for spoken Chinese are few and far between.

I ask in part because I've previously studied Japanese, where the distinction is strong enough that major references will distinguish written and spoken expressions, see the discussion here. Are there any Chinese references that make this distinction? Or are the registers similar enough that separate word choice is rarely necessary? This blog post seems to suggest otherwise.

I should be clear that I'm not talking about elasticity here, I'm thinking of cases where 2 synonyms or grammatical constructions have non-overlapping distributions of felicity.

Maybe this is an inappropriate answer.

Dictionary for I know, doesn't make such distinction extensively (I remember few words did have a mark indicating its formality).

The reason is simple. Unlike Japanese the language itself has a clear oral and written distinction, with quite different grammar, it's definitely fine to write something the same as you say it.

It doesn't mean there isn't any difference in wording. The words you put to use reflect your attitude, education and cultivation, etc.

The features of usual spoken sentences  are:

Not concise, run-on, using common plain words for verbs, adjectives and adverbs, with many 的/了/多/着/... grammar words, simple sentence syntax.

But the level of written language is of a wide range.

So called oral/spoken language in Chinese, I think, are unsophisticated and unprocessed expressions that first come into your mind when you are about to utter words. Many well educated people, they actually say written language (in others' eyes), and on the contrary, many poor writings are close to internet chatting. (The least requirement of a written form is that you do not use many filler words and 的/了/多/着...)

e.g. Translation of the above.

spoken:

这可能算不上是答案。

我是不知道哪本词典条条目目都给分书不书面的（但有的词还是有个正式程度的标）。

道理很简单呐。不像日语口语书面语分得很开，语法都不一样，中文你照说的写，完全没问题。

但这不是说用词一点区别都没有，你用什么词能看得出你这人的态度啊，学识啊，修养之类的。

口语一般有这些特点：

啰里吧嗦，一路逗号，大白话，的啊了啊多啊着啊一堆，句子成分也简单。

但书面语的程度分别就大了。

我觉得中文所谓的口语啊，就是要说话了第一个想到的话，用的都是没来得及加工的简单东西。很多有文化的人，出口就是一般人想半天写的东西，反过来说，有的人写的乱七八糟的网上聊天似的。

written:

这解答也许难称合适。

就我所知，还无词典对词条书面程度广加类分，衹偶见标注罢了。

但其缘故无繁。不若和语言文迥异，至于语法专用，汉语笔书白文，并无不妥。

此言并非教人无别而轻词用，遣词如何，恭倨、博浅、修鄙，皆在其中。

口语大抵特点如下：

壅冗接缀，实词浅近，行句直脱，的了多着一类，赘词太多。

而书面之层次则甚蕃。

所谓口语，依我孔见，不过口将言而句已生，直白粗砺，略无藻饰。富学之人，虽言而文于外人耳。反之，寡薄者为文之不堪，反倒若如今网聊。


What does "你舒服吗" mean in a relationship context? I was practicing speaking Chinese with a native-speaking learning partner and used the phrase “你舒服吗” while referring to whether one is stressed out or relaxed.

The partner told me that it's unusual to use this phrase because it's often used in a sexual or relationship context. I was trying to figure out what this phrase means in this context, but I could not find an equivalent expression in English. I'm also guessing there is a cultural difference which I don't understand.

What does the expression "你舒服吗" mean in a relationship context?

歪了歪了…… I can see why 你舒服吗 will be easily interpreted as sexually comfortable.

Because without any context, we will not use 舒服 to describe relaxation of mind. And extremely structurally simple sentences are often uttered in sexual intercourse...(Think about it.)

Avoiding using words that have ambiguous meanings like 舒服, however, is an option.

The best choice is applying both: longer, specific sentence & proper words.

E.g.

我快要到了（I am about to arrive.）√

要来了（I'm coming...）x

你感到放松吗（Are you feeling relaxed?）√

你舒服吗？（emmm...）x

这椅子坐起来很安适呀（The armchair feels very comfortable to sit on）√

好舒服呀（Ah~Good~Yeah~）x


Could 看不起 work as the Mandarin equivalent of 睇唔起? This dictionary entry says the Mandarin equivalent of Cantonese's 睇唔起 is 瞧不起.

http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/15825/

Some Mandarin speakers seem to use 看不起.

Is 看不起 a valid way of expressing 睇唔起, or are those Mandarin speakers using the wrong term?

Is 看不起 a valid way of expressing 睇唔起

It is a direct translation

瞧不起/ 看不起 in Mandarin = 睇唔起 in Cantonese

瞧得起/ 看得起 in Mandarin = 睇得起 in Cantonese

瞧不起 is more colloquial; 看不起 is more literary


How to improve my Chinese handwriting? When someone has grasped the basic concepts of writing Chinese, there comes a point where handwriting starts to look plain or mechanical. From what I have seen, the lines look very straight and like someone who has just copied directly from a book.

I know with my own journey I have gradually been given pointers to improve my writing that were simple, but changed my writing significantly to make it look much more elegant.

The two that come to mind immediately were to ensure that radicals were written smaller than the rest of the character and to have horizontal lines slightly angled upward.

What pointers can you give to someone who has a basic grasp of writing so that they can make their writing appear more professional / more beautiful?

This may not be something that everyone does, but could assist someone with developing their own style as not all techniques work for everyone.

NOTE: Please provide concrete, useable answers, not just find some books and copy. I am looking for techniques that are practical and useable.

1) Ensure correct proportions between all parts. Don't scrunch in. Don't squeeze down. Don't squeeze together.

2) Radicals should be smaller on top and thinner on sides. Don't make radicals the same size as the rest of the character.

3) Horizontal strokes appear much nicer if they go up at a slight angle.

4) Ensure vertical strokes don't go off at a weird angle and if there are multiple horizontal strokes make sure they are in harmony.

5) Top to bottom = thin to fat

6) Ensure left hand side radical height is similar in height to rest of the character (this has some exceptions).

7) Make sure second tier horizontal lines are long enough and longer than first tier horizontal lines.


What is the English translation of my chop? Is it right side up? I bought calligraphy supplies in a Chinatown and talked with the owner of the store. I told the person (who had her uncle carve this) that I was an artist/painter. I also told her my name in English is Brenda, which comes from Celtic meanings of raven or flaming sword/torch, and that I loved gardening and bamboo.  She took notes and sent it off to her uncle. The finished chop was picked up by someone else, and now years later her store is no longer there. I am hoping someone can tell me what my chop says, and if it is right side up.  Please pardon my ignorance.

百郎妲 /Bǎi láng dá/ is a transliteration of your name Brenda

The meanings of the individual characters in 百郎妲 is irrelevant

Google transliterates Brenda as 布伦达, which is different from  the one on your chop.


What is the difference between these two sentences? 我跑了3公里的步 vs 我跑步跑了3公里. They both mean "I ran for 3 km", right?

跑 | 3公里的 | 步

跑步 is a simple (verb) + (noun) structure: 跑 (verb) + 步 (noun)
3公里的 is a relative clause of the noun 步, that describe the length of it.
The relative clause 3公里的 is inserted between the verb and the noun 跑 | 3公里的 | 步

跑步 | 跑了3公里 is a (topic) + (statement) structure

跑步 (topic) + 跑了3公里 (statement)

The difference between #1. and #2. is:

treat 跑 | 步 as (verb) + (noun), then add a relative clause for the noun

The typical is :S+V+O.

他（S）跑(V)步（O）跑了三公里（补语）。
Notice that We can totally ignore “跑了三公里”, so this is just answering for "How long did he ran"？So that's 3 kilometers.


Translation: Feng Guifen's comments on English (1861) In Evan Osnos's book "Age of Ambition" there's an excerpt that says:

  This was a sharp reversal from the past. In nineteenth-century China, English was held in contempt as the language of the middlemen who dealt with foreign traders. “These men are generally frivolous rascals and loafers in the cities and are despised in their villages and communities,” the reformist scholar Feng Guifen wrote in 1861. But Feng knew that China needed English for diplomatic purposes, and he called for the creation of special language schools. “There are many brilliant people in China; there must be some who can learn from the barbarians and surpass them,” he wrote.

It seems that it is from 冯桂芬's《校邠庐抗议》where he talks a lot about 西学 and whatnot - but I might be wrong.

What was the original Chinese of:

“These men are generally frivolous rascals and loafers in the cities and are despised in their villages and communities,”

And

“There are many brilliant people in China; there must be some who can learn from the barbarians and surpass them,”

the internet archive is your friend :)

it's in the book "校邠廬抗議", 卷下﹒采西學議 (p66, p69)

https://archive.org/details/02092023.cn

There are many brilliant people in China; there must be some who can learn from the barbarians and surpass them

中國多秀民﹒必有出於夷而轉勝於夷者

These men are generally frivolous rascals and loafers in the cities and are despised in their villages and communities,

其人率皆市井佻達游閒﹒不齒鄉里

it seems that your book "age of ambition" is quite interesting :)


What is the meaning of 一看 in 打开盒子一看，里面是一只小猫? 打开盒子一看，里面是一只小猫

Is it the same as 看看 or 看一看？

打开盒子看，里面是一只小猫 (open the box and look, it is a kitten inside)

看 here is a simple verb 'to see'

  打开盒子看看，里面是一只小猫 (open the box and briefly (or casually) look, it is a kitten inside)

看看 here is a reduplication of verb ; reduplication verb imply the verb is occurring in a brief time period, in a slight degree or in a casual manner.

  打开盒子看一看，里面是一只小猫 (open the box and looked once, it is a kitten inside)

看一看 (look one look = look one time = looked once) is  [verb + counting word + verb classifier]; the same structure can be applied to other verbs, e.g. 打一打 (hit one hit = hit one time = hit once); you can replace '一' with different counting words like '看幾看' (look few looks = look few times)

  打开盒子一看，里面是一只小猫 (open the box and quickly look, it is a kitten inside)

一看 here is [adverb (一) + verb (看)] ; '一' as an adverb means 'once, abruptly, quickly or briefly'

Example of '一' as an adverb:

他心中一怒 (not 他心中怒一怒) means "he abruptly get angry inside"

曹操一听大怒 (not 曹操听一听大怒) means "once Cao Cao heard it, he got very angry"

我一想不錯 (not 我想一想不錯) means "once I think about it, I know it is correct"

他终于能一展抱负 (not 他终于能展一展抱负) means "he finally can extend his ambition for once" or "he finally can extend his ambition abruptly"

他一改风格 (not 他改一改风格) means 'He abruptly changes style' or 'He changes style for once')


Help finishing my translation of a (short) Chinese forum post. Also looking for advice about parsing Chinese stories/narratives The post is the third one from here https://www.zhihu.com/question/35679513

Here's the part I don't quite understand:

  其实这个故事一点也不美好，

  说白了也是自己一厢情愿的事儿，现在自己走出来了就好一点了吧， 原来挺有耐心的，想坚持一下， 后来学姐跟我说，你不能活在她的阴影里啊，
  所以我觉得我得走出来。

And here's my attempt at translating it:

  Actually this isn't a nice story at all.

  Speaking frankly, ...(don't understand)... Originally I was very patient, and wanted to persevere, but
  then an elder schoolmate said to me "You can't live in her shadow", so
  ...(don't understand)...

Part of the problem is obviously that I don't know what 走出来 means. But more fundamentally, I often find that when I'm reading Chinese text I find it very hard to keep track of who the subject is and the time frames of each verb. Frequently I will be able to understand every character and every individual word but still be very confused about what the actual narrative is. Has anyone else got this problem? How do I get past this stage?

(for reference, I am somewhere between HSK5-6 level).

一厢情愿 means 'wishful thinking' or 'one sided feeling'  It is a common idiom. Contrary to '两情相悦' (both share the same feeling of love)

It is hard to understand what the meaning of 走出来 (walk out) when read it out of context

走出来 in this context means 'get out of (this relationship)', We know that because this guy was asking "恋爱两个月女友连手也不让牵，该不该继续下去?"  (after two months of romantic dating, my girlfriend still doesn't let me hold her hand, should I continue or not?)

He was obvious talking about should or shouldn't he stay in this so call romance

  I often find that when I'm reading Chinese text I find it very hard to keep track of who the subject is and the time frames of each verb

Chinese writing often omit subject when who or what is the subject is clearly implied in the context, therefore, you must read enough context to keep track of who the subject is. For example, if you just get one sentence "同不同意?" you will not know who is being asked, but if you know it is from a conversation between two friends, the subject would clearly be the speaker's friend.

Chinese verbs do not use tenses, therefore you have to have enough context to tell what tense a verb is in. See How do you specify past tense for 是? for reference

Note:

美好的故事 means beautiful story


Objects with potential complements Objects in sentences with potential complements can occur either after the complement or at the beginning of a sentence .

For example:

这个大米我吃得完。
or
我吃得完这个大米。

They both work, but one sounds weird in English.

Is this just a distinction between Chinese and English?
Or am I missing the idea of correct interpretation??

First, 个 is not a classifier for 大米 , So I changed it to 些

There are only two potential particles for verbs.

得 (able to)
不 (unable to)

吃完 = eat all

吃[得]完 = [able to] eat all

吃[不]完 = [unable to] eat all

The placement of the object is flexible. When using [subject+ verb + object]sentence structure, the object is placed after the the verb, e.g. 我吃了米 (the verb particles 得 and 完 are part of the verb)
The object can also be placed before the verb in passive voice sentences e.g. '米被我吃了'
The object can also acts as the topic in [topic] + [comment] structure, and be placed at the beginning of the sentence.

  [S+V+O] sentence:

  [1. 我] [2. 吃] [3. 得] [4. 完] [5. 这些大米]

  [1. subject] [2. verb] [3. potential particle] [4. resultive particle ] [5. object]

It is very straight forward--  'subject' then 'verb' then 'object'.

  [Topic+ comment/opinion] sentence:

  [1. 这些大米] [2. 我吃得完]

  [1. topic] [2.comment]

  [这些大米(topic)] + [我吃得完(comment)]

  The object [这些大米] is the topic. the relative clause [我吃得完] is the comment.

Both examples above are grammatically correct.

  [O+S+V] sentence (passive voice):

  [1. 这些大米] [2. 被][3. 我] [4. 吃] [5. 完]

  [1. object] [2. passive marker] [3. subject] [4.verb] [5. resultive particle ]

We don't use passive voice with potential particle. Potential particle only works in active voice

[这些大米被我吃完] is grammatically correct
[这些大米被我吃得完] is grammatically incorrect

  Objects with potential complements

In summary:

object must be placed after the verb in [SVO]  sentence, and potential complement is part of the verb.
object can be placed at the beginning of a sentence in [topic + comment] sentences.
in [OSV] (passive voice) sentence, we don't use potential complement


Thoughts on the expression 腦洞大開? 腦洞大開 (Simplified: 脑洞大开) seems to be a phrase that's making its rounds in Sinophone online communities (a Google search may be illuminating), although its precise meaning as of yet still eludes me. It seems that different people have been using it to mean very different things. I've observed some using it to mean "thought-provoking", and others to mean essentially "exceedingly foolish".

What I wish to know, however, is if anyone has any idea where the phrase actually comes from. Being a student of mathematics, my obvious idea is the famous exclamation "my brain is open!" by Paul Erdős, the itinerant mathematician who uses the phrase to greet local mathematicians whenever he wanders to a new place. This meaning doesn't really correspond to the usage of the Chinese phrase, but it seems to be a plausible theory of its origin. Could anyone who follows Chinese online communities more closely than I do possibly shed some light on this neologism?

Coderzelf's point about the origin of 脑洞 is correct (At least 脑洞 comes from 脑补 is the most accepted view) , but his explanation for 脑补 isn't so accurate. Though sometimes 脑补 is used to express "figure out the actual meaning of something very implicit", more frequently, this phrase is used for deliberate delusions.

Another possible origin of 脑洞 is it comes from the phrase 脑子进水, which means… er … "out of one's mind", so 脑洞大开 is sometimes used to express that something is foolish, but notice that this is mainly joking, not ironic.

BTW, 脑洞, 脑补, etc. are all new phrases and their meaning isn't completely stable currently, So their meaning may changed in the future. (Does anyone have the newest edition of 《现代汉语词典》 at hand? Has it included these phrases? They are included in some internet encyclopedias though. ) Here's a reference for 脑洞:

http://zh.moegirl.org/%E8%84%91%E6%B4%9E

One thing I forgot to mention: Actually there's a tendency to use 脑洞大开 as a joking version of 异想天开. This isn't mentioned even in any internet encyclopedia, but it's true  as far as I can see.


translation of text and seals on painting (Poet identified: Pu Ru 溥儒) its been in the family since the 1950's, I asked a friend but he couldn't read it. also google translate was rubbish. friend said the calligraphy was to hard.

added the very bottom bit

井・飛影露走・

閒坐階前為有情

萬里碧空雲似錦

月・團扇不分明

茗函冷澀石生斑

苦竹・・・檻間

扇影生寒消月魄

・聲邊・成雲山

・・・影玉西沉

落・江上變秋音

誰知錦瑟・・然

玉露微霜正傷・

結合畫面來看，是思歸之詩。秋仲，霜降露結之日，月朧雲疏之時，少婦執團扇，捧香茗，倚坐石邊階前，是“為有情”也。至月沉日更，霜已成露，沸茶作冰，不知何處秋音自起，再添神傷。

（但是詩寫得確實不咋滴（坐了這麽久居然還沒凍死））

不過特意自題“飛鴻”、“舊王孫”，還叫“溥儒”，不得不讓人揣測“美人自喻”，“黍離麥秀”，“故國招魂”那檔子事情。


What is the difference between 太太 and 夫人? What is the difference between 太太 and 夫人? My book (外国人学汉语) translates it as the same word. “Woman (married)” and it says they can both be a suffix as well as a noun.
Question: Is there really no difference between the two?

In modern Chinese:

太太 is a common title for "Mrs." or a noun for "married woman" (in general)

  Mrs. : a title used before a surname or full name to address or refer to a married woman, or a woman who has been married, without a higher or honorific or professional title.

夫人 is a more formal honorific or title for "Madam" or a noun for "married woman" (of high status)"

  Madam :(often initial capital letter) a polite term of address to a woman, originally used only to a woman of rank or authority:

In short, 太太 is a general title for married women; 夫人 is a more formal/honorable title for married women;

女仕 is another honorific for women. A formal/ polite term for addressing to adult woman  (single or married)

The difference between 太太 and 夫人 is somewhat similar to San (さん) and Sama (様) in Japanese


How would you translate "throttling" to Chinese? Just the word throttle or when it is used in phrases like "bandwidth throttling" or "throttle internet connection"

Bandwidth throttling=带宽限制

Throttled internet connection=（带宽）受限的网络连接


Some self-sufficient Chinese phrases. Help me? I would love to learn some more functional Chinese, especially Chinese that will allow me to become self sufficient in my own learning. I have a year of Chinese under my belt, but I am having trouble speaking to Chinese natives/students here in Shanghai. Can you translate the following phrases to me in Chinese and Pinyin?

1) How do I say this word in Chinese?

2) How do I say this phrase in Chinese?

3) What is the most standard way to say X in Chinese?

4) verb, noun, adjective. Is word X an adjective?

5) If I say something unusual or pronounce something unusually, can you do me a favor and correct me?

6) Since I am trying to learn Chinese, can you give me some useful phrases to say in Chinese everyday?

7)How do I use Chinese to say X? Can you provide me an example sentence? Can you use the word in a sentence?

Here you go. Kudos to @S.Rhee and @nacho.

1) How do I say this word in Chinese?

这  个  词 怎  么  念?
zhe ge ci zen me nian?

2) How do I say this phrase in Chinese?

这  话   用   汉  语  怎  么  说？
zhe hua yong han yu zen me shuo?

3) What is the most standard way to say X in Chinese?

用    最  标   准   的 普  通   话  怎  么  说   X？
yong zui biao zun de pu tong hua zen me shuo X?

4) verb, 动词 (dong ci)

noun, 名词 (ming ci)

adjective. 形容词 (xing rong ci)

Is word X an adjective?

X 是  形    容   词  吗？
X shi xing rong ci ma?

5) If I say something unusual or pronounce something unusually, can you do me a favor and correct me?

如果  我  用词    不当    或   发音   异常，    你 帮    我  改正      一下    好吗？
ruguo wo yongci budang  huo fayin yichang, ni bang  wo gaizheng  yixia  haoma?

6) Since I am trying to learn Chinese, can you give me some useful phrases to say in Chinese everyday?

因为    我   想      学习    中文，     您   讲      给   我  一些   日常用语      好吗?
yinwei  wo  xiang   xuexi  zhongwen  nin  jiang  gei  wo yixie  richangyongyu haoma?

7)How do I use Chinese to say X?

用    汉语   怎么   说   X？
yong hanyu  zenme shuo X?

Can you provide me an example sentence?

请    给  我  说   个  例句  好吗？
qing gei wo shuo ge liju haoma?

Can you use the word in a sentence?

请   用    这 词  造  个 句  好吗?
qing yong ze ci zao ge ju haoma?


What is the formal/polite way to begin and end an email in Chinese? In English, formal emails, e.g. emails to a professor, often start with "Hi", "Hello", "Dear" followed by the receiver's name (and title, if applicable). The ending is usually "Best", "Regards", "Sincerely" followed by the writer's name. Does Chinese have similar constructs? Or does it have more/less strict rules?

The traditional Chinese letter is very complex.It has many honorifics that vary greatly for different receivers.

But today,most people's traditional education is insufficient to write these letter.

For email,people tend to write simply and practicably。

Habitual formation。

example:

周老师：
    您好！
    我是Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit,
sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna a...
    这个Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit,
sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna a...
    敬祝！
安康！

                                                       学生 Jacob  敬上
                                                       2015.04.10

example 2:

陈英俊先生 道鉴
    去年入先生门下，承蒙恩师言传身教，宿愿得偿。中文潦草，敬启夫子。
     。。。。。。
     。。。。。。。。
     。。。。。。。。。。。

    敬请
 教安
                                                        授业  张三顿首
                                                        乙未 二月廿二


Does "Ni zai nar? Ni zuo shenme?" correctly express "Where are you? What are you doing?" Where are you? What are you doing?

I translated this to:

  Ni zai nar? Ni zuo shenme?

But I found

  Ni zai zuo shenme?

online.  How is it zai zuo (in + to do)? Is it correct if I just say zuo (to do)?? Does it express the right meaning?

We usually don't say "你做什么(ni zuo shen me)". We only say it when we are shocked, like when you just meet a man trying to robber you, you'll say that to him.

If you're asking someone what are you doing, you should use "你在做什么(ni zai zuo shen me)".


What distinguishes 教师 (jiàoshī) and 老师 (lǎoshī) which both mean "teacher"? I just got new ID from Nankai Uni which lists me as 教师 (jiàoshī = teacher).  I'm more familiar with the word 老师 (lǎoshī) which also means teacher.  What is the difference between 教师 and 老师?

Seems like it's a common question. 现代汉语规范词典 has a note, about it, on it's entry for 老师:

  注意 跟“教师”“教员”不同。“老师”可以接受表示人的名词或人称代词的限定, 如“小王的老师”“她的老师”; “教师”“教员”不能这样用。“老师”是称谓词, 适用范围宽泛, 还可用来称呼其他行业的某些专业人员; “教师”“教员”是职业名称, 仅指担任教学工作的专职人员。

老师 can be a noun or personal pronoun, as in “小王的老师” (Wang's teacher) or “她的老师” (Her teacher) - “教师” and “教员” cannot be used this way.

老师 can also be used, with a broad scope, as a title and can be used to call professionals in different capacities - “教师” and “教员” are professional designations that only refer to school teaching personnel.

-

On a side note: this reminded of people from 重庆 - you'll often here 重庆 people refer to each other as 老师 as a simple term of respect - it's their equivalent to sir/ma'am.

-

Formal terms like Teacher's Day use the word 教师 - 教师节.


Explanation for the meaning of 八竿子打不着? The modern colloquial phrase "八竿子打不着" is used as an adjective to describe "very distant, unrelated". Example:

  这是八竿子打不着的事情，怎么能联系上呢？

It literally means "couldn't hit with even eight poles". I can see how this leads to the actual meaning, but

What does the eight represent? Eight poles (why)? A unit of measure? A metaphor for "many"?
What does the hitting with poles signify? Does it represent a specific activity?

There are a few theories - folk etymologies really - about where this came from, but none are referenced well. The earliest record of this phrase is usually attributed to the novel 飘飞的大雪 by 母国政, which unfortunately does not shed any more light on the origin of this phrase.

well, what I heard is another story, but I cannot confirm or verify it. “八(ba1)竿子打不着” MAYBE came from "爬(pa2)竿子打不着“，here 竿子 means ladder, and ”爬竿子打不着“ means "it's too high, you cannot hit it even with a ladder (when you climbed a ladder)". And since "pa" and "ba" sounds similar, it became "ba" in current version.


What are these Chinese character stamps? I found these stamps in an old book, what are they I can hardly make them out? And what do they mean.

The stamp in the first picture says

  郭顯德

It is a person's name, and if you prefer simplified Chinese, it would be

  郭显德

The stamp in the second picture says

  烟台 · 長老傳道會

The first two characters is the name of a city in Shandong province, while the rest is the name of a club.


How to translate "The Dreams that Stuff is Made of " into Chinese? "The Dreams That Stuff Is Made Of" is the title of a book written by Stephen Hawking. I can't find any translation of the name of this book.

Here is the last page of the introduction of this book. The last paragraph may help you to understand the meaning of the name of this book.

From Google Translates
The dreams that stuff Is made of = 这些东西是由这些梦想组成的

"东西是由这些梦组成的" (literal translation)
or
"物质是由这些幻觉组成的" / "物質是由這些幻覺組成的" = "Matter is composed of these hallucinations" (descriptive translation)


how can I change sentence not using 得? my question is

大声回答 can be changed to 回答得大声 ?

So if I can make other sentences using V+de (得)+Adj become Adj+V ?

得(去声) refers to 'must,have to '
回答得大声  回答 is V.  and 大声 is Adj. So you can make other sentences using V+de (得)+Adj become Adj+V ,but,a point need to notice, for another example,教室得打扫 and 打扫教室 ,though it is can be exchange ,but their means are little difference, the first one has another meaning that the classroom is dirty and need to clean.

In addition, if the sentence is pronoun+得+ V ,in this condition,you can't exchange like before,for example: 我得去游泳 ,we can't say 游泳我.


What is the name (in 普通话) of a card game known as "three card brag"? I heard of this game "three card brag"  - didn't quite catch the name? Also - is there a place that states the rules that you could reference me to? 多谢 ：）

我喜欢中国的纸牌游戏！ 特别斗地主。

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_card_brag

'brag' meaning exaggerate, pretend you have really good cards.

晓云说了是‘炸金华‘=
Xiaoyun said it is ‘炸金华‘


How to say "自身的兴趣“ in English How do you say something is your "自身的兴趣“, instead of being forced by the outside, in English

Is "inherent interest" fine?

Not knowing the context, I would guess that ‘personal interest’ is the best way to express this.  People have professional or academic interests that are connected with work or studies.  In contrast to those, they have hobbies, and these are their personal interests.

‘Inherent interest’ is different – a student could say ‘I’m learning about plant genetics at the moment, but the topic has no inherent interest for me.’  He or she isn’t interested in plant genetics for its own sake, but just to get a good grade on the exam.  I’m not sure how to get this nuance in Chinese though.


What is the difference between 究竟 and 到底 ？ So， a teacher explained to me that 究竟 is a more formal way of saying 到底. However, I'm still curious are there any other usage differences between the two? Is 究竟  only used in examples that are relatively “夸张”
Ex。 你究竟为什么要离开我。

1) "究竟" is more formal than "到底". In everyday spoken Chinese, "究竟" is rarely used. It is used almost only in drama and written Chinese.

2) Well, I would say that the magnitude of "究竟" is equal to that of "到底". They are all equivalent to "on the earth".


Is 白加黑 ("white add black") slang for 感冒药 ("cold medicine")? I'm reading the book 喜欢你，我也是, and I encountered this:

张侃侃无语地摊摊手：“可我既不是医生，也不是白加黑啊！”
“对于生病的谈晋而言，你就是他的医生，就是他的白加黑。”叶莉亚边说边郑重地点了点头。

(A sample text containing this part is here.)
I understand 张侃侃 has received a text message from 谈晋 who says he has a cold.  张看看 says she's not his doctor and also not his 白加黑 (lit.: "white add black").
I didn't find a clear definition of 白加黑 in a dictionary; Baidu Baike suggests it's a kind of medicine (which is on sale at JingDong; image), so I'd guess this is a brand name that's so popular that it's used to mean 感冒药 ("cold medicine").  I'm hoping this can be confirmed, corrected, expanded upon, etc.
Question: Is 白加黑 ("white add black") slang for 感冒药 ("cold medicine")?

白加黑

It is not so much a slang but a general term for cold medicine. When a brand is so popular, people would use it to describe the product itself, like 公仔麵 (instant noodle)  and 花奶 (evaporated milk) in Hong Kong

白加黑:

公仔麵:

花奶


question about the usage of 返 (Cantonese) In the sentence 我已經做咗好多日，而家想放返幾日假, I would like to ask about 返. What is the difference between just saying 放幾日假 and 放返幾日假. What is the function of 返?
Thanks

番

[5] [粵] [adv] back; again; afresh.

放幾日假 = take a few days off
Depend on context
放番幾日假 (1) = take a few days off again
Similar example: 一年冇返工，而家返番 = A year without going to work, now I am going (to work) again
放番幾日假 (2) = take a few days off back (for compensation)
Similar example: 舊年冇去旅遊，今年要去番次 = Didn't travel last year, have to travel one time back (for compensation) this year

返

return; come/go back


What is the percentage of the population whose actual mother tongue is Mandarin? It is, falsely, assumed that Mandarin is the mother tongue of all Chinese speakers (here we can understand Mandarin as 普通话/国语/华语).

The mother tongue would be the language that someone learned at home from their family members.

I would imagine the mother tongue for most Chinese speakers would be some form of dialect/topolect.

There seems to only be stats for "speaker" amounts and not strictly native speakers.

What is the percentage of the population whose actual mother tongue is Mandarin?

The mother tongue would be the language that someone learned at home from their family members
There seems to only be stats for "speaker" amounts and not strictly native speakers.

Firstly, 'mother tongue' and 'native' are not the same.
My mother tongue is officially Mandarin Chinese, and I used to speak it a lot at home, but my native language is English, which is my strongest language. Well, depending on perspective, people like me might be considered as having two native languages.
If that is so, then everyone whose mother tongue is Mandarin Chinese must be a native speaker, which makes it a subset.
As people whose mother tongue is Mandarin Chinese (836 million) is a subset of people whose native language is Mandarin Chinese, (960 million) I think that it is safe to assume that the map provided by @Stan is an accurate depiction of the population whose actual mother tongue is Mandarin Chinese.
Given those numbers, the percentage would be 87%. However, we do know that while some people's official mother tongue is Mandarin Chinese, they may not pursue it, which makes this statistic inaccurate. So there might be around a 10% margin of error if we were to assume that only Chinese people in China pursue their mother tongue as native language.


投资 vs 投入 - investing / investments? Okay, here is what I have so far:

投资 is either a verb meaning to invest money in something, or an equivalent noun meaning investment, but it is always monetary.

投入 on the other hand can also have the meaning of 投资, but it can have additional meanings too, however it is these additional meanings that are eluding me.

Can anyone please give a brief rundown of the main extra non-monetary-investment meanings of 投入?

Can anyone please give a brief rundown of the main extra non-monetary-investment meanings of 投入?

When the object is not money, 投入 doesn't mean to invest money

main meanings of 投入:

"deploy". Example: 投入三百人的警力 (deploy a police force of 300 people)
"throw in" . Example: 把球投入籃中 (throw the ball into the basket)
"immerse" Example: 投入工作 (immerse in work)

reference: http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/9015/


colloquial idiomatic translation of: "beating a dead horse"? KeKeNet translates "beating a dead horse" as:

  多此一举

ICIBA translated it as:

  无济于事

Are there any other better alternatives to this translation for beating a dead horse? Hopefully more idiomatic.

'Beating a dead horse' implies 'on and on, endlessly debating or citing a same tired subject' (doesn't matter if the subject is settled or not)"

I think it can be described as '沒完沒了' in Chinese. To be specific 'beating a dead horse' is "沒完沒了地重複相同的話題 " (endlessly repeating the same topic)


Is there a site that can split characters into radicals? For example, let's examine the character 天 (heaven). It has a 人 radical (men). And then we add a strip to become 大 (big). And then we add another strip to get 天 (heaven).

Now, is there a site to do so?

I think that'll be the easier for me to understand.

The online chinese dictionary MDBG provides radical information for every character in its database. For instance, if you search for the character 天 (tiān) and click on the first result, the "Rad/Str" column reads 大 + 1, i.e., the radical 大 plus one stroke.

Zhongwen.com also gives information on character decomposition. The entry for 洋 reads "Water 水 with 羊 phonetic."

As Alenanno pointed out, not all parts of characters are radicals, but these two resources can give you more information about how characters are constructed.


What's the difference between 圣人 and 神人 in ancient daoism? In ancient daoism, we see both 圣人 and 神人.

The first appears frequently in Dao De Jing, being translated as sage, saint, wise or sensible person.

The second appears in Zhuangzi (4.6), being translated as "spiritual person".

Maybe both have the same meaning?

Let's look at some references to the two to see the difference. Here's an early reference from Zhuangzi, Chapter 1, 内篇：

  至人无己，神人无功，圣人无名。

Or in translation:

  The perfect man is without self, the holy man is without achievement, the sage is without name.

To quote from Baidu:

  早期道教经典《太平经》就将神仙分为六等：一为神人...五为圣人，。并称：“神人主天...圣人主治百姓。”

To paraphrase:

  The early Daoist text Taiping Jing classifies various beings into 6 classes: First is the holy man...5th the sage. The holy man holds up the heavens...the sage holds up the common people.

It's a difference in scope and the initial state of being. The 神人 is a being who is born perfect. They don't need to achieve anything to reach the Dao. The 圣人 is someone who worked to achieve the Dao. They are a person who can help others.


What is the meaning of 吃瘪? I'm sure it's not good, but what does 吃瘪 mean?

德国人的克星其实是Siri，只有Siri能让德国人吃瘪。

Germans' bane is Siri, only Siri can make Germans 吃瘪。

Imagine something sharp cut through a basketball, as a result, the air in that ball was gone and the ball became “瘪”. Also “瘪” can be used to described a person, e.g. “他营养不好，身体干瘪” means "He looks not that healthy and excessively slim".

When saying someone “吃瘪”, it is similar to the usage above. It means someone was frustrated probably because he was treated unfairly and couldn't even defended himself. That person looks like the basketball as we said above. In Chinese, you can not only “吃” food, but also “吃” something else, e.g. “吃亏”、“吃豆腐”

Another Chinese idiom I think is equivalent to “吃瘪” is “哑巴吃黄连，有苦说不出” (Hint: “黄连” is a kind of herb which is bitter).

By the way, here “瘪” is pronounced as "biē" not "biĕ".

EDIT:

I don't know what the context of your sentence is. I guess the reason why Siri make Germans “吃瘪” is her awkward or ridiculous AI response? If I'm correct, I will translate the sentence to "only Siri can make Germans hesitate or be unable to make a response". "Well... seriously?" To my knowledge, I can't find an English word to replace “吃瘪”.


What is the most succinct way of explaining that I have an older sister and a younger sister? I have both an older sister and a younger sister, so I often find myself saying:

  我有一个姐姐和一个妹妹

Another possibility is something like

  我是三个姐妹中中间的一个

But both very long winded.  And this second one is hard to parse.

Question: What is the most succinct way of explaining that I have an older sister and a younger sister?

I'm thinking I could just say

  我有两个姐妹

and whoever is listening would logically infer

if I meant two older sisters, I would say 我有两个姐姐, therefore (since I didn't say that) it does not mean I have two older sisters,
if I meant two younger sisters, I would say 我有两个妹妹, therefore (since I didn't say that) it does not mean I have two younger sisters, and
therefore, the only remaining possibility is that I have an older sister and a younger sister.

But maybe it's only me that thinks like this.

我有一个姐姐和一个妹妹

This is good.

  我是三个姐妹中中间的一个

This is usually expressed in another way: "我家一共姐仨，我是老二", or "我妈(我爸)有三个闺女，我是老二".

  我有两个姐妹

It might work, but I don't often hear it.

And by the way, maybe related to his question or not: If one says "我有两个兄弟"， it often means he has two younger brothers (and gives no information about how many older brothers he has), but not two brothers (in all). As fas as I know "姐妹" does not have such usage.


I would be grateful if anyone can translate/identify the artist of this Chinese "Farmers' Art" painting The attached image is of a painting of the genre known as Chinese Farmers' / Chinese Peasants'/ or Chinese 'naive" paintings. But I cannot de-code the signature and seal, so would be most grateful if anyone can]1

Let's break it down:

盼春：Looking forward to Spring

户县：Hu County

张青义：Qingyi Zhang

作: Painted By

Title of the painting is:

盼春：Looking forward to Spring

Full translation is:

户县张青义作：Painting by Qingyi Zhang from Hu County

Seal:

The right side translate to 青义，which is the painter's Firstname, not sure about the left side. The previous answer says it's 画印, which translate to Seal, so the Seal translate to: Qingyi Seal

Found something about the painter, and one of the painting has the title 盼春 as well:

张青义户县农民作品画欣赏


Why is it 高考那天, not 高考的天? In the following sentence:

  高考那天，我紧张极了。

I understand the meaning. But I don't understand why 那天 is used in such a way.

So why is it 高考那天, not something like 高考之天 or 高考的天 (the "of" equivalent in Mandarin)? Or 那高考的天? Is there any difference if you say it as 高考那天 or 高考的天?

天 in 那天 refers to day, so 高考那天 means the day of 高考.

天 could refer to sky too, such as 高考的天 (and 高考之天), which means the sky of 高考 and doesn't make sense. (It's same for 那高考的天, which could be literally translated as that sky of 高考.)


你给我死 - what emotion does this convey, typically? I just watched an interview in Mandarin with Jackie Chan and he gets emotional telling a story about his mother saying "你给我死" - you kill me?

So, can anyone tell me what kind of emotion "你给我死" would typically be used to convey. Extreme disappointment? A sense of "I don't even want to know you anymore"? Is it an idiom that has a deeper meaning?

Link to interview, it's at 29 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjIZv9Y9idQ

at 29:02 he mentioned "安樂死" (euthanasia)

at 29:16 he mentioned that his mother said "你給我死吧"

i think that you misunderstood the saying. it's not "I don't even want to know you anymore".

你 - you

給 - give, let

我 - me

死 - dead

吧 - a particle ~ ok, or treat it as meaningless

so, "你給我死吧" is roughly "let me die, please"

in most countries, religions, euthanasia is prohibited, so when a aged parent asked his son to let her die, it's unbearable for all parties.

the son would be facing legal action, most likely homicide; or against his religious belief, if he do it.

if he don't it, he is looking his mother suffering from disease, lost of functions slowly, which is also an bad experience.

so, in such situation, the emotion of "你给我死吧" would convey is an unbearable begging, asking someone who is close, trustable.

lastly, imo, it's a question about euthanasia, beyond any languages. have a look of the book "fatal freedom" by thomas szasz; chapter 6 talked about euthanasia in details:

https://www.amazon.com/Fatal-Freedom-Ethics-Politics-Suicide/dp/0815607555


Encountered usage of 为 接受函数为参数，返回值为函数

I can vaguely translate this as

  Gets function as parameter, return value is function.

but that's only due to my domain knowledge. I am confused by the use of 为 here. The only 为 I know is when I want to say for someone or something such as

  汉语水平考试是一个考试为了外国人。(HSK is a test for foreigners) - I am not quite sure if it's grammatically correct to append 为 at the very end as such.

接受函数为参数，返回值为函数

Your translation is quite right. The sentence seems to be a description of a function; which takes a function as the parameter, and its return value is a function too.
To be more precise, the first 为 means

（充当） serve as; act as; play the part of:
call a stag a horse;
指鹿为马
This will serve as a proof.
以此为凭。

The 2nd 为 means

（是） be; mean:
One kilometre is equivalent to two li.
1公里为2华里。
One hundred centimetres make one metre.
100厘米为一米。

为 in 汉语水平考试是一个考试为了外国人 (especially used as 为了) is used for describing the purpose.

介词
（表示目的）:
work hard for realizing the four modernizations;
为实现四个现代化而努力工作
write for a living
为生活而写作

BTW: The correct syntax should be 汉语水平考试是一个为了外国人的考试; because 为了外国人 is the modifier of 考试 so it should be put before of 考试 (i.e. the object). More naturally you can say 汉语水平考试是一个面向外国人的考试. Because 为了外国人 is broad and then might be confusing, the specific purpose is hard to get.


What is the difference between 俯卧撑 and 伏地挺身? Both 俯卧撑 (fǔwòchēng) and 伏地挺身 (fúdìtǐngshēn) apparently mean "pushup" according to MDBG. Google Images doesn't give me a clue as to how these terms are different. Are they exactly the same? Are they regional variations?

俯卧撑 is more commonly used in Mainland Chinese Mandarin, 伏地挺身 in Taiwanese Mandarin.
From Baidu Baike 俯卧撑

俯卧撑（英文：push-up；Press-up。中国大陆称作俯卧撑，中国台湾地区称作伏地挺身，港澳地区称作掌上压）

Also, 俯卧撑 gives more results, probably this the preferred expression.

If you search for both expressions on TW domains (with site:tw [expression]) on Google, 伏地挺身 gives roughly 4 times more results than 俯卧撑. On PRC domains (site:cn), the situation is opposite, 俯卧撑 is roughly 10 times more common than 伏地挺身. Of course many Chinese and Taiwanese sites use other domains than .cn and .tw, this is just to illustrate the regional difference on a limited set of websites.


Most popular question and answer and forum sites in Chinese What social networks exist on the Chinese internet, that allow people to meet and discuss things on any topic, or ask questions, like on Quora. I am learning Chinese and would like to practice. Any useful resources pointed out besides this question and answer site and dating sites would be greatly appreciated.

Check out 知乎 - just type that into google along with any random Chinese word of your choice, to find a load of threads containing that word - it's a great way to practice reading.


When to use 了 and when to use 过 to express past actions or events I kind of have an idea when 了 and 过 should be used but it's mostly on a case by case basis, and I don't know the exact rules.

So if I want to express something that happened in the past, when should I use 了 and when should I use 过?

There are multiple uses for both 了 and 过, so it's good you are just asking about usage to express past action or events.  了, as you probably know, is often used to express a change of state.  Perhaps somewhat relatedly, 了 can be used to express a past action that is still ongoing. But 过 cannot:  when 过 is used to refer to a past event, that past event must have completed.  Additionally -- and most distinctly --  过 is used to express having had the experience of something, rather than a particular instance.  As a simple example, consider the difference between

  我去了长城 (I went to the Great Wall, refers to a single trip)

and

  我去过长城 (I have been to the Great Wall, could be one or more times)

Here the same structure is used intentionally.

When combining them, it emphasizes the completion of a single action or event.  So, for example,

  我去过了长城 (I went to the Great Wall, refers to a single, completed, event)


Origin of the term "Sitting the Month" I've recently learned about the practice of 坐月子 or sitting the month where a woman secludes herself for around a month following a pregnancy. The articles I've read indicate that this practice has been around quite a while.

I'm curious as to when this expression first came into use and if there are many historical precedents for it.

The earliest reference i can make is a chapter "Nei Ze" in a book "Liji" (See http://ctext.org/liji/nei-ze). The word "sitting the month" has been replaced by "the month of confinement", "坐月子" by "月辰".


Meaning of 一样 in 你要像喜欢甜一样喜欢苦 你要像喜欢甜一样喜欢苦

My questions are

(1) What does 一样 means in this sentence?

(2) Can I put VERBS following 一样? E.g: 我跟Mary一样喜欢那种菜。(Both I and Mary like that dish)

(3) If my example is wrong, how can it be corrected?

你要像喜欢甜一样喜欢苦

  (1) What does 一样 means in this sentence?

"像 (X)一样" means "the same as (X) "  or "like (X)" in this sentence

你要喜欢苦 = You have to love bitter
你要[像喜欢甜一样]喜欢苦 = You have to love bitter [the same as you love sweet] /  You have to love bitter [like you love sweet]

[像喜欢甜一样] is an adverbial phrase that modify the verb phrase 喜欢苦

  2) Can I put VERBS following 一样?

My answer to (1) said you can,  because [像 X 一样 ] = [the same as X], and the following sentence can be a verb phrase or adjectival phrase E.g.  "像 Mary 一样去當護士了" or "像 Mary 一样漂亮"


Meaning of the chinese translation of italian name Federico This is my first question here so I don't even kwow if it's permitted to ask this kind of questions.

The fact is that I would like to know the meaning of my name: 费代里科 (fèi dài lǐ kē),  which is the phonetic translation of Federico, if I understood well.

Yes, basically it's the phonetic translation. And no strange word is used.


Difference between 厉害 and 利害 I see they have the same pronunciation but does they bear any differences. It seems like 利害 can be pronounced lìhài or lìhai while 厉害 can only be pronounced lìhai.

一个词在不同的语境下会有不同的意思，我用厉害造句，每个句子里厉害的意思都不一样，你感受一下:
1.美国篮球明星迈克尔乔丹是一个很厉害的人
   乔丹打篮球很厉害
     awesome,awesome,excellent,Illustrious

2 数学老师是一个很厉害的人，我们都怕他
   fierce

利害:
利，有利的:advantageous,beneficial,profitable
害，有害的:detrimental,
所以利害这一个词包含了两种相反的方面。

他是一个很喜欢帮助别人的人，从来不计较利害得失
得:得到
失:失去
跟利害相似，得失同样是一个词包含了两种相反的方面


What's the differece between 朘 (U+6718) and 脧 (U+8127)? What's the differece between 朘 (U+6718) and 脧 (U+8127)?
They seem to be interchangeable.
(They display almost identically here for me).
Zisea displays 6718 as 月:

and 8127 as 肉:

Pleco put's it that 月 is simplified and 肉 is traditional:

Is it that simple? or should they be treated as separate characters?
My guess is that they should, technically, be separated:
朘 (U+6718) [月] as: 削减、剥削
and
脧 (U+8127) [肉] as: 男阴
But 古汉语大词典 seems to clump them together and differentiate by pronunciation:

using 月: 朘 (U+6718) as the character.
Any ideas?

edit: to complicate matters further:
wikitionary also claims that 朘 (U+6718) is a variant of 脧 (U+8127):

Etymology 2
For pronunciation and definitions of 朘 – see 脧.
(This character, 朘, is a variant form of 脧.)

This kind of confusion is one example among a broader category involving the graphical conflation between ⺼(肉) and 月 and the Taiwan Ministry of Education's (MoE) near-monopoly on typefaces for Traditional Chinese Characters combined with the MoE's insistence on introducing written features to printed (now digital) characters.

(Block) printing was invented in the Han Dynasty and has been around for around 1800 years. As a result, Chinese characters have always had at least two different aesthetic standards - that is, those surrounding printed characters and those surrounding written characters. To be brief, handwritten characters (including obscure variants you sometimes see in calligraphy) contain more ancient and etymologically correct features, whereas printed characters emphasise graphical balance, sometimes at the cost of these etymological features.

Characters which contain the simplified flesh component ⺼ were correctly handwritten this way, that is, with the inner two strokes not horizontal (although this non-horizontal rule was commonly not obeyed over the course of history), whereas characters which contain the moon component 月 were always handwritten with straight strokes. Contrast this to the printed form, where these two were always traditionally nigh-indistinguishable:

Excerpt from the History of Ming (明史). Note the circled characters; the
 月 in 明 and ⺼ in 肥 are indistinguishable.

Most of the time, there is no confusion, as 月 as a semantic component to do with moon is overwhelmingly found on the right hand side, where characters with the flesh component do not usually put ⺼ on the right hand side. On the rare case that there is potential for confusion, at least someone in history has erred in some official document somewhere, which then sets a precedence for two easily confuse-able characters to be interchanged. This should answer your first statement ('They seem to be interchangeable').

In contrast to Japan, which maintained the tradition of keeping the aesthetics of the printed and written forms separately, both the PRC and the ROC (Taiwan) have instituted reforms which bring the printed form 'closer' to the written form. The new character forms in Mainland China are called 新字形, and Taiwan's MoE made an official promulgated list of characters in 1982 (see 常用國字標準字體表) and a revision in 1998 (for a brief overview of the final standard in Taiwan, see 國字標準字體). The Mainland's 新字形 left the printed non-difference between ⺼ and 月 untouched but merged separate characters which originally contained ⺼ or 月 in the same position (all other parts of the character being the same), while Taiwan's 國字標準字體 forced ⺼ to look like the traditional handwritten version. Note that Unicode references the Taiwan MoE's standard in their standardisation of Traditional Chinese character glyphs; Taiwan's treatment of printed forms has not been without criticisms, and there has been at least one incident involving an official Microsoft Packaged font (MingLiu); see this.

The difference in policy between China, Taiwan, and Japan explains why

The PRC is more likely to treat and even print those two characters identically and list two definitions under the one merged character;
The ROC is more likely to treat them as two different characters;
Pleco treats the one with 月 as the simplified form of the one with ⺼, because Taiwan is the biggest player in setting the standard on 'Traditional Chinese Characters', and has insisted on creating a separate character with ⺼;
The Japanese treatment of these characters (see 朘 and 脧) has the left component appearing almost identical. However, they are not considered variants in Japan, and are listed under two entries.


How can it be single characters for new chemical elements like 鈽 and 鈾? I found that most chemical elements (ones I checked) are denoted by single character in Chinese. This is understandable for historical elements, but how it can be for new elements like Uranium and Plutonium? Does this means, that chinese people can invent new characters nowadays?

You're right. We did invent a bunch of characters for chemical elements in 20th century.

We made it just one character by combining different radical(偏旁) together,  but people can associate them with the English words simply by their pronunciation.

You can read more about it from this Wiki article: Chemical elements in East Asian languages


专心 VS 专注 VS 关注, with 于 in the mix I'm struggling with a couple things...first is the ability to know when is the right time to use each of the above, each which seems to more or less mean "to concentrate on".

I think 关注 has the meaning more of like, following the news, updates, or something.

And I think 专心 is to concentrate in general, whereas 专注 might be to concentrate at the exclusion of other things... but I have no clue. And I'm struggling to figure out when you need 于 afterwards, and when you don't.

关注 has different meaning with 专心 and 专注. 关注 doesn't mean to
concentrate. Usually 关注 means to care about or to pay attention
to sth.
专心 and 专注 are very similar. They can be alternative to each other most of the time, although there are some collocations you can only use one of them.
As for 于, it is a preposition, same as on here. If you use 专心 or 专注 as a verb (usually a intransitive verb), then you may need it.
Though 专心/注 can be verb, they are often used as adverb too. In such case, no more 于.
The (little) difference between 专心/注:

专心 is used more often to describe one's inner condition, while 专注 is used for one's appearance, look or expression.


What's the difference between 懲處 and 懲罰？ I recently learned two similar words that seem to mean "to punish." What's the difference?

惩处 - to penalize

惩罚 - to punish

The difference between these two words described on this site:
enter link description here

  As verbs the difference between penalize and punish is that penalize is to subject to a penalty, especially for the infringement of a rule or regulation while punish is to cause to suffer for crime or misconduct, to administer disciplinary action.


What does "翻起了短信" mean? xxx翻起了短信

I know that 翻 can mean flp, cross, etc. So does the phrase mean "flipping through messages" or "crossing through messages", aka "deleting messages"? Could it also mean "replying to messages"?


What does 已出口直封 mean? My first question here, sorry if it's not a good fit.

I am tracking a parcel in Chinese, but I do not know what 已出口直封 means.

I know that 广州互换局 means Guangzhou exchange bureau/office, and 已出口开拆 means that the parcel has been opened by customs, but I don't know the other part.

For context:

  2016-04-10 13:03 广州互换局, 已出口直封

  2016-04-10 09:13 广州互换局, 已出口开拆

I have checked Google Translate, but it just says straight seal, which is meaningless to me.

Translated.net also says We have been exported straight seal. I have no idea what this means though.

I guess this should mean the inspection was successful and your package is directly(直)  (re)packaged(封)

According to http://community.ebay.cn/thread-1200132963-1-1.html (this is the most helpful page I have found)
A translation is "departure from outward office of exchange". A Chinese explanation is "这表示包裹己经顺利的通过海关检查,重新打包好,交给航空公司,等待航班飞走", it means "this indicates the package passed the inspection by custom and had been repackaged, sent to airline and waiting the plane to fly"


Question about the use of 中 (first or fourth tone)? I'm unsure whether the 中 in this phrase is to be in the first or fourth tone:

吃得苦中苦，方为人上人.

Also, what exactly does 方 mean in this saying?

Thank you,
Rachel

it's zhōng, according to 國語辭典:

http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&searchid=Z00000120693

in cantonese, it jung1 (sydney lay scheme)

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

sound file: http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/zung1.Mp3

方者﹒才也﹒始也; roughly "only then"

have fun :)


"Are you still married to Mary?" How to translate this? I'm a Chinese, but I'm having trouble translating this to Chinese:

Are you still married to Mary?

I have never asked this before, but someone asked me if I know the Chinese translation of this. Please help?

All the Chinese translations I can come up with sounded wrong, e.g. 你還跟 Mary 有婚約嗎？ It sounded like you are expecting them to divorce.

I'm trying to get my answer off on hold here. For those who had voted me on hold, I first need to say I'm sorry for whatever reason, but if I really did find a fine translation elsewhere, I wouldn't have tried it on the StackExchange community platform.

Anyway, here are the utmost incorrect translations from the sites:

Google Translate:

你還在為結婚瑪麗？

Which means:

Are you still for marriage Mary?

Iciba:

你还和玛丽结婚了吗？

Which means:

Have you still married Mary?

I can see you've tried at least one or two things, and it's a tricky question so I'll give it a shot.  Remember, courtesy is everything in a forum like this one.

The problem is that 'to be married' is an adjectival form in English, and there is no corresponding adjectival form in Chinese. That means you can't get a word for word translation. Instead, you will have to rephrase the sentence, perhaps drastically, in order to get the information you want,

Rephrasing takes practice. It's not always easy to find other ways to say what you want to. One way to do this is to treat the process as an English exercise. Look up all the words in a regular bi-lingual dictionary.

For example, in the Oxford Advanced Learner's English Chinese Dictionary, I look up married. The definition gives 結婚的, 己婚的, then lists phrases that use this sense:

a married man   己婚男子
a married woman 己婚女子
a married couple 一對夫婦

The last one is the solution you want, since your sentence can be rephrased in just this way:

Are you and Mary still a married couple?
你跟瑪麗兩個人還是夫婦嗎?

Not 100% the same syntactically as 'Are you still married to Mary', but the sense is almost identical I think. Asking this in Chinese I'm sure will get the information you want, without any strange semantic or social mismatches.


How polite is too polite? I've noticed in China that people don't tend to use as many 'polite' words as we do in western languages, like 'please' or 'thank you'. I want to make it clear that I'm not complaining about this; I find that such niceties are often overused in English, to the point where they become insincere.

In English I would automatically say 'thanks' whenever someone does something for me. In China I found I got some quizzical looks doing this with 谢谢 (xiè xie).

Perhaps another example is in restaurants where I've heard people screaming 服务员! (fú wù yuán) across the room, whereas westerners would raise a hand, or try to make eye contact, or say 'excuse me'.

So my question is, in China, how polite is too polite? When is it appropriate to use things like 谢谢 or 麻烦你 (má fan nǐ), and when should I restrain the impulse to avoid sounding weird?

My friends use 谢谢 all the time, so even if someone pours them a drink for the 10th time they will still say 谢谢. One thing I noticed when I first started learning was that how I said it sounded too exaggerated, so it was coming across like I was trying to thank someone for saving my life when it was just supposed to be a simple thanks. So maybe try toning it down slightly.

麻烦你 is also quite similar to the English "sorry to trouble you". Don't use this when you haven't troubled someone. So, use it if you have to ask someone to unexpectedly baby sit your children, but not when you ask someone to pass the salt. However, this can be used with grumpy shop keepers (occasionally heard sarcastically) if they reluctantly have to get something off the top shelf or out of its packaging and you decide you don't want to buy it.

Please is hardly used as mentioned.

There are plenty of niceties that you may have not noticed yet that are practiced regularly and not done in the West. Such as standing up when someone new enters a room, regularly offering food or drink to guests, regular giving of gifts etc.

I would say polite things are done as often as the West, just done in a different way.


Usage of 行 as "walk" in Literary Chinese In Buddhist Hybrid (Literary?) Chinese, 行 occupies several functions, including "to walk", "volitional fabrication" (as a translation of the Sanskrit/Pāli: saṃskāra/saṅkhāra), "[religious] practice", and a host of other things.

My question is, can 行 be used to mean "walk to" in addition to "walk", or is another word required to make 行 mean "walk to [something]".

Like, take this constructed sentence: 佛行塔

Does this mean:

The Buddha walks to the pagoda.
The Buddha acts as a pagoda.
The Buddha's practice-pagoda (as in a place for Buddhadharma practice).
Buddha-practice pagoda (as in a place for Buddhadharma practice that is not the Buddha's specifically).
The pagoda of the Buddha's virtuous deeds (行)

Or is it an utterly wrong sequence of characters to put together because 行 cannot function in this particular setting as a verb?

行 cannot be used to mean walk to unless it is paired with 走 or 步. For example:

  The Buddha walks to the pagoda.

菩萨行走到佛塔旁。

or

菩萨步行到佛塔旁。

The first translation does not read well although the second also reads a bit awkward. Normally people would just write 菩萨走到佛塔旁。

Normally, 行 is not used alone to mean walk either.

Translating he walks into 他行 will likely confuse people. The most common word for walk is 走, no matter in oral or written Chinese. Therefore, he walks is 他走 in Chinese, although it does not make much sense.

It can be translated differently depending on the scenario, such as 他会走, meaning he can walk, or 他在走, meaning he is walking, 他走了几步, meaning he walks a bit.

A single word 行 can only mean walk when it is used in an idiom or proverb. For example:

  读万卷书，行万里路

which is a Chinese proverb directly translated as read thousands of books and walk thousands of miles. Its implied meaning is you have to read a lot to be knowledgeable and practice more to learn to use your knowledge.

"行" when used alone, is more likely to mean OK, sure, all right, be capable of etc.

  他行的

He is OK for doing something. He is capable of doing something.

  -能帮我去买点东西吗？ - 行！

Can you buy me something? - Sure!

  你行不行啊？

Are you able to do it or not?

  佛行塔

Does not make sense in Chinese, although one may eventually understand the phrase after a deep thinking about the meaning of each individual word.

Similar to English, you usually need to use a preposition between a verb (intransitive) and a noun. When you say Buddha walks to pagoda, to is the preposition. In Chinese, 到 is the preposition equivalent to to.

Thus, 佛走到塔.

This is better, a lot easier to understand, but not good enough.

In English, when you say walk to pagoda, it means keep walking until you are next/close to pagoda. The prepositions in Chinese has to be very specific. 到 only means "arrive at", but you have to explicitly use the preposition to tell the reader whether you arrive at the front of the pagoda or the side of it. Use 前 if it is the front or 旁, 边 or 旁边 if it is the side.

Thus, 佛走到塔前/旁/边/旁边.

Sorry that I've gone a bit far from your original question. I only want to correct your mistake :)


麻油Q米血 on a menu in Taipei For lunch today in Taipei I found a small street food place near my hostel.

On the menu was this item:

  麻油Q米血

Here's a photo of the relevant part of the menu:

麻油 is sesame oil, 米 is rice, and 血 is blood. But what is Q?

I know English/Latin/Roman alphabet letters are sometimes used in colloquial/casual Chinese, often but not always when there is not a character to represent a word or sound from language besides Mandarin, be it English or another Chinese language.

What does the Q stand for, and what is this dish?

Q is Chinese slang for "chewy", similar to al dente in texture. You can see it in example phrases such as "Q感十足" (very chewy). You would expect foods such as tapioca pearls, gelatinous candies, pasta, or rice to be described as "Q".

From my experience, this term is more popular in Taiwan and Hong Kong and less so in the mainland. I have not seen this term in the 90's or before.

I'm not sure where this phrase came from; if I had to venture a guess I would suggest QQ candy, a gummy candy that first appeared in the late 90s which has the same kind of texture.

"Q" originated as a Taiwanese morpheme that has no agreed upon character.

This definition of "Q" is not to be confused with another definition, as a short-hand for "cute".


Is there an idiomatic way to express being overwhelmed by vocabulary? The other day, I wanted to describe my shock regarding the overwhelming HSK6 vocabulary list (~2500 additional words) to my teacher, so I came up with a self-made idiom 词山词海: taking 人山人海 and replacing 人 with 词.  I thought it was apt and quite proud of my creation, by my teacher disagreed.
I can't think of an idiomatic way to express this sense of being overwhelmed by vocabulary when learning a language in Chinese.  Sure, I could say 词汇太多了, but it doesn't have the sense of being overwhelmed.
Question: Is there an idiomatic way to express being overwhelmed by vocabulary?

无从说起：
指事情太繁杂，要说的话很多，但不知道该从哪里说起。
Things are too complicated and there are many things to say, but don’t know where to start.
一言难尽：形容事情曲折复杂，不是一句话能说清楚的。
Describe things tortuous and complex, a sentence cannot make it clear.


profanities in written cantonese blurred out I was watching a youtube video published by a famous populist news channel from Hong Kong. The topic was about food and featured comments from viewers saying that it "was F***ing delicious". There were likewise Cantonese comments with these profanities used to express this 'superlativeness' in taste.
One such cantonese comment was 好X食, where the "X" is blurred out since this was shown in Youtube.
My question is, what could be these possible colloquial/profanities being blurred out to express extremely tastefulness of the dish?

Four of the five  "Big Five Profanity Words of Guangdong (廣東粗口五大字)" can be used as a superlative before an adjective. The one that couldn't is '屌', which is strictly a verb for 'f..k'
To use a swearing word as a superlative, it must be placed after the superlative adverb and before the adjective, not inserted between the two characters of the adjective, e.g. 好X食 roughly means 'tasty my ass'= not tasty at all
The correct form:
好食 = delicious
好好食 = very delicious
好X好食 = very damn delicious (better than very delicious)

"撚" is the most common one in this kind of phrase


How does work the chinese adjectives? I'd like to know how work the chinese adjectives, because i was searching on the internet about this, but i wasn't able to understand the use of 的 and if any noun can become a adjective, if yes is it be this case 为人民服务 because when translate split it means like people service or like that.

Sometimes, you can use 的 or not use 的 to describe things. For example: 她就是那個穿著墨綠色衣服的溫柔女生，總是為別人著想。 in English: She is that tender female dress in dark green who always care about others. In this example, 穿著墨綠色衣服 used to describe somethings after 的(女生). 墨綠色 used to describe something after 墨綠色(衣服). And 溫柔 used to describe something after 溫柔(女生).


Is there *really* no native term for "stoning"? I always find it hard to believe that there is no native Chinese term for stoning.

Chinese execution methods are numerous and varied: 凌迟, 车裂, 斩首, 炮烙, etc, etc.

Stoning always gets translated as: 用石头砸, 拿石头打死, 用石头砸死, 被乱石砸死.

Is there really no native term for stoning? No equivalent execution method? Too pedestrian for the Chinese?

Of course it does.

We called it 石刑。

Please refer to:English Stoning

Chinese Stoning


Difference between 着 正在　and 把 Is there a difference between these sentences?
Are they all grammatically correct?

我把作业写完了。
我正在写得完作业。
我写着作业到完了。

我把作业写完了。 This is correct. I've finished my homework.

我正在写得完作业。→ 我正在写作业。I'm doing my homework.

我写着作业到完了。→ 我一直把作业写到完为止。I've been doing my homework until it was done.

着 isn't used as much as people think, contrary to what grammar texts might explain. It's used more in written Chinese than in spoken Chinese, but that's just my opinion. Other natives might disagree.

Hope that helps. :)


How to look up seal script characters? When we know a modern Hanzi, finding its seal script equivalent in a dictionary is not a problem. However, a more common case is that we have an existing seal script character we cannot identify, and we want to know which modern Hanzi it represents.

How can I look up seal script characters that I cannot recognise? I'd be most interested in electronic resources (websites, computer programs, phone apps), but information about paper dictionaries is also OK.

Looking up seal characters is not as hopeless as other answers seem to indicate, even though it is considerably harder than looking up modern characters. In any case, the lookup needs to consist of identifying which component of the seal character is the radical and finding the character in the corresponding section. Identification of the radical needs to be done by trial and error, as there are no fixed rules that an be applied when you don't know the character in the first place.

Let us start with the slowest, traditional method and see how it can be made faster using electronic dictionaries:

Use a paper edition of 說文解字 Shuōwén Jiězì that contains a seal radical index. Note that most modern editions of Shuōwén have seal script headwords, but their indices use modern characters.
Use an online list of seal radicals to find out the number of the radical, and find the character in the corresponding section of Shuōwén Jiězì. The radical numbers are equivalent to Shuōwén section numbers (this is where the name 部首 “section headers” comes from).
Use Wenlin and choose List -> D. Shuowen Seal Radicals. This will give you a list of 540 seal radicals, and clicking on any of them will give you all the seal characters listed under this radical. This is much faster than looking up the character in Shuōwén, especially when you are not sure which component is the radical (部首). Note that Wenlin lists are based on a Qīng Dynasty commentary on Shuōwén, 說文解字·注, not the original, Hàn-era 說文解字.
The problem with the original Shuōwén radical list is that it is arranged semantically, in a way that is not helpful for somebody who doesn't know the radicals by heart. Therefore, I made two other indices that can be opened in Wenlin and used in the same way as above:

the list of Shuōwén seal radicals ordered by approximate stroke count, and
the list of Shuōwén seal radicals ordered by their token frequency in Classical Chinese texts (based on Jun Da's Classical Chinese Character Frequency List).

The former list begins with radicals that are the simplest graphically, and the latter one presents the most frequent radicals first, which makes it much easier to find the radical you're looking for.


Learn Chinese Step 2: Characters. Are there any good tips to learn the writing and make sense of these square characters? Many Mandarin Chinese teachers claim that the step 2 for Learning Chinese is: Learning Characters, I know many learners skip this step and just focus on conversational skill,

Q1: How different would it be if a learner skip the character learning process?
Q2: Are there any good tips to learn the writing and make sense of these square characters?

In my opinion, characters learning process is of the most importance in learning Mandarin Chinese. In my teaching experience, we've seen too many cases where there is a huge difference between the learning results of those who learn characters and those who skip this step just try to save time. The latter usually ended up spending more boring time memorizing and memorizing... Therefore, I always believe the KEY to learn well Chinese, a language that is so much different than English, is FIRST to learn well the characters.

There are definitely tips to learn the writing or understand the composition of Chinese characters! Many thought it is difficult to learn Mandarin Chinese, particularly the characters. It is not true though. It takes time and efforts to learn it well, but what doesn't? In my opinion, Chinese is one of the most interesting languages in the world! Chinese is a picture language, which means ancient Chinese people drew different pictures as Chinese characters out of everything they saw in the environment! Therefore, the best way to learn well the language, in my own experience as a Chinese teacher for many years, is to learn the radicals of the characters first, which by themselves usually have hints from the writing (or drawing) and then form the meaning of a character. This is exactly the approach that is been used in the Chinese tutoring video lessons of the website http://www.ChineseHulu.com, check it out if you want to find out more about Mandarin Chinese, one of the most mysterious and ancient languages in the world!


The Etymology of the word 有的 Im having trouble wrapping my brain around why the characters "有的" are chose to represent the idea of "a smaller amount of a larger group" or more directly in english: the word "some".
On their own, I have learned that "有" means: "to have" or "to exist", and the character "的" means: the possessive particle similar to "'s" in english.
I cant figure out exactly how to make sense of those two meanings to come up with the word "some" in a logical way. So far I've been told that "it's just how the words exist and we just accept it, and don't think about it" but that really bothers me. There must be a logical reason behind why its that specific combination of those two specific characters to convey that one specific meaning.
The best way that I've come to think of it is "Of the existence", but that bothers me because that would be backwards from the characters.

If you take an English sentence like:

There are people who believe the earth is flat.

We can see a similar phenomenon to that in Chinese. The phrasing of there are tells us that it is not everybody who believes the earth is flat but that some people hold this conviction.
Likewise, 有的 plays a similar role. You already know that 有 expresses something akin to, "have" or "has." If you treat 有的 like "there are" from the example sentence above it is easy to see how the language works similarly to English.


What does this approx. 300-year-old Korean text by Choi Seok-Jeong say? This image comes from the paper https://arxiv.org/pdf/1812.02202.pdf:

It's an old Korean orthogonal Latin square attributed to Choi Seok-Jeong, in the book Koo-Soo-Ryak.  It's of historical interest, since it predates Euler, and he's usually the one attributed to inventing Latin squares.  It's probably in the ballpark of 300 years old.

The orthogonal Latin square is simple enough (they're basically today's numbers), and I can partially read some of the characters, e.g., it begins 九九母？？宫, but I'm really struggling to recognize most of the other characters.  I asked some Chinese colleagues and they can recognize more of the characters, but also struggle.

Here is my transcription into an ROC/HK standard character set.

《九九母數變宮陽圖》
從？皆得九十數總積八百一十母數
本宮圖即甲編母數名圖此圖自本
宮而一變
橫看從看
九數無一
重複者〇
以下四圖
係新定

I have a feeling the second character ？ is「衡」.
Please be wary of phonetic loans. For example,「從」might be better off being interpreted as「縱」. With the above, you have the two characters as「縱衡」(vertical and horizontal).


Object oriented programming terms class, object, instance, attribute, method Answers to Web Developer Vocabulary give many useful terms, but I'm working with someone and we need to read further about five specific terms in object oriented programming (e.g. Python or similar).

class
object
instance
attribute
method

I know very little Chinese, and a colleague I am working with needs to read further on this topic so we can continue to discuss. Eventually they will need to know how to write these traditional Chinese characters, but for searching for material to read, I think the terms in either traditional or simplified will get us going.
What's important is that they are the expressions that object oriented programmers use when explaining these concepts.

Note: The below answers apply to mainland Mandarin Chinese. For technical vocabulary, the words used in different regions often have differences. The link you posted in your comment looks like it uses Taiwan standards.

Class 类
Object 对象
Instance 实例
Attribute 属性
Method 方法

"Object oriented" is 面向对象. You can find more at the 面向对象程序设计 Chinese Wikipedia page.


How is 我简直不敢相信！ translated as "I can't believe it!" I found this expression the other day :

  我简直不敢相信！

I failed to get what it means and looked for its meaning on the Google translate and it told me that the meaning of this sentence is : "I can't believe it". I didn't feel sure thus trying other translation machines but the result is the same, they all told me that "我简直不敢相信！" means "I can't believe it".

The question is... I don't get it how that sentence means "I can't believe it". Especially the "(不)敢" part. What does it have anything to do with "I can't believe it"?

Also, why is it not written as "我不能相信它/这个"?

我簡直不敢相信 translates literally to I simply don’t dare to believe [it]. You can translate this to English using I can’t believe it!, with an exclamation mark at the end to capture the mood. You say this when something outrageous or ridiculous has happened.

我不能相信 sounds like I’m unable to believe [it], and doesn’t really capture the same mood. You may say this if you’re refusing to believe something, maybe because of lack of evidence.


What is the origin of 抠门儿? I understand that 抠门儿 is an informal phrase meaning dingy. But can't figure out how these three Chinese words combined together could be used to describe a person being dingy (extremely reluctant to spend money). I googled and baidu but in vain.

Any ideas?

http://www.baike.com/wiki/抠门 tells:

抠门 - 历史渊源

1.古时候有一个财主，爱财如命.去寺里烧香看见庙门上的刷的金粉，他都要抠去带走。所以就有了抠门这个词语。

2.“抠门”的意思是说，吝啬到连个门把手都舍不得装，开门的时候不得不用手去抠门缝。抠门就诞生了。所以大家把吝啬的人说成是抠门。


When are "《" and " 》" and other brackets used? In some texts, I have seen the following brackets:

Caret brackets: 《, 》, 〈, and 〉.
Square brackets: 【, 】, 〖, and 〗.
C-brackets: 〔 and 〕.
L-brackets: 「, 」, 『, and 』.

Some questions:

What are the Chinese names of these brackets?
What are the meanings of these brackets?
In what situations is each of these used? Is the usage exactly the same as their Western counterparts?
What are the differences between the solid brackets and hollow brackets?

“《》” is used exclusively around names of books or articles.  When referring to a book name inside a “《》”, use “〈〉” (in a way similar to the use of ' and ").


Should I use 为 instead of 是 to mean "is" on a date? Suppose that the following example:

  报名截止日期为2月17日。

In these cases that take a date as the predicate, I usually see 为 instead of 是. Both mean "is" and I already learned 为 is more formal than 是.

However, I feel I have only seen 为 if it takes a date on its predicate. So I wonder whether it must be 为 if you take a date as the predicate or it is just a coincidence.

Also, is there any case that 为 must be used in the usage of “is” or “be”, not just because of "formal"?

为 http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/466/
[3] [v] be; is; be equivalent to

为 has many different meanings, "is" (是) is just one of them.
You can replace '为' with '是' if you are using it as 'is' in the context.

报名截止日期为2月17日。(literary)

报名截止日期是2月17日。(colloquial)

Also, is there any case that 为 must be used, not just because of "formal"?

You must use '为' instead of '是' when  '为' doesn't mean 'is' in the context.
For example:

'为' in "印刷术、火药、指南针、纸统称为四大发明" follows the verb 称(be called). '为' here is not equivalent to 'is' but 'as'.

You cannot say "印刷术、火药、指南针、纸[统称是]古代中国四大发明"

But you can say "印刷术、火药、指南针、纸, [为]古代中国四大发明" or "印刷术、火药、指南针、纸[是]古代中国四大发明"

because [印刷术、火药、指南针、纸] [is] [古代中国四大发明]
EDIT:
If it is a written announcement, no matter what the predicate is, you should use 为.
Posting '报名截止日期[是]2月17日' or '报名费用[是]成人二十元，老人和儿童半价' is considered bad vocabulary choice (using colloquial term when it should be literary)
If it is an oral conversation, no matter what the predicate is, you should use 是
Telling someone '报名截止日期[为]2月17日' or '报名费用[为]成人二十元，老人和儿童半价' is also considered bad vocabulary choice (using literary term when it should be colloquial)


How to say "a beneficial insect"? I want to be able to say to my son that an insect is beneficial.

I know I can use 害虫 for an insect that is harmful, but is there something I can use to say beneficial other than 好虫 which I assume is incorrect.

I would say 益虫．　This is related to the compound 益害 (literally - beneficial and harmful), which means effect (positive or negative). For example, you can say 喝咖啡的益害　（the effects of drinking coffee).

Chinese has many similar antonymic compounds like this. Some examples include 高矮　(height of a person, or literally - tall and short), 长短 (length, or literally - long and short), 大小 (size, or literally - large and small), or 深浅 (depth, or literally - deep and shallow).


What is the difference between 敬仰 and 瞧得起 On the German/Chinese forum a guy was asking about how to say:

He is your little brother, that's why he looks up to you.

I wanted to use: 因为他是你弟弟，当然他瞧得起你。

I ask 2 Chinese friends, who both said no, '瞧得起‘ is unfriendly, use 敬仰。 However, they haven't given me an explanation I can follow about why '瞧得起’ is unfriendly, derogatory. I don't want to get on their nerves, so I'll ask here.

How does 瞧得起 deride someone? Do they mean: ‘You think he is great, but he is not.'??

How is 瞧得起/看得起 used?

'敬仰' means 'respect and admire' ; 'look up to'.
If you say that you 敬仰 someone, you are humbling yourself.
'瞧得起‘  means 'consider worthy'
If you say you 瞧得起 someone, you are putting yourself in the position of judging that someone's worthiness (and in the position of granting favors to him or her) ;  you thanks someone for 瞧得起你 (consider you worthy) to show your humbleness.

因为他是你弟弟，当然他瞧得起你
... why '瞧得起’ is unfriendly, derogatory.

It is not unfriendly or derogatory, just improper in certain situations. It is perfectly acceptable to say: "your boss promotes you because he 瞧得起你". It is also fine to say: " A big movie star 瞧得起你 because he invited you to his party."
A younger brother is not in the position of judging his older brother's worthiness. Therefore, 瞧得起 is an improper term to be used in this instance.
Even for an older brother, it is still not right to say someone 瞧得起 his younger brother-- Brothers are expected to consider each others worthy by default.
Side notes:
敬仰 = 尊敬(respect)+ 仰慕(admire)
The opposite of 瞧得起 (consider worthy/ look favorably upon) is 瞧不起 (consider not worthy/ look down upon)


For which senses of simplified 制 would I use the traditional form 製? Simplified characters do not always mirror their traditional counterparts one to one. Sometimes you have a simplified character where some of its senses have one traditional form and some have another traditional form (essentially it's merged from multiple traditional characters). A very common example is 后, whose traditional form is 后 (same as the simplified form) for the sense of 'queen' and 後 for the sense of 'behind' or 'after'.

My confusion arises with the simplified character 制. I can't seem to figure out for which senses the traditional form 製 applies and and for which ones it doesn't apply. For example, the word 制服, it seems to be written in traditional as it is in simplified sometimes: here (hk) and here (tw), whereas  other times, it's written as 製服 such as here and here (this page actually contains both instances!!). To further complicate things, 制服 has another unrelated verb sense meaning 'to overpower, to subdue' for which the traditional form is the same as the simplified form.

Can anyone shed some light on this for me?

Historically they were the same character. Later the meanings split, 製 is usually the verb meaning to make, and 制 the noun meaning the system, or more abstract things.

Uniform should be 制服, because it means the clothing following certain rules/system. 製服 could be literally interpreted as clothing-making. Regarding the meaning of overpower, it must be 制服.


Meaning of 我知道的就这么多了 Possible Duplicate:
  Translation of “this much and no more”

I found this sentence on Tatoeba:

  我知道的就這麼多了。 (Simplified Chinese: 我知道的就这么多了。)
  Beyond this I know nothing.

I mistakenly understood it as "I know too much" (just by looking at 我知道的 and 这么多), so maybe the 就 is playing a big role in this sentence.

So, how did 我知道的就这么多了 comes to mean "Beyond this I know nothing"?

就 has many meanings, but here it means "only".
Definition + examples from 《现代汉语规范词典》:

限定范围，相当于"只"，"仅"
屋里就剩下我一个人
这次聚会就他没有来

Definition + example from《现代汉语词典》:

仅仅；只：以前就他一个人知道，现在大家都知道了）.

So it is used for a restricted scope and have the same meaning as 只 and 仅仅 (both meaning only).
Some examples where 就 has the same meaning:

家里就是他一个人 (jia1 li3 jiu4 shi4 ta1 yi2 ge ren2): In his family there was only him
三本书我看完了两本，就一本书没看了 (san1 ben3 shu1 wo3 kan4 wan2 le liang3 ben3, jiu4 yi4 ben3 shu1 mei2 kan4 le): I have read two of the three books. There is only one left that I haven't finished reading.
就去过一次 (jiu4 qu4 guo yi2 ci): only been there once
昨天就他没有来，别的人都来了 (zuo2 tian1 jiu4 ta1 mei2 you3 lai2, bie2 de ren2 dou1 lai2 le): yesterday only he didn't come, the others all came

So I would translate your sentence as
I only know this much


Is there a reliable way to check if an idiom (成语) is widely used? Sometimes I encounter an idiom (or 成语) and think to myself "oh, I like this 成语, maybe I should learn it".  However, I'll often find out later that nobody actually uses that particular 成语, and I've wasted my time learning it.

For example, I just stumbled upon 完事大吉 (wán shì dà jí) which means something like "and there you have it" (literally "everything's finished").  It sounds like a useful 成语 that I might use, and only uses characters I've encountered before.  But I have no real idea if it's worthwhile learning or not.

Question: Is there a reliable way to check if a 成语 is widely used?

This is by no means scientific but its a fairly good metric to tell you how common a word is:

Search Engine Results Hits.

Let's take a well known idiom first and see what kind of numbers we get:

本末倒置

Google hits:

  3,030,000 results

Baidu hits:

  19,200,000个

Here's another one:

鸡飞狗跳

Google hits:

  23,900,000 results

Baidu hits:

  17,100,000个

So well known idioms would give us results in the millions and even in the tens of millions.

Now lets take a look at the word in question:

完事大吉

Google hits:

  110,000 results

Baidu hits:

  986,000个

Clearly it's not a widely used as the aforementioned idioms.

Next let's look at:

News Results Hits.

News is current and it can give us a closer look at what words are still in use and how they are used.

本末倒置

Google news:

  47,300 results

Baidu news:

  47,300 results

鸡飞狗跳

Google news:

  121,000 results

Baidu news:

  82,700篇

完事大吉

Google news:

  1,110 results

Baidu news:

  26,300篇

完事大吉 doesn't seem to be that common but there are plenty of news organizations that apply this term in their publications. Here are some excerpts from over the past few weeks:

  办理几个案件就完事大吉

  删除APP”就完事大吉了

  有了成绩就完事大吉了

Another thing to look at is 完事大吉 is basically a combination of two words you already know: 完事 (finish) and 大吉 (great fortune). It probably won't take a great effort to remember this idiom and who knows maybe you'll know it the next time you run across it.


What does my Chinese name 林惠妃 mean? I was adopted from China at 11 months and was given a name in the orphanage. My Chinese name is 林惠妃。I study Chinese currently, and am just unsure of the meaning of my name. I have been given some answers, but I am still confused as to why I would be given this name considering my background.

林 is a common Chinese surname. It means "forest"

惠 means "kindness" or "virtuous"

妃 is a royal title refers to 'lady' or 'princess' (prince's wife) e.g. Princess Diana (戴安娜王妃). It was also referring to 'imperial concubine' in olden time.

the word 妃 is now commonly used for female name

So your Chinese first name 惠妃 roughly translated to "lady of kindness" or  "virtuous lady" (you can ignore the meaning of the surname 林)

You are named 惠妃 /Huì fēi/ because it kind of sounds like 'Ritchie'


Difference between 层 and 楼？ What is the major difference between 层 and 楼？ I know that 层 can refer to other things like layers, etc. but I've heard that it could also refer to floors (just like 楼）。  Could I say something like "酒吧的第一层？“

Technically, 层 is the measure word  and 楼 is the noun being measured. They compliment each other and are not grammatically interchangeable, but the sentences you've heard are results from idiomatic omissions. There are two common situations:
1 . When we put 层 and 楼 together and an ordinal number before them, they form a noun phrase meaning the N-th floor:

第三层楼 The third floor

This usage can be shortened into 第三层, 三层 or 三楼 (but not 第三楼). (第)三层 is fine for both formal and informal situations, while 三楼 sounds colloquial, otherwise they are completely interchangeable:

我家住在第三层楼 = 我家住在三层 = 我家住在三楼 = I live on the third floor (of a building).
酒吧在大厦的第三层楼 = 酒吧在大厦三层 = 酒吧在大厦三楼 = The bar is located on the third floor of the plaza.

2 . When we put 层 and 楼 together and a cardinal number before them, they form a noun phrase meaning N stories and just like in English, this noun phrase is usually further composed into an adjective:

三层楼 Three stories (of a building)
三层楼高 Three-story high

Usages like this can be shortened into 三层, but not 三楼. E.g.

这个酒吧有三层楼 = 这个酒吧有三层 = This bar has three stories (is a three-story building).
这个酒吧有三楼 = There is a 'third-floor' in this bar. This sentence is valid but sounds very contextual, like an answer to questions such as 'I thought it's two-story high. Is there a 3rd floor?'

Examples for 三层高 (adj. phrase):

一栋三层楼高的建筑 = 一栋三层高的建筑 = A building that is three-story high.
On the other hand, 一栋三楼高的建筑 sounds unnatural.

If the subject of the sentence is literally '楼', then it must not be repeated. E.g. replacing '酒吧' and '建筑' with '楼' in above examples:

这栋楼有三层 = This building has three stories. (这栋楼有三层楼 sounds awkward.)
一栋三层高的楼 = A building that is three-story high. (一栋三层楼高的楼 sounds unnecessarily repetitive.)

Back to your question,
Could I say something like "酒吧的第一层？“
Yes. It means 'the first floor of the bar (which sounds like a multi-story building or occupies more than one floors in a building)'.